As part of my job, I come across a lot of half baked online marketing initiatives.

Online marketing is not rocket science, but you just need to know what to do. Here is a quick cheat sheet off the top of my head.

1. Firstly, whatever you publish online MUST be published at some url (i.e. on a web page)

2. For best results publish ONE thing on ONE web page, rather than combine multiple things onto one page

3. Email what you have published to your mailing list (you do have a mailing list, don’t you?) with a link back to the web page where it was first published

4. Create a link to your page in bit.ly and use bit.ly to tweet a short announcement about your web page (bit.ly tracks clicks)

5. Link your twitter account to your Facebook wall (you do have a Facebook account, don’t you?)

6. Link your twitter account to your Google Buzz account (you do have gmail, don’t you?)

7. On your web page, if you want people to take some action, such as fill in an order form, use Google Analytics to track your goal, of submitting the form (you do use Google Analytics, don’t you?)

8. Then monitor how many clicks your campaign got, and with Google analytics, discover what your conversion rate is. If your campaign is not resulting in conversions, see if you can find out why.

9. Keep everything you publish as concise as possible – people don’t have a lot of time to waste reading your flowery prose.

If you’re doing all above, you’re on track, if not, get with the program already. If you need help implementing this stuff, call in a consultant to make it happen for you, and train your staff in the new ways.