Want a quick check list of the main things you should be doing to promote your website and generate those all-important leads? Here is a succinct reminder of what works best.

Organic search results are listings on search engine results pages that appear because of their relevance to the search terms. Search engine optimization (SEO) is used to improve the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search results based on keywords. Typically, the higher a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine.

Paid placement is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages. Sometimes, because of broad keyword terms or a lack of time to build your organic results using SEO, it is necessary to buy your way to high rankings. Top Pay Per Click (PPC) ones are Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, MSN AdCenter, MIVA, SearchFeed, Marchex AdHere, ABCSearch and 7Search.

Advertising. A contextual advertising system scans the text of a website for keywords and returns advertisements to the webpage based on what the user is viewing. In-text advertising is a form of contextual advertising where specific keywords within the text of a web-page are matched with advertising and/or related information units. The granddaddy of them all is banner ads whereby ads are placed around relevant content.

Article marketing is powerful as long it is relevant and share-worthy content. It involves writing pieces and submitting them to free article websites. As well as demonstrating leadership and raising awareness, it also helps to push your site up the search engine rankings.

Social media marketing is a term that describes use of social networks, online communities, blogs, wikis or any other online collaborative media for marketing, sales, public relations and customer service. Common social media marketing tools include Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, Wikipedia, Orkut and YouTube. Social media marketing has three important aspects: creating buzz or newsworthy events, videos, tweets, or blog entries that attract attention, and become viral in nature; building ways that enable fans of a brand or company to promote a message themselves in multiple online social media venues; it is based around online conversations - it encourages user participation and dialogue.

Email has been tainted by the issue of spam. However, responsibly used it can be a vital tool in retaining customers and maintaining contact with prospects. Much like social media marketing, often the best use is to take an oblique approach to it and use it to inform.