Marketing on the Internet continues to grow exponentially. Print magazines and newspapers worldwide are suffering as more and more advertising dollars head to the Internet. Nobody uses the Yellow Pages anymore. Instead, they search online. And every website is competing for prime search engine space, such as the first page of Google. So what can you do to enhance your chances of being found there?

I have divided internet marketing into three major categories:

1. Search Engines – This broad area has two sub-sections: organic search and paid search. Organic search is where you optimize your website (Search Engine Optimization or SEO) with keywords and links to improve your position for those keywords in the non-paid, regular search result listings on the various search engines. Paid search is the other broad group of activities where your website is displayed in the sponsored listings on search engines. These listings appear either at the top or on the right side of the regular search results. In addition, there are many other forms of paid online advertising, such as banner ads, pop-ups and directed links to your site from other websites.
2. Networks – This category includes social networks such as MySpace and Facebook and business networks such as LinkedIn. Generally, they differ from ordinary websites in that they are private and most or all information they contain requires membership to access. As a rule, the social networks tend to cater to a younger audience. The key value all offer is a way to expose your products, services, thoughts and comments to a focused group of friends or like-minded individuals. Distribution is automated and your announcements go out with little effort on your part. You can direct recipients back to your website for more details. An enormously popular new service is Twitter where you can tell followers what’s new at your business in 140 characters or less.
3. Content – This category covers the content you post on your website and elsewhere to bring traffic to your site and get visitors to return. Articles, white papers and lists of resources on your site provide this. Also developing and maintaining a blog apart from your site can increase visitors to your site. Also in this category is the online press. There are ways to submit your expertise with reporters such as helpareporterout.com. It also includes posting to other people’s blogs. All are ways of publicizing your business and bringing traffic back to your website.

All the above are valuable avenues to pursue and all will increase your chances of being found on search engines. Of course, all cost time or money or both, but today for most businesses, the effort is well worth it.