Some facts :

• 3.8 Million out of the total population of 4.7 million in Ireland have an internet connection, that's 81% (July2016).

• Traditional (paper and broadcast) forms of advertising are in decline while digital advertising is on the increase

• Over 50% of web users go online every day

• Facebook has around 1.71 billion monthly active users

• 5% (16,211,350) of Americans who are in a marriage or committed relationship say they met their significant other online.

Imagine a market of that size just one or two clicks away from finding your company online. The potential is huge. The challenge is that a zillion other products, services and activities are competing for the same online person's attention.

So ask yourself, what is your path to being seen by potential customers. At the moment the two biggest entrance points to the net are social networking sites and search engines. These two entities require different approaches from the business perspective; something I'll return to in later articles.

People who find your product or service online are better 'qualified' prospects. When they find your site through a search engine, they are often ready to buy what you have on offer and, sitting at home with credit card in hand, are in the right frame of mind to spend.

Studies have shown that people who research products and services online will spend on average  30%  more when the purchase is made. The ratio of people who visit your site and go on to make an enquiry or make a purchase (depending on what your goal is) is called the conversion rate. One of the objectives of Internet Marketing is increased conversion rate; the next priority after you succeed in getting someone to visit your website.

There are many techniques to increase conversion rate but the most important one is to give visitors what they want. But here again is a challenge; if a visitor doesn't see, or can't quickly find, what interests him or her within a few seconds, they may leave your site and look at your competitors'.

So the skill is to make your Home page or other landing page, fulfill its promise to the visitor and help them to make the decision to choose your product. This involves structure, design, functionality and even some knowledge of human-computer interaction research.

You can see from this brief introduction that there are challenges to using Internet Marketing to further your business goals but the rewards can be huge and very cost effective, which, lets face it, is of key importance at the moment. I hope you will be encouraged to look further into the opportunities that await you.