The 5 Most Useless Marketing Tactics
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The internet is a big place. When you have a big place, you are generally dealing with a lot of people. Anywhere you gather a lot of people there is bound to be a ton of information floating around. When you throw in misinformation, misunderstanding and good old human ego into the mix, you get a ton of incorrect information.
That’s what this post is about: the 5 marketing tactics that are an absolute waste of your time. I’ve assembled this list over my countless years of cleaning up the sloppy work of countless SEO gurus out there that simply have no clue what they’re doing. I’m here to set the record straight, and make sure the time and resources you spend on marketing are not going to waste.
#1 – Meta Tag Keywords
A few short years ago, Google was dumb. Hell, I could go as far as to say the entire world was dumb…well…at least dumb compared to what we know now, but that’s how the world works. Google and other search engines alike needed a special code within the webpage to tell it which keywords appeared on the page. These keywords were listed in what were called “Meta Tags.”
As you can imagine, it wasn’t long before that system started to get abused. It was so easy to add keywords into the meta section of a website that anyone can do it (I was going to say a caveman but im note sure if Geico would like that.)
Since then, technology has improved and Google has gotten smarter, as have all search engines. These sites now search within the content of your page for keywords, and rank them according to a number of other factors. They completely ignore the meta keywords.
This is the most useless thing you can add to a webpage, yet it seems to be the first thing that the SEO “experts” bring up when you sit down with them…weird.
#2 – Too Many Blog Posts
Writing new content really has become the foundation of internet marketing these days. People like things they are interested in, and if you give them content about those things, they’ll like you by association.
There seems to be a misconception though that you need to flood them with everything and anything you can possibly think to write, record, videotape or produce in any way shape or form. The thing is, they forget about the new visitors.
Yes, people that come back to your website time and time again want to see new content or they’ll stop coming back. But they forget that when someone comes to theirs site for the first time, they are absolutely overwhelmed with everything that they are more likely to just click off the site entirely. In addition if every time a visitor comes back there are 5 new articles, they are highly unlikely to read two or three, let alone all of them.
Most people won’t agree with me here. As a matter of fact, most people think they aren’t writing ENOUGH content on their blog or website to attract visitors. Well it’s not that I disagree with them; it’s just that they’re wrong. 
#3 – Obsessing Over Social Media Presence
Some people think social media is the next big thing. And it is. The problem is that there are literally 18 million different social media startups every week, and you can possibly keep up with them all, why try? Plus, even if you did have an account on them all, how would you manage them?
Constantly creating accounts at different social media outlets is harmful to your business. The negativity you’ll receive from an unmanaged account is more than the positivity you’ll received from a fully operational one. If someone finds you on Twitter and you have 2 followers and 6 tweets, you’ve lost the little bit of credibility you had with them.
So not only is it useless, its counterproductive.
#4 – Spamming Links Over Social Media Accounts
Aside from creating a ton of accounts, people tend to think that the point of social media in business is to cram your business down their throats. In reality, you should actually do the opposite.
See, social media is unlike anything we’ve ever encountered online before. It allows real people to connect with other real people and interact socially.
With that said, imagine two people on Twitter, but instead of at their computers, imagine they are standing side by side talking to each other. Now comes Sir Spamalot – that’s you and your business account. On twitter, they see a constant stream of stuff about you, but they don’t care about you. If they were standing side by side, its like you walking up to a conversation and trying to get them to buy stuff…and if they leave, you follow them and tell them how awesome your business is.
Don’t be Sir Spamalot, he’s not cool.
#5 – Ranking in Search Engines for Your Own Name
I’ve seen it countless times. Business owners higher an SEO guy to rank them for their own name. From a technical standpoint, not only is this extremely easy to do for the SEO personnel, but it’s also pretty much useless.
Any website that is decently optimized will rank for its own name without proactive effort, so it’s a waste of money on that front.
Aside from that though, it has no marketing value. If someone is searching for your name on Google, you’ve already done your marketing. They’ve already heard of you or about you and now they want to find you. If your business is “Ted’s Plumbing” and you’re in Los Angeles, don’t try and rank for “Ted’s Plumbing” try and rank for “los Angeles Plumber.”
That’s it!
So those are just a few of the completely useless things business like yours do because inexperience marketing “professionals” tell you so. Don’t get caught in the trap! Know what you’re doing and fully understand what you are paying for.
So what about you? Are there any other tactics you’ve found a waste of time?
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