Internet marketing 101

The intended audience for this article is persons who are new to internet marketing and are trying to get a basic understanding of tasks involved with starting and maintaining a successful online marketing program.

There are several different methods that can be implemented separately or together in order to increase traffic to your site. The tradeoff in these strategies is time or money… either you spend the time or the money to get what you want.
Below I have listed the most popular methods of generating traffic for a website:

Search engine optimization
Your website is optimized for search engine by analyzing popular keyword searches relevant to your product and placing these words and phrases throughout your website. The idea is that your website will appear in the top search results whenever someone searches for the keywords and phrases you have used in your site.

Get listed in popular internet directories
There are several free and paid directories that are worth submitting your site to. DMOZ is a good example of a free directory while Yahoo is a pretty decent paid directory. Doing research on the internet will help you locate directories that are relevant to the purpose of your website and its offerings.

Link exchange
You agree to exchange links with other websites where they point to you and you point to them. Typically you would find other websites that have good page rank and offer services that complement but not compete with your product. Once you find a website that fits this criteria, you would approach the webmaster of the site for the purpose of linking to them in exchange for them linking to you.

Pay-per-click
This method provides somewhat predictable results making it very attractive. Basically you place bids for clicks based on keywords. The idea is that 1-2% of all clicks will result in a sale. With a relatively small investment and wise choice of words you can quickly determine if this is a practical solution for generating sales.

Commissions
Generating traffic through commissions require an online shopping/payment system. The idea here is that other web sites will advertise your product in return for a commission from sales that they referred to you. There are several popular programs out there already and/or you can implement you own commission program to reduce your overall payout.

In summary you will have to determine which methods you can implement based on your marketing budget and comfort zone. The quickest results will come from pay per click adwords and commissions, but long term value will be acquired using SEO, directory listings and link exchanges.

Related articles: What is search engine optimization?