The main idea behind strategic internet marketing is getting the most valuable traffic to your website possible. You don’t just want people to pop on over to your site and immediately pop off – you want them to hang around and then actually buy something. With strategic internet marketing, you can get the message out about your e-business to the people most likely to become your customers.

Web 2.0

Jerri L. Lawford, author of "The SEO Bible" (Wiley Publishing, 2008) claims that Web 2.0 marketing is far more effective than even PPC (paid per click) in getting the kind of traffic you want to your website. You do have to be patient with this slow building kind of strategic interne marketing.

Web 2.0 refers to social media websites where members can contribute the content put up on the site. This includes video sharing sites like YouTube, social bookmarking sites like Digg or StumbleUpon, and the ever ubiquitous MySpace. The key to using Web 2.0 as strategic internet marketing is to act like a good member of the community and NEVER make a hard sell. Hard sales pitches are never appreciated.

PPC

Paid per click advertising still has its place in strategic internet marketing, but only if you really know your market and your customer. You have to use the jargon and popular misspellings that your customers often use. You also have to very strict with your budget – no matter how tempting a bid might be for a keyword. Larger companies tend to get a larger ROI (return on investment) than smaller companies.

Geo-Targeting

This strategic internet marketing practice uses where your website visitors live to help spur them in your direction. This means you need to not only have your site listed in the major search engines, but also local search engines, directories and local electronic yellow pages. This feature is now often available at the major search engines.

A Final Note

Don't get so obsessed over search engine ranking and website statistics that you get blinded to the main reason why people come to your website in the first place – you deliver great product with great customer service. In this way, word can start to spread about your website and more links will be made to your website. With regular updates to your site (done easily with the use of a blog), you also push your site up the search engine rankings. This kind of organic and strategic internet marketing leads to your website becoming more attractive to search engine spiders and robots as well as with real people.