Let's suppose you set up a retail store. Probably one of the first things you consider is location. You try to find a location with the highest amount of traffic that fits within your budget. Once you've gotten your location, you'll do some design and renovation work, and start packing your store with merchandise. Now that your store is ready, you might put an advertisement out in the papers or magazines, or send out flyers around your area. You understand that its about:

1. Getting in the way of traffic

2. Providing the traffic with the product/service that they are looking for

3. Marketing to attract more traffic

If you get this 3 principles right, chances are your retail store will do fine.

Now think about setting up a website for your business. A website is an extension of your business, it's an online marketing tool and a "2D" version of your store. Since it is a variation of your physical store, we should apply the same 3 principles to your website.

1. Getting in the way of traffic

The majority of traffic to your website will come from search engines so the first thing you want to do is to get indexed by Google, Yahoo and MSN, the 3 big ones. Then you have to think about the other places where you could "set up shop" on the Internet. Sites like online business directories and classifieds can be a good referral source. To narrow down your target audience, go for the ones that are specific to your industry or geographic location. The Internet is a huge marketplace, you'll need to actively search for sites where you can promote your business. Make it a weekly practice to post information of your business on a new website (make sure it's relevant though). It's free most of the time so no excuses!

2. Providing the traffic with the product/service that they are looking for

Think about the visitors who will be accessing your site soon. They will be coming to your site with the intention of gaining more knowledge about a particular topic. If you have a site about golf clubs, and foresee that the majority of visitors will be golf club fanatics, tell them all they need to know and more about golf clubs. Your goal here is to turn everyone who is interested in your products into a repeat visitor. Just like in the 3D world, someone who stumbles upon your shop for the first time may not be ready to buy anything, but you want him to remember your shop when he is.

Make sure your website is professionally designed. It helps provide a better image of your business and improves the browsing experience of visitors. Sometimes, the content and structures of websites are so ambiguous that visitors do not know what they are offering. The worst thing that happens is when visitors are led to your store and see that it has nothing to offer.

3. Marketing to attract more traffic

You've listed your site on search engines and directories, and optimized the content on your site. You're ready to handle any leads and enquiries generated from your site, but your site is not running at full capacity. Here's where the marketing really starts. You have an arsenal of marketing tools to choose from:

* Email Marketing

* Search Engine Marketing

* Social Media Networking

* Participation in Forums

* Link Building Campaigns

* Article Marketing

* etc.

Internet marketing covers many methods and you would probably think of some ways that are unique to your industry. You could even mix online and offline marketing to achieve better results. Just remember that your objective is to make your online presence as visible as possible over multiple channels and in the process engage potential visitors.

To sum it up: It takes the same (if not more) effort and time to market your website as you would a retail store. It's tough to start but once you gain momentum you'll start to see potentially exponential results.