Internet Marketing and Advertising is a method whereby companies market their products and services in an attempt to find, or I should say be found, by customers looking for them. The Internet is an interesting medium. It is entirely different than the traditional advertising and marketing methods of the past such as: newspapers, radio, television, billboards, direct mail, etc.

The Internet on the whole is a "pull" media, not a "push" one like the mediums mentioned above. When someone goes on the Internet they are searching for something. They use keywords and phrases that are familiar to them and the search engines seek out websites that use those same words and phrases. In essence, a properly formatted website will raise its hand and say "click me, I have the information you're looking for." That relevancy is what the search engines are all about and there are all kinds of very complicated methods, that are acquired by robotic and algorithmic means far beyond most of humankinds ability to ever comprehend.

Because the Internet is still somewhat of a dramatic mystery to most people, most websites that I find are not even close to the standards needed to be properly found. The other day I visited with a good friend of mine, a doctor, who had purchased a website program through a company he respected. He asked me to come in and do some marketing for him and not knowing that they even had a website, I began to search for one so I can properly prepare a proposal for him. I could not find one.

When I went to his office and asked him if he had a website he replied, "Oh yes we have one. Here it is." I opened the site and immediately went to the source code. There wasn't even a title tag to give the site a label showing what this website was all about.

I told him that this is one of the most basic things of all Internet marketing and advertising, properly formatted tags. I also told him that now I knew why I could not find him. In fact, it is doubtful that anyone has found his site for which he has spent thousands of dollars over the last few years in creation, maintenance, upkeep and marketing.

Marketing on the internet is both an art and a science. And it's really all just mathematics. It's also a lot more than just SEO or PPC. Throughout my website you will find many additional areas of Internet marketing and advertising that are of interest. Things like mobile advertising, viral marketing, e-mail marketing, Web 2.0 social media sites, virtual worlds, game-based marketing, etc.

In fact it is my belief that Internet marketing and advertising is the most creative and powerful method available to market any business or product in the world today. Never before have these things been possible. Just like watching the tremendous transformation in the visual effects of movies over the years, the same is true in these advertising techniques.

The other night I watched a few minutes of "Ghostbusters" on TV. To say the special effects are poor is an understatement. At the time I remember thinking they weren't that bad, but that was 1984. We are now far more sophisticated in our tastes and our abilities to recognize these obvious flaws. If you compare that movie with the latest release of almost any high-powered action movie today, its effects are laughable. They are so laughable that it pretty much destroys the story.

But now, absolutely anything is possible in the movie industry. Everything looks so dramatically real that surprisingly, the story now is more important than ever. We just expect flawlessly executed special effects nowadays. Even my seven year old can point out when things don't look right.

The same is true with Internet marketing and advertising. Unless you have a powerful message, specifically targeted to a relevant audience and executed in a proper fashion, things fall short. The funny thing is, in many instances homemade videos do better than Hollywood production ones. Why is that?

It's because things are real. There's a human connection, an understanding that this is not some special effects wizardry taking place, but reality, or at least perceived reality. And those companies that try to capitalize on the "homemade-ness" are usually skewered and laughed at.

One of the most popular viral videos was called "the Wedding Video". It has been watched millions of times. A major corporation tried to imitate its popularity and it has been lambasted ever since. There are others who have tried the same technique and failed miserably.

Authenticity is the single most sought after feature of people searching on the Internet. They can smell something that isn't real right through their screen. They can tell when someone is trying to pull the wool over their eyes. The Internet's ability to open the libraries of the world have only increased the skepticism of its perusers.

Don't try to be anything you're not. Make sure you take care of business, your customers and their needs. The time is right for those who are truly authentic and real, who seek the best interests of a small niche of passionate customers, who desire to improve the condition of mankind, and they will reap rich rewards.

Everybody else will be thrown on the heaping pile of Internet Web 2.0 poop.