Reaching an online audience is hard. And while marketers may use a number of innovative strategies to seek out that consumer base, it's all too easy to sabotage yourself through simple marketing mistakes.

These mistakes can run the gamut from small oversights to huge blunders, but they all have one thing in common: They can torpedo your marketing campaigns, slashing your ROI and hurting your ability to find relevant consumers who are interested in what your company has to offer.

The list of potential mistakes can run into the dozens, if not the hundreds. But here are three simple mistakes you can correct right away.

While marketers spend a lot of time looking at how page layout, button design and font size on a landing page influence conversions, they may be inadvertently ignoring one of the biggest factors that influences consumers — landing page copy. If you've tried everything and are still not meeting conversion goals, it may be time to go back to the basics and take a hard look at your copy. Keep an eye out for these three common mistakes.

The vastness of the internet means it's a competitive place to work, especially when you're trying to win over new visitors. Battles to increase website traffic are often hard-won, and the work of attracting a larger audience is never-ending — but that doesn't mean you have to set your sights months down the road to see results. There are some steps you can take to increase website traffic right away. Even if you're already drawing a respectable audience, consider how these strategies might elevate your website's performance and increase your sales opportunities.

As companies invest more money and resources into their online presence, websites are under more pressure than ever to generate leads that keep the business prominent. Having a website is an important first step, but it's not enough anymore — you have to make sure that site is optimized to accomplish your goals.

For a lead-generating website, there are a number of pitfalls that can ding optimization and inhibit the online property from realizing its potential. Here are four of the biggest problems that can hinder websites in their lead-generation efforts.

As marketers, there are plenty of practical things you can do to increase conversions. Employing responsive design on your website, auditing your SEO techniques and ramping up your content marketing efforts are all good strategies. However, if you're ignoring your "contact us" form, you could be losing consumers right at the conversion finish line. Some experimentation and A/B testing may need to take place, but here are some simple ways for you to start increasing "contact us" form conversions.

1. Take a Look at Page Placement

We know that page design already has a huge impact on conversions as a whole. Graphics placement, banners and navigation all can affect what kind of impression your Web page makes on consumers, and the same holds true for forms. Try placing your "contact us" form near the top of the page, "above the fold," so that browsers won't have to scroll down to see it.

Mapping out a landing page design may seem simple, but that's almost never the case. Rather, while a landing page can look unassuming, it's often the product of intense scrutiny and constant tiny performance improvements. That's because even great marketers are liable to introduce simple design errors, and these can undercut the landing page's potential to drive leads and conversions.

Here are some of the most common — and frustrating — mistakes that plague landing pages.

Digital marketing trends can be difficult to forecast day to day, let alone for an entire year. New platforms and companies are driven by the changing preferences of the continuing influx of new users. The risk of jumping onto what may be just a passing fad, however, is offset by the knowledge that failing to adapt your marketing tactics is never the strategy for customer retention. These five digital marketing trends will continue to dominate in 2016 and will be an important part of any marketing portfolio.

1. Content Marketing

Back in the day, brands merely posted a few coupons and engaged with any random audience, and then their content would practically share itself. Consumers today are savvier and more discerning than ever. Creating content with a focus on SEO (rather than actual human readers) can cause content fatigue, which makes it tough to attract, let alone convert, potential customers. Particularly when you consider the trends to follow, brands that will break through will be the ones that continue to find relevant ways to talk to their customers. KFC has done this with clever, viral videos, but it also works for smaller brands, like Intelligentsia Coffee.

Increasing "contact us" form conversions is a very effective way to generate new leads for your business, yet it still represents a hurdle for many marketers. Your SEO strategy does a great job driving traffic to your website, where your visitors might poke around on various pages — but when they get to your contact page, instead of filling out your form, they bounce. It happens all too often. Use these tactics and be on your way to increasing "contact us" form conversions on your site.

1. Keep It Short

Lengthy forms are a turnoff to visitors, so ask for the least amount of information you need. It won't be hard to convince eager clients, but for the most part these days, asking for a phone number is like asking someone to marry you before you go on a date. Unless your business is call-based, avoid this field. If you need that additional information, it's better to entice your prospects to give it later.

The call-to-action is a huge component of many different digital marketing strategies. Considering the long, winding path consumers can take to an online conversion, CTAs have tremendous utility: They can make tangible progress on the consumer path to purchase, sending traffic further down the funnel.

But effective CTAs aren't just growing on trees. Too often, marketers write them as an afterthought. But calls-to-action are a very specific piece of content targeting a very specific goal. As such, they need to be carefully developed and placed in a position where they can thrive. Here are some simple mistakes that undercut calls-to-action, as well as some basic solutions.

Landing pages play a central role in turning website traffic into conversions. Most companies use landing pages to welcome incoming referral traffic to their website and its offerings, but those landing pages may not be working for brands as they should. Marketers understand that landing pages wield incredible value, but when landing page best practices aren't followed, they often fall short of their potential.

This misstep shouldn't be acceptable for any brand. Landing pages are used by too many digital marketing channels for marketers to risk lose potential conversions. Established best practices and innumerable case studies offer an easy-to-follow road map when designing these pages and help explain how they complement other digital ads and related marketing content.

For brands looking to boost their conversion rate, here are four essential changes to your strategy: