While some people are using select online marketing techniques to drive traffic to their business site, others are doing nothing at all, except hoping for the best. Using a wide variety of tried and true online marketing methods is the best way to see real results in your sales. A great place to start is by opting to implement these 5 Internet marketing techniques. These techniques produce serious results and should be used by every business with an Internet presence. They include:

Blogging

Autoresponders, building an email list and following up

Free reports

Online video

Basic SEO

Blogging

Creates a steady online presence that increases your chances of being at the top of search engine results for your keywords. Using a blog you can get content containing all your long-tailed keywords on the web. In addition, it allows you to build a following of customers and potential customers who are interested in what you share and who provide valuable feedback to you. This audience is ripe for being marketed to you when you have shown them a little of what your business is about.

Autoresponders

Are tools that allow you to build an email list and easily follow-up with those on it. They are a set of standardised letters that are set up once and the necessary contact with each new individual who opts into your email list is taken care of automatically. Autoresponders are an indispensable tool which save time for you and actually does some of the lead nurturing that is absolutely essential in marketing.

Offering Free Reports

Everyone loves getting something for nothing. If you offer free reports on an area of interest to your potential customers you will establish yourself as an expert in your field and you will easily be able to get them to give their email or other contact information in exchange for a report that actually provides useful information.

Online Video

This refers to the video version of blogs and articles. You can reach numerous customers and potential customers with this new hot online marketing tool. You can create a simple video from text slides and voiceover or music, or record a video of actual products and services in use. Be sure to place video both on your site and offsite for maximum effectiveness.

Basic SEO, or Search Engine Optimization

This is another tool to help you to promote their business online. It is simply making sure that your website is as appealing as possible to the spiders that crawl the Internet collecting information for search engines. This includes strategic use of keywords, backlinks and more.

Many businesses pay a lot of money to have someone create a fancy looking website for them, but it simply is not search engine optimised, so it will never get ranked in the search engine results. Without the strategic use of keywords, a significant number of links to their site and the removal of sluggish elements like Flash, a website will never achieve a top ranking.

By putting in place these 5 online marketing techniques you will be able to easily set your website apart from that of most of your competitors. Your search engine results will begin to quickly climb and you will find that more and more customers are "stumbling across" your website, leading to more sales for you.