Internet marketing consists of a complex set of strategies to generate and improve the quality of website traffic, increase sales and create stronger brand awareness. Many of these strategies can be employed by businesses or individuals, and a great deal of them can even be managed largely free of charge. However, internet marketing strategies employed incorrectly can have a dangerous effect on businesses that are trying to boost their visibility in the public eye - and sometimes this effect can be practically irreversible. Therefore, many people opt to work with a professional internet marketing company that understands and can mitigate these pitfalls by properly applying the following techniques:

1.) Web Content Development and Web Design

The objective of many IM strategies is to drive as much relevant traffic to a business website as possible. Once users are there, the design and content of the site will have a major impact on whether or not that traffic converts to a sale. The design of the site must allow the user to easily and quickly navigate to the information, product or service they searched for and be prompted to take action repeatedly along the way. However, it's not just about the design - although that is important to both search engines and human visitors.

Web content is also extremely important, and internet marketers are generally experts in developing and correctly deploying content that attracts the right audience at the right time. Most service and product pages contain limited content in the form of added value, so some web designs incorporate the use of a company blog, an articles page or a social media plugin to boost the content value of the site.

2.) Copywriting

Without the power to sell businesses are crippled both on the ground and on the World Wide Web. Copywriting is a specialized type of writing that internet marketers use to persuade potential customers to take immediate action and convert to some type of "sale." Copywriting is very direct and allows businesses to make a deliberate approach to their consumer in a format that expresses a sense of urgency.

3.) Social Media Management

Social media sites like Facebook and MySpace are swiftly becoming the principle gathering place of consumers on the web. This means that businesses that want to market their products or services to the largest and most highly targeted group possible must take advantage of social media as a form of internet marketing. The most successful of these tactics is to build a compelling Facebook fanpage design and find ways to directly interact with consumers.

4.) SEO

Even the best-made website is worthless if it receives no visitors. SEO or search engine optimization is one of the most efficient methods of developing organic traffic that is relevant and pre-qualified. Internet marketing strategies include using On-Page SEO - the optimization of pages, HTML and META-Data on your site - and Off-Page SEO - efforts occurring off-site that seek to increase backlinks, improve authority and develop a position of trust on the web. However, SEO is the most complicated of all internet marketing techniques and should generally be trusted to the care of a skilled IM.