ARTICLE :
INTERNET MARKETING - WHAT IT IS AND THE BENEFITS
OF USING IT IN YOUR SMALL BUSINESS

Millions of customers search for products and services through the use of the Internet. Through the use of targeted Internet marketing, small businesses can take advantage of this huge market of potential, hungry buyers.

The Benefits of Internet Marketing

Marketing on the Internet is much cheaper than traditional advertising methods and there is more flexibility with it. Your ads will reach a much bigger audience and will stay visible much longer than offline marketing. Also, if you need to make changes to your advertising, you can do so easily through your online campaigns with no additional cost.

Internet marketing gives you 24 hour visibility versus locking your doors up at a certain time each night. Customers can still access your products around the clock and even make purchases while you sleep.

Online marketing enables you to expand your business virtually all over the globe if you wanted to. Local brick and mortar store fronts restrict who you can market to. Unless you are looking to add a new business in each location you would like to market to, it is wise and more cost effective to utilize Internet marketing instead. You will still have your local customers; however, you can also target a much more global market as well.

Different Internet Marketing Methods

The good thing about online marketing is there are countless ways to get the word out on your small business. One of the most important methods you should be utilizing is search engine optimization. This method can be done through using relevant keywords, content, tags and descriptions on your web pages and gaining quality back links so that your website can get indexed high in the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. Your objective would be to get your website ranking in the first 10 results in these search engines.
Another vital Internet marketing strategy you should be using is through publishing your own ezine or email newsletter. Ezines are a great way to build up a huge list of targeted prospects for your business so you can communicate and advertise to them later on down the road. It has been said that a prospect needs to be exposed to your product several times before they make a buying decision. Email newsletters and ezines use tools such as auto responders that automatically send out a series of follow up emails to your prospects in specific intervals which keep the lines of communication and follow up going. This increases sales and builds trust with your prospects.

Other forms of Internet marketing that help to grow your small business is through social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube, pay per click campaigns through Google AdWords, keyword rich blogs filled with product information and article marketing. All of these methods help to optimize and build quality back links to your small business website to help you rank high in the search engines.

Internet marketing gives a small business the advantage over simple local marketing. It brands the business, exposes it to a larger audience and increases profits exponentially. Small business owners from all over are beginning to include this type of marketing into their overall advertising campaigns.

Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Internet-Marketing---What-it-is-and-the-Benefits-of-Using-it-in-Your-Small-Business&id=4871065