Whether you are new to Internet marketing or frustrated by the experience, the concept is undisputedly a challenge. As they say, there is more than one way to skin a cat. One Internet Marketing Approach Before we get into a one particular internet marketing approach, we need to define what we mean by approach. Internet marketing is entirely different than brick and mortar marketing. The structure is composed of a number of factors including long and short term strategies, indirect branding marketization and traffic analysis. If you can master these subjects, you will have the right approach and be successful. To achieve a better marketing approach, you must conform to the basic outline of every successful site. You need to realize there are distinct short and long term strategies, and that they mesh. Short term strategies are all about pay-per-click search engines while long term strategies are all about search engine optimization. Pay-per-click search engines [ppc] have serious benefits and limitations. The primary benefit is they create immediate traffic to your site. They allow you to get prospects on to the site and determine how they convert. The downside of going ppc is they add significantly to your overhead and the traffic may be of middling to poor quality. To properly pursue PPC advertising, you should stick to Google Adwords and Overture. They have the highest quality of traffic. When using these platforms, you should start with as wide a scope of keywords as possible. Track the results through your server stats to determine the specific phrases that produce paying customers. Turn off the ads for keywords phrases that don’t produce revenues. This will improve your return on investment. Long term Internet marketing is all about search engine optimization, a misunderstood subject if ever there was one. The advantage of seo is you generate free traffic. This is accomplished by moving your site into top ranking positions on MSN, Yahoo and Google. No other search engines matter. As your rankings improve, you can begin turning off corresponding ppc advertisements. Eventually you will able to entirely eliminate your ppc cost, effectively converting the site to a free marketing position. To nail search engine optimization, you must focus on the needs of your prospects. Your view or opinion on your product or service is irrelevant. You must identify the exact things your prospects are searching for and create or modify pages on your site to provide a solution to that need. To conduct this research, you need to do keyword research. Wordtracker is the secret weapon of profitable sites. The site provides a list of the exact keyword phrases being used by your prospects, the number of searches a day and the number of sites competing for top rankings on the keyword. You can enter your primary keyword phrases and quickly see which phrases you should use to produce the most traffic as quickly as possible. You might be thinking you can use Overture for this as well, but Overture should only be used to determine if there is general traffic for a subject. It Branding is a phrase used for Internet marketing by those who do not really understand the Internet. The Internet is huge, making your branding efforts a waste of time if it is your primary goal. The only time branding should be used, in my humble opinion, is in the form of indirect branding. This occurs when you dominate every keyword phrase for your particular area of interest. To do this, you should create pages for every need identified for your prospects. When they see your listings over and over, your brand is established. Put another way, branding is a secondary benefit of your marketing, not the primary goal. If you pursue this internet marketing approach, you should reach a point where you are earning significant revenues and little for marketing. Put another way, you are maximizing your profit margin, which should be the goal of every site owner.