Online business is indeed a lucrative means through which you can make a comfortable living. Infact, thousands have in recent years lived exclusively on the lucrative proceeds from internet marketing. Those who have decoded the nitty-gritty of the trade have either attained financial freedom or are on their way to reaching that threshold. It gives at the very least the opportunity to design your life the way you wish with hardly anyone looking over your shoulder to order you about. One of the peculiar joys of the Internet marketing trade is that it puts you in charge literally of your destiny. You get what you input into your business since the internet has virtually democratized the business environment to a significant extent. So while you may engage a professional marketing outfit to handle your marketing chores, you equally have an option of doing your own thing yourself. And this may give you a better sense of personal fulfillment. Should you decide to personally market your online business, you would have to consider a number of factors. Would you have the knowledge, skill, time and commitment to see through your marketing campaigns? However, personal marketing would give your business a particular identity; your identity, which would make it different from other online businesses thereby enhancing definitive choices by customers. The trick is to start simple. There are a number of cost effective methods and practices through which you can go about marketing your business to steady success. One simple way is to include email signature lines in all messages you send out to friends and associates. Email Signatures simply contain your website address which others may see, visit and become interested in buying from you. It would be more effective where you have a separate email address from your official or work place email account. When used in personal correspondences, it works wonders and you can hardly be accused of spamming since it is only a signature line and not an overt advertisement. Closely following on this is email marketing. This has been a veritable tool for effective marketing of products with very wonderful and rewarding results. This simple method allows you to alert customers to the availability of new products, lucrative offers and changes to established businesses. Infact, I know a number of very successful Internet Marketers who use this method almost exclusively and they have several successful sites to show for it. However, great care must be taken to avoid spam as you go about using email marketing to promote your business. Another method you can use to enhance the visibility of your site is the submission of your website to Search Engines and Directories. This may involve some financial costs to you but there are equally some free submission services around that are effective as well. When submitting to directories, care must be take n to submit to those that are relevant to your niche and will therefore enhance your chances of being noticed by prospective customers. There are some relatively cheap softwares that you can use to make your submissions more efficient and less time consuming. Similarly, you can find some complimentary sites with which you can arrange reciprocal linking. Thus, the more sites you have this arrangement with, the greater visibility or traffic your own site gets. Where you have a reasonable budget, a pay-per-click campaign could also be considered. In other words, you can bid for some of the low-cost keywords in your niche with any of the major search engines for faster results. However, you must learn the basics before venturing into this highly competitive area. There are also other marketing methods such as blogging, which is taking the industry by storm considering the profits that have been made through this method; Classified ads in local business magazines as well as erection of medium -sized boards in your immediate environment. A mention must be made of the free- for-all web sites which enable you to post all your ads free even though some have expressed doubt as to their effectiveness. Whatever method you finally chose to personally promote your online business will depend on your personal preferences based on the results that you are able to get from any or some of them. However, there is this joy and personal fulfillment that you get from running your own business yourself from wherever you chose and at the times that you prescribe.