Marketing online businesses has never been easier than it is today. Social media, article marketing and live chat are becoming mainstream marketing methods. Beware of black hat marketing techniques.

Marketing is broken into two very basic categories by search engines. Black hat and white hat marketing refer to the old Hollywood western depiction of good guys and bad guys. Bad guys wore black hats and good guys wore white hats to help differentiate them more easily.

White hat marketing techniques are recommended by search engines to help increase page rank and popularity. White hat marketing techniques include proper search engine optimization (SEO), generating relevant links and involves no deceptive marketing practices.

Black hat marketing techniques are proven to improve rankings. Because they are not approved or recommended by search engines, black hat marketing techniques often cause the website to be penalized. The most popular use for black hat marketing techniques is to quickly promote websites used for scams or deceptive practices.

SEO Techniques

SEO is simply the process of improving traffic to a website via natural means. Optimizing the website itself includes the copy seen by visitors and the code that creates the page. Changes in the HTML may be required to ensure proper search engine friendliness of a website.

The term "search engine friendly" refers to websites and templates that meet the requirements of search engines. Search engine friendly websites rank very well on search engine results pages on keyword searches.

Reciprocal Links

A mutual link between two websites is called a reciprocal link. Reciprocal links with random websites increases link popularity through link quantity. Reciprocal links with websites that offer content relevant to yours increase link popularity with quality, relevant links.

Both relevant and irrelevant links are required to increase link popularity and page rank. Link building campaigns often include 80% irrelevant links and 20% relevant links. Building quality and quantity simultaneously increases page rank through link popularity.

E-mail Marketing

E-mail marketing techniques include reminder e-mails and newsletters to keep clients up to date on what's going on in your business. E-mail marketing must always be an optional feature for your clients. Create a mailing list using a double opt-in to ensure that visitors fully understand you will be sending e-mails with their permission.

Marketing via e-mail often receives negative reviews because visitors sign up then get upset when they receive a weekly reminder. Always provide an easy way for people to request removal from the e-mail list. Create a privacy policy that explains in detail that you will not share or sell their e-mail address to spammers.

Article Marketing

Article marketing meets all requirements of white hat marketing techniques. Articles provide quality content and information to readers who search specific keywords. They are available long-term and produce lasting results.

Distribution of articles to a variety of article directories and ezines creates links to the author's website. A link from an article about a specific product or service that links to a website that sells it creates a quality, relevant inbound link. Distribution to hundreds of directories creates hundreds of links.

Link building campaigns including article marketing as a marketing technique take advantage of white hat techniques to build page rank. Quantity, quality and relevance are the three key factors of a successful link building campaign. Article marketing covers all three.

Help Others Achieve Success

Success breeds success. Once you've learned how to generate passive income via affiliate marketing, teach others to do the same. Share your experiences and methods of finding the best affiliate marketing program.

Some affiliate marketing programs allow multiple tiers of affiliates. Multi-tier programs offer affiliates the ability to sponsor additional affiliates and teach them how to build their affiliate marketing business. The sponsoring affiliate marketer receives a percent of the commission earned by those they sponsor.

The sponsored affiliate marketers are called downline. The sponsor is often referred to as upline. The responsibility of the upline is to pass along information and teach the downline the fine art of affiliate marketing.