The basic concept of marketing your Web site and your business on the Internet is to give something away. It is in offering something for free on the Web that you make money.

If you keep in mind two basic rules for the Internet you'll succeed in marketing your firm on the Web. These two rules are that consumers expect something for nothing when they go to the Web, and they expect it NOW.

If you deliver on both these things, your chances of growing your business through e-commerce are excellent, assuming that your product or services are of excellent quality and marketable and that your customer service is top notch.

In most cases, the easiest and least costly thing to give away, and the one that best markets your business, is Web content. It doesn't cost you anything but time to put free content on your Web site unless you don't feel up to the writing task. Then you simply find someone else to write it for you. Your site and web hosting is not enough.

Your Web content should be related to your firm's industry, and your products and services, without being blatantly self serving. Not only will you have people flocking to your site through search engine keyword searches, but you'll also be promoting yourself as an expert in your field. This expertise can bring you more recognition than a ton of paid advertising.

Nor does the Web content you write need to be limited to your own site. There are plenty of Web sites who would welcome your information. Never place your articles on the site of competitors. Businesses who have related products or services would welcome your Web content, however. This affiliation could enhance both sites' Internet marketing efforts.

As an example, we'll assume you're Jane Jones and you own Plane Jane's Hobby Shop. You specialize in model planes and cars, and doll house construction kits. You write a series of articles for your site about the best model vehicle kits for a beginner, about what kits to buy for which age group, and about the history of classic cars and planes. These articles would be free on your Web site and keyword searches would draw people to your site for the information. Hopefully these same folks would stay and buy a model kit or two.

You could expand your audience further by offering your articles free to other Webmasters and entrepreneurs, as articles for their Web sites. While you wouldn't want to make that offer to other hobby shops you would be wise to place your articles on the site of hobby organizations, classic car clubs, stores that sell dolls, associations of doll collectors and parenting sites.

Before you upload your articles, however, you must make sure your site is attractive and professional looking, with easy navigation, links that work, and no grammar or spelling errors. Get several folks you trust to peruse your site, try every link and browse every page before you take it and your Web content marketing live.