Zen Of Internet Marketing

When it comes to making money with your web site, there’s a tried and true rule beyond good site design: You need a steady flow of web site traffic. Even if you have the most beautiful, sophisticated site on earth, if no one is visiting, you won’t make sales or commissions.

Common wisdom dictates that to make money, you need to spend money. In the world of the Internet, you do not necessarily have to spend a lot of money to generate traffic. There are many ways to generate low cost web site traffic without having to spend what you don’t have or can’t afford to spend. Some enthusiastic newcomers to the Net have spent a lot of money on advertising and have regretted it later.

There are many ways to attract traffic, but here are five simple traffic generation methods that are free or very low cost that could help you start earning something from your site. Even if you only get a small percentage of paying visitors compared with your overall traffic, that small percentage can pay off healthy dividends to you if you have a high volume of web site traffic.

Exchange Links with Quality Niche Sites

Link exchanges are a sure and proven method so long as you are receiving relevant links from sites with good content Rarely will you see a highly-visited site where there is no link to another site or a site linking in. Many webmasters are willing to exchange links with one another so that they could produce more publicity about their sites. You’ll soon see and feel the sudden upsurge of the traffic coming in to your site from other sites. The thing about link exchanges is that you don’t want to deal with sites featuring a huge conglomeration of links that have no theme to them. For instance, if you have a site about auto repair, you don’t want to exchange links with a site that is obviously a machine generated site with tons of reciprocal links to Viagra sites, gambling sites and so forth.

A major factor in exchanging links with other web sites is to make sure that the site you are exchanging with is in the same niche or has similar content to your site. The sites you exchange with should share a common theme so that there is continuity of service and information of interest your target traffic. If the site has a links page, be sure that it is a quality link page that is indexed in the search engines. The link page should be accessible from the index page of the site, not hidden in an obscure subdirectory.

Exchanging links with informative web sites can boost your chances of getting a high ranking in search engine results. It is common knowledge that search engines ranks high sites that have inbound and outbound theme-related links. With a good ranking position in the search engines, you will see a healthier flow of traffic to your site without having to spend a lot of money in advertising..

Start Publishing Articles

There are many article directories, ezines, and other resources on the Internet which welcome your articles. Writing articles yourself may take time, but it will save money. However, there are many freelance authors who are willing to write for you for a small fee. If your web site is about something that really interests you, you may find that you will enjoy writing your articles instead of hiring someone else to do so.

Make sure that your articles are themed along with the topic of your site. An example is if you have a site featuring healthy eating. You can write articles about nutrition, cooking or recipes. Write something that you are knowledgeable about so that when someone reads your work, the reader feels that you know your subject and have something to offer and will be curious to visit your site for more information. Writing articles with useful tips and guidelines is an invaluable practice.

Include a resource box at the end of your article that links to your site. Write a little about yourself and your site. If you provide a light, informative and interesting article, people will go to your site for more.

Become Part of the Media by Publishing an Online Newsletter

At first, newsletter publishing might sound like hard work because of all the content you may need to use to build an informative publication. However, this is not so. There are many authors willing to provide free articles so long as you provide the author’s name and resource in on your newsletter. This provides free advertising for your authors and you get free content.

As your newsletter gets passed around, you can expand your public awareness and build an opt-in list of people who regularly visit your site.

Become a Member of a Forum or Community

This traffic building option requires some time but does not involve a lot of effort. You can share your knowledge and expertise with many online groups and can promote your web site. You can get free advertising when you go to online communities that share the same subject or niche as your site.

Follow threads that are interesting and then share your opinion or knowledge. As you build your reputation, you also build the reputation of your site, making it a respected resource that could be visited by many people.

Blog Your Way to Web Traffic

Blogs are a great way to generate web traffic. Like the forums, newsletters and articles discussed above, blogs are a way to share your expertise. You can submit comments containing your site address to blogs. When doing so, make sure your comment is not ’spammy.’ It should be thoughtful and well written, which will build your reputation.

Some blogs allow you to post ‘mini articles’ or blurbs onto their blogs. This is an easy way to get backlinks to your web page.

If you’re more ambitious, you can start your own blog that ties into your niche. For instance, if you have a site offering psychic readings, you can set up a blog about astrology, spirituality, tarot or some other topic that is related to your psychic site.

Obviously, the above five tips are just the tip of the iceberg. But they are easy to do and for the most part, are free.

Looking for free blogs for your backlinks? Start blurbing! An example of a blog that accepts short articles - or blurbs - is Unknown Resources. Visit http://www.unknownresources.com today to find out how you can take advantage of several free blogging services to promote your site.

- Urbain Beck

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Tags: Advertising, article, articles, blog, Blogging, blogs, forum, forums, Internet, link, Links, media, money, newsletter, search engines, Traffic, Traffic, visitors, web site, web site traffic, writing

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Tags: Advertising, article, articles, blog, Blogging, blogs, forum, forums, Internet, link, Links, media, money, newsletter, search engines, Traffic, visitors, web site, web site traffic, writing

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 at 6:02 am and is filed under Traffic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.