I’ve often told people in conferences around the country that marketing on the web is really easy, in fact I believe that most marketing advice can be summed up in just a few simple sentences so let’s take a look at 25 pieces of web based marketing advice that every business should follow, as would appear on Twitter.

1. Keep your website as simple and clean as possible. Remember your goal is to communicate with clients and funnel them into your business.
2. Analytics only matter if you care about them. How many people come to your website is irrelevant, what matters is how many reach your goal
3. Understand the basics of HTML. You can’t race a sports car if you don’t understand the basics of how an engine works, know your vehicle.
4. Web traffic is people not statistics, stop trying to collect them like trading cards and respect the people who take time to come visit you
5. Provide value to people and help them share your value with their friends, try make every word you type add to the community, not hurt it 
6. Learn how to use PRWeb, FriendFeed, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, RSS and Google properly if you want to reach the masses.
7. Give your time to local charities and share your story on the web, encourage others in your area to be benevolent and watch traffic climb
8. It’s OK to be wrong. In fact being wrong is completely amazing, I’ve learnt more from being wrong than I ever managed to learn in school
9. Take the time to be interesting in your marketing and on your website, people will not follow or subscribe to you if you’re dull.
10. The most successful websites in the world are free but they make millions. Learn to master advertising venues and you’ll be rich forever.
11. Stop trying to build websites for Google, start trying to build websites for people who want to open their wallets to you, it’s common sense
12. Websites need to be kept fresh and updated, don’t just add a blog to your website instead blog as a way of communicating with your customers
13. My father always told me to measure twice, cut once. Avoid the most obvious mistakes but taking some time and thinking before you jump. 
14. Help people keep in touch with you by adding a link to your Twitter, Facebook page, RSS and email subscriptions on every page of your site
15. If you can learn what motivates people and learn how to take away the pain they feel you’ll no longer need to market to them to sell to them
16. Find out who the power players in your industry are and spend time watching everything they do online. when you get it, do it too.
17. Don’t try to win a web popularity contest, unless you have Megan Fox’s body, the charm of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates money,  you’ll lose.
18. Don’t just subscribe to marketing blogs that you believe in, there is more than right answer on the web, learn to follow many paths
19. Develop a realistic series of goals and work very hard to reach them. If you don’t see the results you hoped for, reevaluate and try harder
20. Share in your marketing success by helping others build their businesses. Linking to great content is the best way to build your own.
21. Educate your consumer and use the power of social media make your client base smarter, so that they understand the value of your business
22. A website is a work in progress, you don’t have to wait until its perfect to launch a new website you just have to know that it will grow
23. Share as much with the world as you possibly can and ask for nothing in return, what starts as a  visit often turns into a lifelong client.
24. Be honest in everything you do online. The web has a long memory so remember the best way to not get caught being underhanded is to not be
25. Don’t hire people who tell you they’re good on the web, hire people who are proven on the web … otherwise you’re investing in failures.

Now I have to admit that the inspiration for today’s post came from an absolutely wonderful post called 65 Bite-Sized Web Marketing Tips by Adam Singer and he deserves a lot of credit for my basic philosophy around here. Adam’s linked to a lot of brilliant articles and some that I couldn’t have gotten started with include:

• 5 Things I’ve Learned as an Internet Marketer (that translate everywhere in life)
• 30 Traffic Generation Tips
• 10 Obvious Strategies To Ruthlessly Acquire Users