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As the internet and ecommerce continues to grow, the field of internet marketing is developing and maturing. The success of online businesses is based largely upon their ability to attract would be customers to their websites. Of course traffic generation alone is not the goal, the online business needs those customers to take the desired action. That action could to purchase a product, subscribe to a membership site, download an information product, join a free newsletter, or visit an affiliated site.

Internet marketing can be divided into two distinct categories, paid techniques and free techniques. Paid techniques include pay-per-click advertising, ezine advertising, banner advertising, affiliate marketing, paid traffic generation, and paid lead generation among others. The free techniques include search engine optimization, article marketing, traffic exchanges, and blogging to name a few. Both approaches can be successful if utilized correctly.

The paid techniques focus on enticing internet users to visit the desired website through advertising. Internet marketers can utilize pay-per-click, pay for a period of time, or pay per sale techniques.

With pay-per click advertising cost is incurred each time someone clicks on the advertisement. This cost is incurred regardless of whether the prospect does anything after clicking on the ad. In other words the cost is incurred regardless of whether any sale is made. Google Adwords is the most common pay-per-click advertising venue on the internet. With Adwords you can create multiple ads, target specific keywords, and specify a daily budget for your advertising.

Banner or text advertisements can be purchased on websites throughout the internet. The cost of these ads is dependent upon the ad size, ad location, and traffic of the site where the ad will appear. This cost is incurred regardless of whether anyone clicks on the advertisement.

Internet marketers can also market their online business by paying for each sale that is made. This is commonly referred to as affiliate marketing. Using affiliate marketing a business pays a commission to someone who refers a customer to the site. The commission is only paid if the prospect actually purchases the good or service being promoted.

Each of these paid techniques can be effective, however, the business must balance the inherent advertising cost with the revenue generated by the effort.

The free internet marketing techniques generally focus on making a particular web site more visible on the internet. Search engine optimization (SEO) is focused on making the site appear near the top of search results when people search for the sites products or services. Optimization includes a review of keywords and webpage content, considered on-page SEO. Another aspect is to look at the type of sites linking to the website and the popularity of those sites, considered off-page SEO. Although described as a free technique companies can spend significant amounts with SEO consultants to optimize their website.

Article marketing is another free technique. Many online marketers write and distribute articles to article directories and ezine publishers. These articles allow the authors to demonstrate their expertise in topics. Further the author generally is able to include a hyperlink back to their site at the end of the article. By distributing these articles the author is able to generate interest in their site and creating high quality one way links back to their website.

There are many facets involved in web site marketing and once a business is able to get them all clicking together, there is a good chance they will experience a major influx of new visitors to their web site.

Your website is similar to a billboard along the side of the road. The billboard is only valuable if the advertising message is seen by potential customers. The more traffic that sees the billboard, the more valuable advertising on the billboard will be. You can have the greatest website ever, but without traffic it will be completely ineffective.