A website without marketing is like a shop without signage -  Customers will just drive on past and not even realise you're there.

Marketing on the internet is usually known as SEM (Search Engine Marketing) or occasionally SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). 
We wont bore you with long definitions of the terms - no doubt you have heard or read of them at some stage .

Basically SEO is used to improve where your site appears in Search Engines like Google Bing or Yahoo. You are competing against similar businesses to get as close to page one as possible, preferably at the top of page one above your competitors. Getting a good placement is a very complex process, the specialists who provide the service usually have many years experience in achieving top rankings and charge big fees accordingly. It is not something you can pick up over an afternoon with SEO for Dummies.

SEM is a less specialised and encompasses any form of online advertising, whether its your sites keywords or metatags, Google Adwords, Site validation, search engine and business directory submissions as well as things like article writing, mailing lists, newsletters and a range of other online metjhods of getting your site noticed.

And there is Social Media Marketing -  this you might be a little more familiar with, especially if you have a Wordpress Blog, Facebook or Twitter account already. Social Media Marketing is best left to specialists who can either setup your SMM and train you on maintaining it all, or manage it all for a monthly fee. Just be prepared : its not going to be cheap to market SEO, SEM or SMM.

What can you do to market your site yourself?.
We always recommend starting simple with something like a Wordpress blog  - once it is set up you can manage company updates yourself without the assistance of your web designer. You can also create a monthly newsletter and email it out to anyone that subscribes to a link off your home page.

And don't neglect the physical world : your domain name and email address should appear on all  your business cards, letterheads, invoices,vehicle signage and business clothing : your shouldn't miss a chance to market the domain name to anyone who has eyes.