Right now, you are being marketed to.

This is what Internet Marketing is...

And if you don't like what you see, guess what? One click of the Back button and you're off this site and onto the next one.

Exactly the same thing happens to your website day in and day out. This is the nature of the Internet, if your web page does not address what your visitor wants to read about right here and right now they will move off to the next web page that hopefully meets their exact needs more precisely.

It is important to understand that it is the visitor that holds all the power in the Internet environment. One cannot force one's message home to a visitor but your website can nonetheless deliver an effective message to your visitor if your Internet Marketing strategy is correctly formulated.

The opportunity that you have to keep your visitor on your site long enough to hopefully get them to pick up the phone and call you, or e-mail you (or even buy something from you) is limited and short. You have a finite space of time to convince the visitor that they ought to stay, that their dilemmas will be solved, that they will get an outstanding bargain from you etc...

The key way in which Internet Marketing works most effectively is by focusing the content of your website around the needs of your visitor.

Assessing and researching those needs is a vitally important task that needs to be adequately addressed in order to establish an effective Internet Marketing campaign.

Yet how many websites are created first, and only then marketed? This is a common mistake.

Internet Marketing is in fact not the same thing as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) although the two are closely related. SEO is the art of having your website referred by search engines whilst Internet Marketing is the art of having your website appeal as loudly as possible to your target audience. If you get this mix right it is impossible to fail on the Internet.

South African websites tend to suffer from problems in both areas. The balance between the two is often a fine one and in competitive markets it is quite often the difference between ongoing success and ongoing frustration.

Fortunately Internet Marketing is a skill that can be learned or outsourced short term. There is no need to learn any programming and even a knowledge of HTML is not required. It is a purely marketing function and Internet Marketing not surprisingly enjoys greatest success when located within the marketing division of a company.