It took planning, time, money, and effort, but the organization website is finally up and running; unfortunately the adage ?if you build it they will come? does not so readily lend itself to Web real estate. Regardless of how well orchestrated the site, it amounts to little more than a high-priced business ornament with few or no visitors. Internet marketing is the next step toward realizing the true potential of a business website. Below are some timely marketing methods that savvy organizations are using to get their websites noticed, to potentially increase traffic, and to accomplish objectives.

Search Engine Marketing

A form of Internet marketing, search engine marketing (SEM) seeks to achieve high visibility of websites for relevant keywords. SEM includes advertising and search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. Discussion here will be limited to a highly popular and effective form of search engine advertising known as pay-per-click (PPC). Whether an organization seeks to drive website traffic, increase brand recognition, generate leads, bolster sales, or any number of other possibilities, PPC advertising is one of the most effective ways of accomplishing these objectives. With this auction style form of advertising, marketers place bids on keywords and keyword phrases that trigger their ads and display them on search engine result pages and on websites within the search engines? content networks. Generally, the higher one is willing to bid on a particular keyword, the higher their ads will appear, although some search engines use additional criteria for determining position. Advertisers are charged each time their ads are clicked. No costs are incurred for impressions, or when the ads are merely viewed and not clicked. This presents an opportunity for smart organizations to use PPC as a relatively inexpensive branding tool. Ads showcasing an organization?s name, brand names, or website address could potentially be viewed thousands or even millions of times while maintaining a marginal click through rate and thus result in a high degree of exposure for very little cost.

Google is the dominant player in this arena, followed by Yahoo Search Marketing and MSN adCenter. There are hundreds of smaller search engines that offer PPC, and some have been known to work quite well, but if one is new to the game with little or no experience in this area, it is recommended to begin with Google Adwords because of the quality of its visitors, streamlined technology, and helpful service. After a few winning campaigns are up and running on Adwords, they could potentially be replicated on other search engines with similar success.

A word of advice for those just embarking on this method of marketing. While PPC may seem like a fairly simple process, using it effectively and at minimal cost is a very challenging and time-consuming process. One must understand what keywords to bid on and why, write compelling and action oriented ad copy, master the bidding process, and grasp an almost infinite number of other technical and strategic aspects before becoming proficient and profitable with this tool. Indeed PPC should be one of the primary tools in an organization?s promotional arsenal, but unless there is trained staff aboard who can make it a successful endeavor, it is in the best interest of the company to leave it to the experts, at least initially until sufficient experience is gained by company employees to confidently take the reigns.

email Marketing

One of the most effective forms of marketing for building relationships, acquiring and retaining clients, and fulfilling objectives is email marketing. This method is relatively simple to implement, is much less expensive than most forms of traditional mass marketing, and offers the kind of interactivity necessary to break through the media clutter that prospects are bombarded with on a daily basis. A business does not have to implement an internal database to engage in email marketing. For a reasonable monthly fee, there are many companies that offer packaged services which include database hosting, a wide variety of templates for use in designing newsletters, emails, and other forms of email marketing materials, automatic management of adding and removing prospects from the company?s lists, statistic information, and much more.

Social Network Marketing

Organizations are becoming increasingly aware of the power of using online social networks to market themselves and their products and services. At the top of the list are sites by the likes of YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace. In this day and age when consumers have become downright weary and largely immune to traditional forms of mass media advertising, a focus on building relationships through a more grassroots approach to marketing is a key factor of today?s business success. By utilizing techniques made viable by social networking websites, such as creating and distributing interesting product demonstration videos, an organization can skyrocket brand recognition and profitability. The key is to take a soft sell approach and provide interesting and informative messages that site visitors will read, watch, and ideally pass on to their friends and family. If used correctly, the impact of social network marketing on an organization?s success can indeed be greater than that attained by costly forms of traditional mass media approaches.