Talking with many people about their Online Marketing Strategy every day, we see a common theme of issues they face when starting out to improve their web presence.

The common issues which you can address yourself are:

Domain Name Management set up correctly:

Ensure your website domain name (Or URL) works with and without the "www.". For example your website works for http://www.yourwebsite.com.au and http://yourwebsite.com.au. This is important because both search engines and people don't put www. in front of your domain name. Do this now and you will see the error that occurs if your domain name management is not set up correctly.

If you have a problem, contact your domain name management company.

Does Google Know About Your Website?

If Google doesn't know about you, your great content is not being seen by anyone searching in Google. To check this type in the Google Search bar "cache:yourwebsite" and you will see if Google has "stored" or "cached" some of your website. If there are no results, you need to:

• Register your website with Google

• Get a Google Web Master Tools account and submit your sitemap.xml

• Have a sitemap.xml compliant file in your website.

By placing this file into your main directory of your website, you tell Google and other search engines what pages you have in your website. It also suggests the pages they should visit so you can begin ranking in search engines.

If you do not have one, talk to our web developer about how to automate this process. Many good website platforms do this automatically for you, without the need for a developer. This is important because this file will need to be update daily or weekly for best results.

Install website analytics.

Website analytics gives you the facts about your visitor behaviour on your website. Before a redesign, your visitor behaviour should be analysed. This will help you discover where the problem areas are in your design, taking the guess work or opinions out of the process.

Google Analytics can be installed for free, if you have access to your web pages and templates, or ask your website designer to install it. Google Analytics is a great starting platform for those starting out on improving their website presence.

Title, Keyword and Description Tags.

These tags should be relevant to your business, more importantly they should reflect the terms people are using to find you on the internet. You should have access to these and be able to edit them, to help your rankings in Google.

If not, ask your web site designer to take a look at it for you. However, many good webs platforms allow you to do this automatically with no coding needed.

Focus on Design versus Marketing.

A great website is relatively inexpensive to design and build these days. Ensure your website is built on a platform that allows you to execute low to no investment marketing. You should not need a developer to change your website for internet marketing and maintenance activities.

Whatever your budget is to kick off your improved web presence, 80% of the budget should be allocated to the internet marketing side versus design. Otherwise you will end up with a great looking website that doesn't get the results you want.

Copying a competitor's website.

Copy their website and you will copy their mistakes too. Last week we spoke to a client who was focusing their designers on a website they like. Once we completed a detailed analysis, they were shocked to find out that they were about to make the same mistakes! Use elements that you like but ensure you are making fact and experience based decisions.

Don't invest more than you have too.

Educate yourself on all the possibilities that are out there, along with what you need to achieve. People are surprised to find that they can have a fully functional internet marketing platform and supported website for free (Apart from hosting). Depending on the time you or your team has available.

Don't look at your website design in isolation.

Your website and platform is part of your marketing and business. Look at the big picture and integrate your website into it. Everyone knows that a website can help grow revenue and profit. Did you also know that it can help you reduce marketing expenses, measure your marketing and increase the amount of qualified prospects you are exposed to.

Ensure you address these areas and you will be on the path to Online Marketing Strategy success.