"Believe the hype. The Internet and the World Wide Web have become the most important new communication media since television, and ones that are fundamentally reshaping contemporary understanding of sales and marketing." - Jim Sterne. During the last part of the 1990s, the Internet boom saw all kinds of brand new companies that were developing services and products that literally capitalized on the Internet's potential.

Unfortunately, the push-to-market often resulted in very poor planning and many business models failed to include realistic and profitable business objectives. When the year 2000 ended, many of the above mentioned companies closed their doors. After this black period, the surviving and the new opened companies realized that the web-based strategies and techniques must be taken into consideration just like any other classic marketing tools. The basic questions regarding marketing must still be answered, some of them are:

· Are the business models realistic?

· Who are the customers?

· Which mix marketing strategies are efficient?

· What is the competition doing?

Besides these traditional issues, the internet marketing world had other things to offer:

· Search Engine Optimization ( SEO ) - considered by many to be the most cost-effective method for attracting visitors to a website by getting that website listed on top search engines and directories. This method asked many crucial questions, such as: How can this be accomplished in an efficient way? On-site or off-site optimization? Which keywords are most efficient?

· Pay Per Click Advertising ( PPC ) - the quickest and easiest method to create instant online presence. All PPC campaigns can be created and launched within 2 weeks and the costs are determined by the keyword search volume and the keyword market value. The most important question regarding this method is: How to ensure that owners get the most return on their investment?

· E-Mail Marketing - a custom newsletter design which is combined with a very powerful e-mail management system that sends engaging e-mail, promotions, newsletters, which will stand out above the rest, is one marketing method. Questions raised by this method are: What is a drip campaign? What is an auto-responder?

· Advanced Web Statistics - this method brings more information besides the basic question of how many hits the site receives. These statistics allow owners to measure vital information in a very easy matter, some of the info includes: Where are the visitors coming from? How long do they stay on the website? Which pages are the most popular among visitors? Which of the pages cause visitors to exit the website? The most important issue regarding this method is diagnosing the problem areas and determining the results of a campaign.

In the future, websites will be more personalized, as they will cater to consumers and niche markets. Internet marketing through audio newsletters will probably become a more accessible tool for targeted audiences. Other predictions made by experts regarding the future of Internet Marketing are:

· 50% of experts affirm that anonymous, free, music file sharing on P2P (peer-to-peer) networks will still be easy to perform a decade from now

· 59 % of experts agreed with a prediction that more and more business and government surveillance will occur as computing devices proliferate and become embedded in appliances, phones, clothes and cars

· 56% of experts agreed that as telecommuting and home-schooling expand, the boundary between leisure and work will reduce and family dynamics will change due to this reason

· 57% of experts agreed that virtual classes will become more widespread in formal education and that students might, at least occasionally, be grouped with others who share their interests and skills, rather than by age

Article Source: http://www.ArticleBlast.com