Depending on whom you ask, the term Internet marketing can mean a variety of things. At one time, Internet marketing consisted mostly of having a Web site or placing banner ads on other Web sites. On the other end of the spectrum, there are loads of companies telling you that you can make a fortune overnight on the Internet and who try to sell you some form of “Internet marketing program”.

In essence, the objective of Internet Marketing is to achieve high visibility in search engines such as Google, Yahoo! or MSN for search queries that are relevant to your business. If your web site can be listed frequently enough and high enough in the rankings for search queries that are most relevant to your business, visitors to your web site will increase.

Nowadays Google, MSN, Yahoo! and other search engines lay out their search results pages in a similar way. Typically, the search results shown on the left of a page are natural (sometimes called organic) listings. In most cases these are free listings. Paid for listings are, in effect, advertisements and usually appear down the right hand side of a results page. Ads are usually displayed alongside the words ‘Sponsored Links’ to distinguish them from natural listings. Very often you will also see a few ads appear above the natural listings, usually shaded in blue or another colour.

Internet Marketing or Search Engine Marketing (SEM) covers two distinct disciplines Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and what is often called Pay per Click (PPC) search engine advertising. Each requires a totally different approach in order to gain visibility in the search engines. These days, businesses that are achieving greatest success through Search Marketing are taking a strategic approach and they understand the importance of integrating the two disciplines.

Today, Internet marketing is evolving into a broader mix of components a company can use as a means of increasing sales - even if your business is done completely online, partly online, or completely offline. The decision to use Internet marketing as part of a company’s overall marketing strategy is strictly up to the company of course, but as a rule, Internet marketing is becoming an increasingly important part of nearly every company’s marketing mix.

Visit my services page to give you some idea of what I can do for you and if it’s not listed then ask me.