8 Digital Marketing mistakes that can have a huge impact

You can be a sharp marketing professional, a savvy business owner, or even an experienced e-commerce manager, sometimes, all it takes is a seemingly insignificant URL tweak, and your traffic plummets along with your leads and sales, leaving you scratching your head and wondering what went wrong.

In this article, I’m listing common, subtle digital marketing mistakes that even smart marketers and established brands can make without realizing the toll they’re taking. These slip-ups can cost you more than you think, impacting both your brand reputation and your bottom line.

So, let’s explore 8 mistakes that could be costing you a fortune, and how to fix or prevent them:

⚠️1. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝟵𝟬% 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝘄𝗲𝗯𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲’𝘀 𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗰 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰 𝗯𝘆 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗨𝗥𝗟 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲.

One of the most common and overlooked mistakes happens by adding or removing a simple slash / (as it often happens during redesigns, or working on technical SEO fixes like canonicals or sitemaps) or changing a letter or word from URLs (because you think it looks better).

Sounds absurd at first, you only changed a character, right? But for Google, the URL is the identity of a page.

If you change it and don’t implement 301 redirects, it’s like deleting the original pages and publishing completely new ones, with no authority, no link history, and no rankings.

And even if you set up 301 redirects, there’s no guarantee you’ll retain 100% of your traffic or rankings. Redirects often cause a loss of link equity, crawling efficiency, and visibility, especially at scale.

So keep good track of your URLs before making any changes. Never touch the 🛑 YOAST Slug field.

⚠️ 2. 𝗗𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗴𝗲𝘀 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗥𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀, 𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗘-𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗲.

Many product pages rank not because of the copy, but because the image ranks in Google Image Search or contributes to rich media relevance.

When you delete a product image because you got a better photo of the product, you erase its entire SEO history: rankings, backlinks, visibility in image search, and contextual relevance.

For e-commerce, this can mean losing thousands of monthly impressions, especially if users were landing directly from Google Images or if the image was embedded and linked externally.

🛑 Some CMS platforms delete the image file entirely when the product is unpublished. So keep image URLs stable and keep out of stock products live.

⚠️ 3. 𝗠𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗹𝗼𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗮 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝗱𝗼𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗻

It may seem like a clean technical solution, separating your blog from the main site using blog.site.com. But in SEO terms, that subdomain is treated as a completely separate entity. It won’t automatically inherit the authority, trust, or link equity of your root domain.

This means every article you publish is building up a different SEO asset, separate from your main site. You’re essentially splitting your ranking power in two and making it harder for blog content to lift the overall site’s visibility.

Keep your blog as a subfolder: site.com/blog/

⚠️ 4. 𝗥𝘂𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗴𝗹𝗲 𝗔𝗱𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗻𝗲𝗴𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗸𝗲𝘆𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗿 𝗴𝗲𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗹𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀

The Google Ads system isn’t designed to work in your favor by default. If you’re not using negative keywords, you’re essentially giving Google permission to show your ads to people who are completely irrelevant to your offer. And if you’re also skipping geographic targeting, you might end up paying for clicks from countries you don’t even serve.

Did you know that, by default, Google shows your ads not just to people in your target location, but also to those Google considers interested in that location? That includes people abroad who may never convert. A quick audit of the locations where your budget has actually been spent might be a bit of a shock.

This is one of the fastest ways to burn through your budget with little to no return, especially in competitive industries where irrelevant clicks can cost €1–€5 or more. Even worse, poor targeting hurts your Quality Score, which drives your costs even higher.

⚠️ 5. 𝗦𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗱 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰 𝘁𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗵𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗴𝗲

Your homepage is built for browsing, not converting. It’s a general overview and when people click on your ad, they expect a continuation of the promise in the ad. Without a dedicated landing page, users get lost, distracted, or frustrated. That leads to high bounce rates, low engagement, and wasted ad spend. Your cost-per-click may be fine, but your cost-per-conversion not so much.

Always send paid traffic to focused landing pages that match the intent, promise, and message of your ads.

⚠️ 6. N𝗼𝘁 𝗼𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘇𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗴𝗹𝗲 𝗕𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗲

Your Google Business Profile is often the first thing people see when searching for your brand or services locally. If it’s neglected or full of unanswered complaints, it signals indifference, which turns potential customers away before they ever click your site.

Many businesses still underestimate the impact of review sentiment on local SEO rankings, trust, and even click-through rate but Local SEO (Google Maps) can drive more customers than traditional search.

Many businesses invest in blog posts and paid ads, while neglecting their presence on Google Maps, which is often where high-intent, ready-to-buy users are searching.

Allocate resources for your Google Business Profile, update it, respond to every review (especially the bad ones), and make it part of your weekly marketing routine. Trust starts there.

⚠️ 7. 𝗛𝗶𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗹𝗼𝗴 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀

It’s tempting to remove dates from blog posts to make them feel “evergreen”, but this often backfires. Google wants to know when your content was created and updated, especially for time-sensitive queries.

Worse, users are skeptical of undated articles. If your post talks about “new trends” or “best tools” without a visible timestamp, they’ll assume it’s outdated and bounce. That hurts your dwell time, trust signals, and rankings.

Always include a publication date, update and refresh the date when you revise content.

⚠️ 8. 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗚𝗔𝟰 𝗼𝗿 𝗧𝗮𝗴 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗳𝘂𝗹𝗹 𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀

“𝘏𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘺𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘴 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘢 𝘪𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘨𝘺𝘮 𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘐𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘴 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩.”

Imagine spending €10,000 on marketing and not knowing what actually worked. That’s exactly what happens when you skip basic tracking. Without UTM parameters, you can’t differentiate between email clicks, social traffic, or paid ads inside Google Analytics.

But data without strategy is noise. GA4 and GTM, when used fully, become your most powerful performance engines.

Use GA4 to create audiences based on user behavior (like users who read 90% of your blog post but didn’t purchase) and send those audiences directly to Google Ads for retargeting. Your analytics shouldn’t just inform, they should trigger action.

Use Google Tag Manager to track time spent on tools (like calculators), test banner variations based on traffic source, monitor form abandonment, and much more, without needing constant developer support.

Found this information helpful?

Consider forwarding this article to:

• Website developers and designers who might unknowingly implement risky URL changes or insist on using a subdomain for the blog
• Marketing managers, especially those new to the field of digital marketing
• Entrepreneurs managing their own marketing, particularly e-commerce store owners
• Junior digital marketers eager to build expertise and avoid learning the hard way

Need help auditing your digital marketing?

If you’ve read through this list and recognized a few areas where your own digital marketing might be falling short, let’s get in touch! I specialize in helping businesses identify these errors, implement effective solutions, and build a digital marketing foundation that drives real results.