Businesses of all sizes can benefit from running campaigns on Google AdWords and it doesn't have to be that expensive. Small campaigns can be set up and targeted to a 20 mile radius of your business if your business just serves the local community. These small, geo-targeted AdWords campaigns are low cost and can be highly effective when managed correctly. If you have never considered running an AdWords campaign because you thought it might be too complicated or too expensive, talk to a Google AdWords Partner (discloser: I am one) and ask them if they have any AdWords vouchers available so that you can test the waters. Most vouchers will provide between $50-$100 of free advertising on AdWords to get you started. Most Google AdWords Partners service clients both around the block and around the world so find the one that is right for you. You can search for a Google AdWords Certified Partner on Google's AdWords Professionals site here:  (https://adwords.google.com/professionals/search/?hl=en) 

I've found the best way is to create good content that your audience will want to read and then get that content onto the web. If you're content is a blog, try to give away free knowledge...don't constantly promote yourself or sell services in the blog. Video is a good way to get to page one of google. Not a lot of people are doing video marketing. Get a product like Camtasia Studio and make some videos, post them to youtube, metacafe, & howcast (to name a few). Another good way is to have quality links to your site. I try to comment on blog posts on highly ranked sites or participate in communites like this one.

I've found the best way is to create good content that your audience will want to read and then get that content onto the web. If you're content is a blog, try to give away free knowledge...don't constantly promote yourself or sell services in the blog. Video is a good way to get to page one of google. Not a lot of people are doing video marketing. Get a product like Camtasia Studio and make some videos, post them to youtube, metacafe, & howcast (to name a few). Another good way is to have quality links to your site. I try to comment on blog posts on highly ranked sites or participate in communites like this one.

Article marketing can be a double-edge sword. I don't know if the benefits outweigh the downside. This was the big fad for years for traffic and links, although the SE's gave little to no value to the links. Here's a snippet I read from a Matt Cutts interview... How Valuable is Article Marketing? Not very. Both Duane and Matt said that articles syndicated hundreds of times across the web just don’t provide valuable links and in any case, they aren’t editorially given. Duane made things simple: “don’t do the article marketing stuff.” He suggested contacting an authority site in your space to see if they would publish a guest article that you write particularly for them. If the authority site finds your content valuable enough to publish, that’s a completely different situation from article hubs that allow anyone to publish anything. Exchanging links can also be a very slippery slope. I simply don't do link exchanges. I have appropriately placed one-way links out to a very select few high authority sites from pages within my sites, where these sites add additional information that expounds the topic further. This is an unselfish way to add additional content value for your visitors without expecting something in return and in addition, the linked-to website will definately take notice in their logs as to where these visitors came from...wink,wink

After building and marketing websites for 13 years I can tell you to get your website higly visible requires taking the popular marketing methods of the moment and combining them with extremely high quality useful content that users can engage with. I suggest to my clients to follow a simple rule of thumb when promoting their sites. Would you respond to your own marketing strategy if you were a total stranger on the opposite side. If you can honestly say yes, then great you're on the right path. Most of the basic suggestions listed here are correct, high activity on social media, social networking, video marketing, personallly built list building, provide free testimonials for others in your niche, write rich and relevant link bait worthy articles, blog posts, and forum posts. But you must be consistent with your marketing efforts. There is never an end point. Once you decide to finish, your competitor just got an open window to advance ahead of you. Be everywhere relevant all the time, but have something useful to offer users and customers. Market yourself while helping others using your real name and face. Customers and web users are more likely to trust your brand/website faster, use your service repeatedly, and recommend it to others, thus increasing your user base and website traffic. Go above and beyond what your closest competitors are doing and do one beneficial thing for customers/users that clearly separates you from them. It's no longer just about a link building campaign, you must build your social authority, and online reputation for trust and brand recognition. Good luck.

Learning to walk before you run is my advice. Whilst SEO is important, starting from the basics goes a long way. Make sure your website is practical, usable and relevant to the type of customers your looking at getting. If at all possible Localise your efforts for the start. For example if you own an art gallery, a google search for art gallery is likely to show your no where to be found. But if you localise your SEO you have a much greater foundation to work from.. For example, Art gallery London, Art gallery Essex, etc. Once you've cornered this and gained enough of a good rep you could eventually try for more competative keywords as you would have already developed an interest and customer base. Guest blogging is another great resource, make sure they are relevant sites though. Social media and bog standard marketing go along way... Handing out well designed business cards and attending business conventions still generate vast amounts of interest.   Just be smart about what you do and where you do it. Buy adverts if you want, but theres many free resources that I personally have found to be far better. Paid for content is also seen to be untrustworthy, as its only there because they paid for it. Organic is seen to be the most trustworthy content, so get this right and then consider complementing it with adverts.. not the other way round.   Dont forget the benefits of advertising stop when you stop paying.

SEO is the key. You can't be organic traffic in my opinion. ~ Metaphysical Guy

search engine optimization and search engine marketing is the way of promoting websites effectively.

Ok, let's take SEO completely off the table which is valid given the amount of competition out there for many keywords. Do you sell on ebay and Amazon already? Those are ready made markets. Do you use social media? FB is wonderful when it comes to conversion rates for me, while Twitter can drive massive traffic with only a few hundred followers. Lastly, are you participating in blogs and forums in your niche? Leaving comments or your signature can drive traffic is you seem to have something important to say.