Many people who are familiar with Internet Marketing or Internet Business still don’t have a firm grasp on viral marketing and why it is so valuable to those in Internet marketing or Internet business.

Let’s start off by covering the basics of what viral marketing is to better help you understand the hype.  The term viral marketing is used for any marketing strategy that encourages the recipient of a marketing message to pass it along others.

This creates the potential for a great deal of growth in the message’s exposure and impact.  It is called "viral" marketing because of the rapid rate at which the message can be spread.

Viral marketing’s success is dependent on the message containing something that the recipient finds worth passing along to others.

It could be an offer such as buy-one-get-one-free, 15% off your next purchase or a free subscription to a publication.

Whatever the case may be, it must be something people feel the urge to pass on to others.

Viral marketing has proven its usefulness as a marketing tool over the course of many, many years.

Statistics show that over 90% of people say they would recommend a web site, product or service to someone they know if they were given a good deal or quality service or products while only 1% of people reported that they would recommend a website, product or service if they were dissatisfied.

The one fact that is probably more attractive than any other about viral marketing is that it is a relatively inexpensive marketing method.

The greatest cost involved is that of the time spent creating the offer to be sent out.

There are no real advertising costs to be incurred because you’re sending your message out predominantly via e-mail, unlike paying for exposure such as additional web space or advertisements in ezines.

Knowing what you know now it’s easy to see what all the hype is about.

Search engines are a business just like everything else. Some are even listed on the stock exchanges and their stock is bought and sold. The object of search engines is to make money by helping people find the products, information and services they are looking for.

They SELL advertising to businesses that want to sell these products, information and services to people who are looking for them to buy.

The key word here is "sell". Now when a person types key words into the search box of a search engine and hits search, the search results that are displayed on the first page are mostly paid or sponsored advertisements.

Look carefully next time you do a search. At the top of the page and on the right side of the page you will see what are apparently bought advertisements.

They say "sponsored links". The top of the page ads are the ones that cost the most….the ones on the right side cost slightly less.

The top few results are most often directly related to those paid advertisements on the top and right side of the page. Of course, search results are bought and paid for.

That really shouldn’t come as a big surprise. What is that saying? "It’s a material world!" and just like always, money does talk.

Website owners buy AdWord advertisements and then the search engine spiders determine at what number those advertisements are seen in the results.

That’s why SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is so important and why it is the battle cry of all Internet entrepreneurs.

There really isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer to the question. It depends upon the subject of the article, the length of the article and the purpose of the links in question.

Links can be placed beside an article…usually to the left.

These links usually are for the purpose of directing the reader to related information contained within the article and sometimes leading to sponsored advertisements for products and services that are discussed in the article.

It has been determined that the worst place to put links is at the bottom of an article. They are the least effective and generally overlooked by readers.

Links within an article are considered the most effective placement. Links within an article can be given as an http://www.whatever.com link or embedded within relevant words or phrases and appear as keyword.

It is important that links open in new windows, however, to avoid distracting the reader and also to keep them from surfing away from the site.

Articles that are used for marketing should always contain at least one link in the http:// format because the articles are sometimes used by ezines that are published in plain text and links that are embedded in key words or phrases will not be available to readers to click on.

Writers of articles always want at least one link that can be copied and pasted into an address bar to cover this circumstance of the reproduction of an article.

Links beside or within an article can be helpful to the reader but they should be used with care so as not ever to distract the reader from the article itself.