If your business is not yet using some form of web marketing … what a shame! Virtually everyone is online these days. People shop online, socialize online, and certainly look for what you sell online. The question is, will you be there when they do it?

I guess website marketing can refer to a lot of different things, but for the purpose of this article, I’ll just say that it’s all about marketing your business on the web.

In my experience, the top 3 website marketing strategies are as follows:

Google Ads

Google AdWords are the little ads that run on the right side of a Google search results page. Also known as pay per click, they appear when someone types in predetermined keywords into the Google search engine. You can also find them on websites that have similar content. This is known as a content network. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad and it gets delivered to your website. You can also control your budget and where your ads will be shown geographically. Obviously, the main benefit of AdWords is that you can send targeted traffic to your website and only pay when someone visits it. In an unstable economy, features like this will allow many smaller businesses to keep advertising. Think about it … if someone told you that it is possible to pay only when specific visitors actually visit your site, would you be interested?

Article Marketing

Article marketing is becoming more and more popular these days. Basically online articles like this are written and submitted to online article directories. The good ones will be keyword rich and will eventually find their way into Google’s organic search results on the left side of a search results page. This type of marketing will also create a lot of backlinks to your website, increasing its popularity in the eyes of search engines. It can take a lot longer to get things going with article marketing instead of AdWords, but other than your time, you don’t have to pay for traffic.

The website itself

Once people searching for what you sell end up on your website, it’s up to the website itself to turn that potential customer into a buyer. There are countless ways to accomplish this, but if you can remember to always keep your website visitor in mind and target them instead of your own ego, you are well on your way. It also helps to make sure your website is easy to navigate and full of useful information. Just think about what you would like to see if you ended up on your own site.

There are many other elements to web marketing, but in my opinion these are the top 3 website marketing strategies. Being there when your potential customer is looking for what you sell and then selling it to them is really what it’s all about.