If you're planning a Website launch, or you've just started your online business search, Internet marketing is a term you'll become very familiar with.

Also known as online marketing—or e-marketing—Internet marketing refers to the marketing of products and services using Internet tools and methods exclusively. While Internet marketing techniques vary widely, below are four of the most common—and successful—Internet marketing strategies.

Pay per click

There is no faster or easier technique to get Website visitors than with pay per click (PPC) advertising. Google, through its Adwords program, provides advertising syndication for thousands of advertisers. Google made famous the simple, text-link ads that display on the right side of its search results pages.

As an advertiser you "pay" anytime someone clicks your ad. Ads are displayed based on an auction format—the more you pay, the higher your ad is shown in the results. You set your maximum click amount and daily budget.

PPC is a fast and fairly hands-free way to promote your product or service. But, it can also be used as a market research tool. Many Internet marketers use PPC to gauge user response to a product sales page. Once they fine tune their offering, they switch to other marketing methods.

Blogs

Blogs have been made popular in recent years by online technology and political pundits but have increasingly been used for online marketing. From special product offers to customer service handling, businesses are using blogs in varied and creative ways.

Despite being a popular spam tool in the past, blogs are becoming a popular method to post product reviews, customer testimonials, or establish online credibility.

Because of their instant publishing capability, affiliate marketers use blogs to comment on and sell products. Because blog content can be easily syndicated, blog posts have a much further reach than typical, static Web pages.

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a term referring to the actions involved with optimizing a Website so it will rank higher—for specific keyword terms—in the search engines.

SEO has many intricacies based on different search engine rules, or algorithms. Search Engine Optimization takes time and dedicated effort but is the most cost effective method for getting Website traffic—search engine traffic is free.

Article marketing

Article marketing has been gathering a quiet following the last few years. Article marketing entails writing articles and submitting them to Websites—called article directories—which organize the articles in topic categories.

Your articles will be available—for free—for other Webmasters to use with a link from the article to your Website. This has two primary benefits. First, you get click through traffic from Web users who read the article then follow the link to your Website. Second, when someone publishes your article, you get a link from the publishing Website. Quality one way links drive search engine rankings.