Obvious Adams: The Story of a Successful Businessman is a short book written by Robert R. Updegraff back in 1916. Although the book is nearly a century old today, the messages presented still ring true.

As a business person, this book should definitely be on your must-read list. However if you don’t have the time, here is the central message of this book. Keep marketing simple and don’t make things overly complicated.

On that note, we have three very obvious things that we have found that online businesses most often overlook and those things are hurting their businesses every single day.

1. Check Your Contact Form

This may seem so obvious that it is silly, but the number of websites that either lack a means to contact the owner of the site or have broken contact forms/email addresses is staggering.

If you have a contact form on your website, check it to make sure that it actually works. Making small changes on your site can lead to a broken contact form if a coding error is made and as the business owner, you will be left completely in the dark because customers aren’t going to tell you (because they can’t). They are just going to leave your site.

2. Promote Your Website Content

Many businesses believe that by ordering superior copywriting services, the traffic will just come to them once the copy is written. While you may see a slight increase in traffic, you won’t see any major differences until you increase your other promotional methods.

Drive traffic to your squeeze page, store website, or blog by using a PPC campaign, article marketing, guest blogging, press releases and more. By the way, the ways to do this are covered in our newsletter so you may want to sign up by using the sign up box at the end of this post and on the right sidebar!

3. Get Feedback From Your Customers

This is especially important for businesses that sell products and services online. Before you blame your SEO guy or the latest search engine update for a decrease in traffic, check with your customers.

Using email marketing and social networking is a great way to stay in touch with customers. Ask them want they want from you and they will be more than happy to share. There is no reason to guess and by doing this you can ensure that your business will always meet your customers’ needs.

What other “obvious” business tips can you think of? Feel free to share your words of wisdom. Make sure to check out Obvious Adams also as it is a great read!

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