Posted by BlueSEO on February 4th, 2010

If you own a business website, you already know that your continued success depends upon the amount of traffic you receive. Websites that do not deliver traffic are completely ineffective and can lead to lost money, time and immense frustration. Every business website owner covets traffic and wants users to visit their sites because they know that a user can quickly turn into customer.

The one way in which businesses are able to attract users is through strategic internet marketing techniques. While the traditional internet marketing techniques like PPC campaigns, SEO and links are effective at helping users find businesses and directing traffic to sites, these techniques are still very limited. What happens after a user visits your business site? Whether they stay or exit will depend upon what your website has to offer. This means that you must be more creative when it comes to your internet marketing plans.

Visit any high-performance business website and what you will discover are innovative online marketing tools that not only deliver users, but also engage users. Instead of the traditional list of services, mission statements and “About Us” pages, companies are opting to be more creative with their online marketing tactics and are relying upon things like blogs, photos, videos and applications to keep their visitors intrigued.

This new wave of internet marketing utilizes fun features that attract customers. If you think it is time to become more inventive with your marketing, why not try some of these popular marketing tools:

1) Photos: no amount of copy can convey what an image can. If you run a business, why not include artistic photos of your products and your work? Often times, people want to see a product or be able to have a visual measure of your professional abilities. If they like what they see, they will most likely contact you. This is a great way to impress your website users and you can make this feature interactive by adding commenting capabilities. Additionally, you could create an account on Flickr, a well-liked photo hosting website that allows users to create custom photo galleries and interact with other people.

2) Videos: no user wants to spend time reading text. With users spending meager seconds on a website, you need to engage their interest fast and nothing accomplishes this as efficiently as videos. Online videos are viral and some of the most highly-trafficked websites are those committed only to hosting videos, like YouTube. By paying attention to this trend and keeping up with it, you will lure in customers and also have a chance to make a great first impression.

3) Blogs: blogs are great in terms of user engagement. Many businesses are using blogs to talk about their experience, to share funny industry related stories and to draw attention to their professional services. Users gravitate toward blogs because they are personal, opinion based and a quick way to make a connection.

In terms of generating traffic, attracting customers and monetization, creative marketing tools are the way for businesses to go because the longer a user stays on a website, the more time businesses will have to captivate attention and successfully sell their services.