This is a guest post by Scott Clark, owner of BuzzMaven labs , a Lexington-based consultancy that helps companies around the country grow by leveraging the Internet. In the past 10 years, I've spoken with over 500 start-up companies from around the country.  One thing that strikes me is, despite a huge variety of business types and product ideas, start-ups tend to make very similar mistakes as they focus on the web. Let's run through a few that keep coming up so that we can avoid them and grow our startups beyond our wildest dreams! Mistake 1: Hating computers. Ok, this doesn't sound like a marketing problem but trust me, for start-ups wanting to use the web, it can undermine success more than anything else.  Often this is simply caused by using poor-quality computers, old software, and inadequate computer instruction.  Sometimes folks wanting to use the web for marketing are simply not web users themselves - and that can make it impossible to succeed with a web-connected business. Good computers, a support network and a lot of patience are critical to overcoming this learning curve.  Don't be afraid to admit that you're new to the web - there are lots of folks ready to help! Mistake 2: Skewed priorities. I cannot overstate this - if you're a start up, fully 60-80% of your web marketing budget should go towards promotion-related activity for your business' online presence- not visual fireworks.  This includes creation of high quality, share-worthy content, blogger outreach plans and solid SEO.  Am I saying that websites should be bland and boring?  Absolutely not!  But you are not in the business to win website awards - focus on getting customers on the phone or in your office - and let profits pay for version 2.0 of your site! Mistake 3: Setting up "house of cards" websites based on proprietary software. There is usually little reason to do custom ground-up development for small scale websites anymore.  Sites developed this way become hard to live with, leading to less frequent updates and lower search rank.  The business owner doesn't want to touch them.  Start-ups should consider creating their sites using a SEO-friendly content management system (CMS) with an open-source license and smart, customizable templates.  When it's time to add a new page or section to your site, it's extremely easy.  As your business grows and new functions are needed, many plug-ins and off-the-shelf tools enable expansion. Mistake 4 : Lack of Link-Worthy, Fresh Content. This is a major challenge for many start-ups wanting to rank well in search engines - a unwillingness or inability to update their sites with outstanding content regularly.  This is hard work, but valuable content is the best method for obtaining search ranking from inbound links which is one of the top ranking considerations used by search engines.  Businesses tend to try to short-cut this process, thinking that press releases or "sales pitch" pages count as content, but they don't work. Mistake 5 :  Making SEO an afterthought. SEO is much more than picking keywords and adjusting "tags" on your site.  Whenever possible, invite an experienced, full-time SEO specialist to your early web design meetings.  Often this can happen via screen share on the phone.  When the SEO is reviewing your plans, allow them to have strong influence over the website itself - including navigation, copy writing and how analytics and tools are configured. Mistake 6: Optimizing your site for the wrong keywords. Most start-up owners live and breathe the particular language of their business every day - so when it comes time to choose important keywords for SEO efforts there is a tendency to use technical or industry jargon.  Customers often use a very different language when searching than the business owner.  Using a keyword research tool can help find phrases used by buying customers without being unrealistic.  It's not realistic for your small website to rank for phrases like "gardening" so you should think about other phrases used by customers as they approach a buying decision. Mistake 7: Overuse of Flash and other graphical elements. Flash is the playground of graphical designers, but it can severely undermine your SEO efforts if misused.   In the many years I've been working with websites, I've only seen a few cases where Flash helped the overall effort.  Think hard before using it. Mistake 8: Assume that social media is a waste of time. Blogs and social media are one of the most powerful SEM tools at your disposal if you commit to their success.  The ease by which they allow you to add and share content is unmatched.  In fact, one of the most powerful website design strategies is to create a site around a blog, seamlessly connecting static features with dynamic ones and then reaching out to the web community in your industry.  The post your reading is an example of that outreach.  By creating valuable content and sharing it, I'm able to grow my own site and reach a new audience while adding value to the blog you're reading - a good trade for all. Mistake 9: Employing sloppy black-hat shortcuts. Many start-ups, anxious to see their web traffic increase, will try to find shortcuts to improving their rank, such as buying links or contracting with companies that SPAM the search engines.  These tactics are dangerous and can get a website banned from search engines for months.  Growing a popular website is hard work - if it sounds too good to be true, it is. Mistake 10: Choosing a poor web host. Web hosting quality is all over the map, but once you go into the "cut-rate" offers you are taking a big risk.  Website availability and performance are generally believed to be a ranking factor on Google and Yahoo! search engines.  Many cheap web hosts do not provide critical features such as server logs or access to important system files that are needed in SEO efforts.  The small monthly savings are not worth it. Mistake 11: Ignoring free options for promotion. Google and Yahoo both have powerful "local business" areas where you can list your business and website, and where customers go to rate your company and you can even make coupons.  The resulting listings often appear very high in search results.  It pays you to not only have the listing but to encourage happy customers to rank your service or product there.  Poor ratings, should they come, can decimate a business and must not be ignored.  I would guess that 75% or more of start-up companies do not monitor these or encourage positive listings, leaving them to the mercy of their critics. Mistake 12: Giving your business a difficult-to-search-for name. The web is a major influencer in the names of new businesses.  If you want to do business beyond the local market, naming your company "Quality Construction Services Inc." is not going to make it easy to find you as the noise level in searches will be huge.  Naming your company uniquely with a solid domain name are like the foundation of a building and all future work sits on it.  You should utilize search tools to be sure the name you're choosing can be trademarked and that the domain name is available. Mistake 13: Ignoring what your customers' behavior is telling you. Most people won't call you up and say "your website is hard to use, I'm not going to bother."  Instead you must rely on your analytics and statistics.  If 90% of your web visitors leave within a few seconds, there is something wrong and it's up to you to figure it out.  It may be that your site doesn't work for them, or it's optimized for the wrong audience.  It may be that you simply have a product or service idea that has no market right now - painful to hear but critical!  It always amazes me that start-ups never look at their customers' behavior on the website.  It's like they're afraid of the information.  Get informed and listen!