Do you have an online marketing strategy? If not then now is the right time to prepare one before you get left behind. More and more businesses are marketing online and an effective strategy will help you to achieve success.Creating an Effective Online Marketing Strategy Begins with Knowing Your Target MarketIn order to prepare an effective marketing strategy you need to know who you are marketing to. Get a clear picture of your target market – their age, location, other demographics, interests, etc. You need to know what web design features will attract them and what they are looking for in terms of products, services and how you should market to them.Keyword ResearchOnce you know who your target market is you need to find out what keyword terms they are going to be searching for to find your particular types of products or services. In order to do this you should use tools such as the Google AdWords keyword research tool or Wordtracker.com. Look for keywords that have a high search volume and relatively low competition to know what your target market needs.Understand the Tools AvailableAfter you have a clear picture of your target market and have found what keywords they are using to search for your products and services, you need to get a clear understanding of what tools are available and which of these techniques will best reach your target market. There are many powerful tools you can include in your but it is important to know which of these will be more effective for your particular target market.Create and Implement Your StrategyThe next step is to actually create and implement your online marketing strategy, bringing together all the different things you have learnt above. Use a variety of tools that will reach your intended audience and then see which ones bring in the best results.Test, Track and ReviewOnce you have started implementing your strategy you should have an ongoing process of testing, tracking and reviewing your results and methods to perfect the strategy and get the results you want. Google Analytics is a popular free tool used to get information about how many people are visiting your website, which pages they are viewing, where they come from, etc. You can use this to see which tools and techniques are having the best effect. Then as you see that things are working or not working, alter your marketing strategy accordingly.Creating an effective online marketing strategy is an ongoing process that starts with knowing your target market and the keywords they will use in searching for your products or services, creating and implementing a plan and then testing, tracking and reviewing your strategy on an ongoing basis to ensure you always get the best results.