In just a few short years, Internet marketing has become a billion dollar industry. The budgets that companies and individuals allot for Internet marketing constantly increase each year as more and more people use the Internet to buy goods and services.

Internet marketing or the practice of promoting products and services online has become a vital tool for companies, both big and small. Internet marketing has constantly evolved to meet marketers’ and consumers’ growing needs. Each year, it has become more flexible, measurable and affordable.

Internet marketing allows online marketers to keep track of their customers’ behavior and evaluate which types of marketing tactics work on them. Internet marketing also grants consumers nearly unlimited access to information and products at all hours of the day and from any location in the world. Furthermore, Internet marketing provides these benefits at only a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing.

Many methods of Internet marketing have evolved since marketers decided to take the leap from conventional marketing media to the World Wide Web. Here are some of the most popular:

1. Pay Per Click Advertising – This method of Internet marketing is highly dependent on the keywords that people enter in search engines. The ads that are consequently shown as part of the search results generated income for the search engines every time they are clicked. This method advertises only to the targeted market, thus making it one of the most efficient and most popular forms of Internet marketing.

2. Banner Ads – Banner ads are those flashing, rectangular ads your find on the uppermost portion of popular Web sites. Banner ads not only promote the advertisers Web site, they also generate traffic. Banner ads allow advertisers to monitor their customers interests and taste because they provide info about which Web sites bring in the most visitors. Banner ads used to be the most popular method of Internet marketing but many people now regard them as distractions to the real content of Web sites.

3. E-mail Marketing – E-mail marketing makes use of one of the most essential parts of marketing: the subscriber mailing list. This method of Internet marketing has long been established as an effective way of marketing products and of communicating with current and potential customers.

4. Search Engine Marketing – Promoting Web sites through search engine marketing is integral to marketing online. This method is aimed at increasing traffic to a Web site by making the site more relevant in the directories of major search engines such as Google or Yahoo. Search engine optimization involves improving the content, design and other facets of a Web site so that it ranks higher on search engines.

5. Blog Marketing – Getting blogs to mention information about your product or service is one of the most effective means of Internet marketing. Blogs speak directly to customers and use a language that everyone can understand. Since most blogs generally focus on a singular topic, try to drum up publicity on blogs whose content that is relevant to your site.

6. Article Marketing – Regularly publish quality content about your product or service and distribute this for free. Through this method of Internet marketing, businesses can provide valuable information on what they have to offer and improve the popularity of their Web site at the same time.