Promoting your company online is very easy. Doing it well is a whole different matter

The web is becoming an essential part of communications for all major companies and most small ones. It is how customers find you, how you do business electronically and part of your customer service. With a poor online presentation, the quantity and quality of your online business will be disappointing and your customer service will be encouraging customers to explore your competitors.

So what are the big mistakes that companies make?

Low expectations. If you don’t expect much from your online exposure and invest accordingly, your predictions will be self-fulfilling. The successful companies are those that match their investment to their expectations. Your competitors are probably already making more online than you are.

Look at your offline marketing. Do you design your own marketing material? Do you print your own brochures and company reports? If the answer is “no” to both questions then why would you consider the equivalent online? Visitors to your site are as sophisticated as your are and can spot a home-grown design, just as you can.

A recent Consumer WebWatch research report showed that the average consumer paid far more attention to the superficial aspects of a site, such as visual cues, than to its content. Nearly half of all consumers (or 46.1%) in the study assessed the credibility of sites based in part on the appeal of the overall visual design of a site, including layout, typography, font size and color schemes.

Good design creates credibility and trust online. Cheap design cheapens your brand and undoes all of the work that you have put in to developing and marketing your company.

Check back next week to hear about the other mistakes most companies make.

Thanks to Jonathan Briggs, from Other Media for your wise words.