We hear a lot that most of the revenue generated online is through marketing and advertisements. But how does it actually work? What are the myths and the facts? Would online advertising generate enough revenue that you can have a livelihood out of that? How does one strategize to make the most out of online advertising?

For most of us, all of the above seems vague. We hear a couple of names like Google Adsense, SEO, etc. but how does all of that come together? How easy or difficult is the field of online marketing and advertising? Let's look at some important points regarding online marketing and advertising.

Build and maintain the visibility of your website within the search engines and you have a better chance of success. The key is having a strategic marketing idea in place and not simply trying to optimize the content.

Online media buying is a complex field and launching an online campaign, although may seem to be a cheaper option actually gets more challenging as time progresses. Prepare a media plan first before venturing into this field.

Pay per click (PPC) paid search engine placements – also known as “paid search,” “keyword bidding,” or “sponsored listings” are important components of the Internet marketing mix. Here the key is identifying the Ad keywords for the campaign and doing considerable research to optimize each word before using those.

Marketing a website would also involve analyzing the website as one of the initial steps. Analyzing a website and judging its usability and projecting its performance when launched is also a lucrative online business proposition that many trained professionals are taking up these days.

If your client is planning to launch a website, then marketing the website by analyzing the demographics, the launch goals and making the most of the online platform is also an online business idea.

If online marketing is your ‘thing', then you can go for viral marketing. Hotmail utilized viral marketing to sign up millions of users within first few months of its launch. “An estimated 80% of the recipients of a viral marketing piece pass it on to at least one other individual - at NO COST to you.” Since viral marketing involves sources that are known to an individual, it is often trusted and people follow it through – it is called ‘word of mouth'.

Online marketing and advertisement is a new genre in the field of business. Many people are gaining necessary college training in order to excel in this field. The key of course lies in experience and in your sense of business – intuition is very important. Remember while taking up an online marketing or advertising campaign you must ensure that the right platforms and sources are used. People are moving more and more to the Internet and the digital world because they do not have time. So if your ad campaign tries to adversely affect their goal of efficient time management, then chances are that the campaign will be considered ‘junk'.