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So much information about marketing online is available, both through internet and print sources -- so much, in fact, that it can overwhelm and confuse the small business owner. Therefore, many small business owners can become intimidated and are too fearful to use internet marketing to help accomplish the growth of their small business. This is unfortunate, because the core of internet marketing is very simple when you pare away all of the hype and 'secrets'. It is important to understand the big picture about marketing online, whether you just seek to be knowledgeable enough to outsource your online marketing wisely, or whether instead you wish to create your own online marketing for your small business.

It is my firm belief that the success of your business depends upon your ability to get yourself noticed, and then to provide the incentive for people to help you grow business by their loyalty and what they say about you. It is really just that simple on the internet and on the street. The differences lie only in the techniques that you must use to make that happen.

Online, there are two methods that can be used to get attention for your business. First, you can purchase advertising, and second, you can find ways of building name recognition so that people associate your name with the service you provide. It is just that easy. The main idea is a simple one -- developing clear marketing plans and turning that idea into reality are the keys to failure or success.

There are many ways to purchase advertising that gets your business onto the monitors of potential customers. As with advertising in any other medium, some of them are very cost-effective while others will be complete wastes of time and money. The degree of skill you employ in your advertisements is the deciding factor. A major advantage of internet ads is that they allow you to evaluate the return on your advertising investment on an almost continuous basis, and adjusting your internet advertising mix can be done very quickly. Google Adwords is a noteworthy form of internet advertising, placing ads on the top right corner of the pages listing their search results. Yahoo and MSN are among other service providers that have somewhat different versions of such advertisements. This column is too short to list every form of internet advertising, so I will cover other internet ads in future columns.

The alternative method of getting noticed by your would-be customers is to earn the placement. The goal here is to be highly rated on web search results for terms that are desirable for you, as well as to receive links and traffic from other websites that are frequented by your potential clients. To achieve this, the best way to proceed is by posting information that is valuable to the users of other sites. Of course, this method requires a significant commitment of time, effort, and money, but the payoff is a much more permanent presence on search engines than you could achieve with any advertising campaign. This method strikes me as preferable because of the long-run payoff for your work, but you should know in advance what you are getting into so that you can maximize the return on your hard work.