Online marketing is an endeavor that many people have embarked upon, but they have all learned that it's not necessarily as easy as it sounds. Well, not to worry, it's not that hard once you've gotten a grip on some of the aspects of online marketing that can be daunting at first. Let's take a look at a few of these aspects.

First is the need to figure out what your business is going to be that you're marketing online. Well, that's not too hard. What you want to do is find a niche in which to build your online marketing business first. This is quite easy if you have some time to conduct the proper keyword research with Yahoo Overture's Keyword Suggestion Tool or if you have software like Niche Inspector, which can actually cut your online marketing research time down to minutes.

Once you've found your niche, find the top five or six forums within it (by going to any search engine and typing in "[keyword] forums"), then read what the forum members are saying about what they want or don't understand. Once you have an idea of what that is, fill the need! Sometimes you have to create an information product, but very often you can find an affiliate product to sell to them. Then, it's just a matter of putting your online marketing skills to work and writing a few auto responder messages, putting the form on a landing page, then putting it out there for everyone.

Okay, but wait. It's the online marketing skills that are missing, not having a product, right? Well, online marketing is a breeze when you've found a good niche. You know, one with a hungry market and few competitors, where you've already read in the forums there what they want. See, after you read what the folks in the forums want, you respond to them as you learn about them. Then you start adding your link to your signature in the forums so that people will start going to your site. Since these are most likely the first forums you found, they'll be the ones that are most likely to be found by others (and so will all of your entries). This is just one technique of online marketing that will surely drive traffic wherever you want it to go.

If you want quick traffic, you want to use Pay-Per-Click ads. Just be sure that you are sending folks to a landing page of your own and offer them something of value for buying from your affiliate site. Then redirect them there by having them sign in with their name and email so that you can send them reminders with your auto responder. A great product to use with this online marketing technique is Cam Studio. It's like Camtasia, but a whole lot cheaper. Adding video is a great way to get people interested in going to your site. And creating a video for them as an added bonus for buying from your link ads fantastic value to your product offer.

Promotional articles are a good way to get long term traffic and is an integral part (or should be) of your online marketing priorities list. Find the most searched keyword for your product and build your articles around it. Use it in the title and early and often in the body. Give good information, and you'll likely get published. Once again, send your people to a landing page with more information about the product that can redirect them where you want them to go. You don't want to send them directly to an affiliate page- that's tacky, unprofessional, and publishers don't like it.

With these techniques, you can begin to build your mailing lists and your online marketing business. Over time, if you keep at it, your seeds will begin to bear fruit, and you will find great rewards in the world of online marketing.