Greetings, one and all! In browsing through your excellent forum, I've found a great deal of useful information. As such, it's only fair to contribute back to the forum what I've learned in the internet marketing industry. So here we go! Here's a brief glimpse at some of the things I've found that generate the most powerful results.

SEO, link building strategies, pay per click...there's a veritable forest of choices and information out there for people looking to market their product or service on the web. Competition for keywords and high rankings grows ever more fierce by the day. So how do you get ahead of the competition?

1. Pay per click (PPC) is often cited as the first step in bringing traffic to your site and in most cases, it does. A good PPC strategy is probably the fastest way to get visitors to your site. The catch? It can also be one of the most expensive and least effective. High traffic doesn't mean high sales, and once the customer has clicked through you've shelled out your cash regardless of whether or not you make a sale. In fact, studies show that customers following a link remain on that page for SIX SECONDS before leaving the site forever. So when should you use PPC? We'll get to that in a moment.

2. Press releases written from a third party prospective are a great way to generate buzz about your company, and they've never been easier to write or publish. If you're strapped for cash and have decent writing skills you can even do it yourself! Write about an exciting transition or a new product your company is developing and be sure to include a few of your companies keywords throughout the piece. But be careful! Google and Yahoo won't accept pieces with keyword densities over 3%. Also, include a link back to your website in the article. Doing so gives you an excellent non-reciprical link (NRL), which Google and Yahoo use to determine your site's natural ranking.

If you're pressed for time and have the budget for it, the best option is to hire a professional writer with SEO experience. There are quite a few out there who'll write a high-quality press release from a fresh perspective around your keywords for anything from $150-750 each, depending on the piece and the skill and reputation of the writer. Be suspicious of anyone offering to do it for less than that...you get what you pay for.

Either way, self written or professionally written, you can submit your PR through PRWeb or MarketWire. Submission fees normally run between $125-175, and they'll get you in Google and Yahoo News. Depending on the competitiveness of your keywords, it's not unheard of for a press release to hit the #1 slot and stay at a high ranking for a news cycle (28 days). And consider this: Unlike PPC, press releases will continue to generate traffic as long as they're up. I have press releases up from over two years ago that still bring me quite a bit of traffic.

3. Articles are a powerful, inexpensive way to get your name out there as a guru in your industry. Studies have shown that over 70% of people using search engines are looking for information. Sites like about.com, work.com and ehow.com exist to deliver people that information. The best part? They'll post your article for FREE. The drawback is that the learning curve can be high when you're starting off...learning the rules of each site for posting, signing up for each one, and manually submitting them can be time consuming initially. But persevere! The results are worth it and you'll develop your own system after a month or two.

If you're doing it yourself, you'll need to create an "author's account" with them (also free) and carefully read through their requirements before submitting an article. With most sites, you start with a basic account that includes a 25 article limit and slower response times from them. If the content of your articles is consistently high, they'll usually upgrade your account status to an unlimited amount of articles and their response and post times will grow shorter.

As with press releases, hiring a professional saves a heap of time, yields higher quality results, and gives a fresh perspective. Articles are also generally cheaper than press releases, as they require less research and more of a personal flair. However, they generally require more skill to be appealing to your readers. Generally speaking, a good writer will charge between $150-500 per article. These babies are just like press releases in that, once they're up, you're done...and you'll continue to reap the traffic from them for months and (maybe) years to come. Just remember to include those keywords and a link back to your site!

4. Fresh, relevant content is a must for any site owner. The more frequently you update your site with quality material, the more frequently Google and Yahoo will spider (re-consider and re-rank) you...and just like a brick and mortar business, sites that look "busy" draw more customers. If you don't have heaps of time to update and lack the budget to hire a writer, no problem! Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is the way to go. Most news sites these days include the ability to subscribe to an "RSS feed." That is to say, every time they update their articles, that article is pushed over to your site. Not only is this free, you also get the benefits of the keywords and content of the article. Remember, Google and Yahoo are "kings of content." They love seeing sites with fresh content relevant to their industry...regardless of whether or not you wrote it.

Well, I've all ready pushed the limits of "wordy" and gone for downright "long-winded," so I'll stop there. I hope you find this helpful...it's the result of much blood, sweat, tears, and gnashing of teeth!

Jonathan Cox
Marketing Consultant
Xeal Precision Marketing

It is very helpful. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to reading more about doing online business.

Thank you, gameplan. I'm currently writing an article about business blogging as well. If that's something the Business Forum community is interested in, I'd be happy to post it. It'll be a guide similar to the one I've posted here.

Jonathan Cox
Marketing Analyst, Consultant
Xeal Precision Marketing

I don't know if the "Business Forum" community will be interested with a piece on business blogging, but I am. You write well, and I enjoy reading your posts. Very informative. I look forward to your next piece. Cheers.

thanks for that, i have read many marketing books ect. but that was well written and clear

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Thank you for those guidelines, Jonathan. I'd certainly be interested in your insights into business blogging. Kevin

Sorry, uniontootoo, you've lost me there.

I've really got into social/business networking, What are your ideas of using this type of outlet?

Kellyjack,

That's a broad question. The answer depends on how you define "social/business networking." Would you care to elaborate?