Internet marketing is a mystery to most would be entrepreneurs. They have no difficulty in starting a business, but when it comes to marketing it they find themselves up against a brick wall. Promoting your business is not as hard as you might think, it just takes a little planning and thought to get started.

Here are some steps to help you simplify your Internet marketing and get your business off to a good start:

Marketing analysis:

Do your market analysis. Before you even develop your product or join any affiliate programs be sure to know exactly to whom you are marketing, and what products and services they need to solve their problems.

Analyze your most wanted prospects or website visitors.

Who are they? Their ages, class and demographics etc.

What interests them?

Their needs and wants-what are their problems and how can your products and services solve them

Where can they be found? What websites and publications they will use.

Make a thumbnail sketch of your findings and note it down.

Your basic business plan:

Prepare a business plan to set your goals and keep you focused on the direction your business will take:

Set your goals: For 3 months, 6 months and 1 year.

Decide on what you are going to do to achieve them.

Educate yourself:

List all the marketing techniques you know, educate yourself as much as you can. You can do this with free marketing newsletters, e-books and videos etc.

Once you have listed and noted all the marketing techniques see which ones will fit into your budget and can be applied to your business.

Then using your marketing analysis information and your list of marketing methods, you can make your marketing action plan.

Marketing action plan:

Decide which methods apply to your business

Decide which ones will fit your business

Knowing where your visitors are, seek them out and use direct marketing to reach them

Get keywords for your website and at http://goodkeywords.com and optimize your website content for the search engines.

There are 3 common categories of marketing:

Passive, when your prospective customer comes to you-for example search engine submission.

Direct marketing, when you actually seek out customers and advertise to them. Examples will be Ezines and websites, related to your business.

Social marketing, Myspace, forums and discussion boards etc.

Once you have made your choices, about which method you will use, it is time to put your plan into action. Work on 1-2 methods at first, track and test them to be sure that they are cost effective and bringing in targeted visitors. Budget carefully, by starting small and working up. Always try promotions for at least 1-3 months. Note all your results, this will enable you to build on your successes and learn from your failures and mistakes.

With these steps you will be able to make a start on your marketing and put your business on the road to success.