If you are marketing something online, give me a moment to show you how to screw it all up. Since I know a lot of people shudder at all the sacrifices associated with marketing done well, I want to show you an example of how badly it can go wrong if you succumb to being shortsighted and misinformed.

This exemplifies so much of what is wrong with today’s Internet, and why Google keeps splitting skulls on worthless website owners. It shows a downward spiral of desperation of a car dealer, and a trend that is so widely followed in other businesses that it relieves me of wondering why companies suffer from dwindling market share.

This really should open your eyes if you are trying to take the quick and easy road to your SEO (search engine optimization) and social media marketing. If this example does not show the pitfalls of shortcuts and the benefits of playing by the rules, nothing will. I know that you will probably not finish reading this, but then, that is exactly the problem … shortcuts are popular. I made an audio version, in case that will help.

The Internet has created a lot of change in culture around the world. It is not true for everybody, but on a large scale, globalization and greater awareness of the world is a reality. People learned more about the other side of this planet in the past decade than in all those thousands of years prior to the Internet. We have embraced other cultures that we were not previously aware of, and we have blended into a larger culture … the Internet culture. The Internet truly has been instrumental in creating the more global society we know today.

There are many legalities in doing business online. It shocks me just how many people are unaware of the laws they break online. I have spent well over a decade learning laws relating to the Internet. There are laws dealing with credit card handling; laws to address copyright; industry-specific laws for things like medical records, legal records, and etcetera; and of course, laws to deal with SPAM.

I believe it is time to consider a list of important Internet marketing laws. They may seem elementary, but I think these are still laws worth addressing. So here is the short list, but of course there are many more. I just want to start you off with eleven Internet marketing laws, and you can add your own comments.

Car dealers are infamous for their marketing short-sightedness, so they make a great social media example. New and used car sales organizations live or die in short bursts of business. Their inventory is usually financed using a “floor plan”, and if the inventory is not selling, the bank will make it very uncomfortable for them. This creates a challenge that is not so unlike the urgency felt in other businesses. It causes a lot of companies to focus more on an eight percent increase in new business and overlook the eighty percent increase they could achieve if they look ahead [...]

I look around the Internet and see a lot of social media tactics without any overall strategy. It often leaves me shaking my head when I see so-called social media marketers who offer nothing but setting up a couple of social media accounts then find a handful of people for their client to spout advertisements to. Maybe they even offer to do the spouting, but often without a real sound plan. It leaves little wonder why so many people are left to question the usefulness of social media in their business. It is a sad fact for many companies, but [...]