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Before you go through the process of getting a new website ensure you think about online marketing first.

If online marketing is important to your business then it is key to its success that you consider the best website infrastructure and functionality to facilitate your online marketing strategy. All too often online marketing is only considered once other less important factors have been decided which can reduce the potential online marketing capability of your new website.

When considering how your website is going to work remember to think about the basics the website should have in order to be optimised. Where possible try to factor in rules, automation and settings which will fill in the basics for you to reduce the manual requirement and negate human error or lack of intervention.

Your pre-build web spec should include details of the infrastructure and functionality which enables your online marketing and you must be sure you understand how this will work.

Remember your website’s infrastructure will effectively define how your online marketing will function. If online marketing is crucial to your business then you need to be sure you know what the infrastructure needs to deliver. If you aren’t absolutely certain of what you need then I advise you seek advice from someone who is!

One thing in common all online marketing agencies have is no matter what they specialise in is they will all tell you the same thing, that they know what they are doing! This might not surprise you as any business worth its salt should know what it is doing, however this isn’t always the case with all O.M Agencies.

Online marketing is a relatively new field to some extent with new techniques being continually developed. With the exception of a select few nobody could truely claim to know everything about it, myself included. Beware of anyone who does! If they don’t own Google, Microsoft or other global superpower, or can back it up through the billions in the bank they have accumulated through this knowledge then I suggest you tread very carefully before entangling yourself in legally binding contracts or handing over the reigns of your online marketing to a self proclaimed guru.

Now I don’t want to tell you all online marketing agencies are snake oil salesman, in fact far from it. But, in my experience there are plenty that are. So how can you tell which one is and which one isn’t? Well to begin with you need to forget about finding an agency, your first question should be ‘What am I am looking to achieve through online marketing?’ and your second, ‘What is my online marketing strategy?’.

Until you know what you are looking to achieve through online marketing you should stay clear of O.M Agencies  altogether. There are not many companies that will turn away business of value to them irrespective of whether or not it provides value to you. Therefore evaluate what you are looking to achieve through online marketing first, then decide if you want to use an agency or not.

Your decision to use an agency should be based on whether that agency is capable of delivering what you need and whether that delivery is going to be cost effective against the return you expect to see.