by: Linda Van Fleet

Okay. You’ve built it: the best optimized web site with the best copy-written sales page in your niche. You have your resources in place and are you’re ready. You’ve opened up your browser multiple times and admired the navigation, the graphics, the design. You’ve checked your stats multiple times to see if the search engines have found you. You’re ready. Now all you need is traffic: the necessary ingredient to success on the World Wide Web. Without it you will not make a dime. Not one red cent.Now, there are many ways to generate traffic to your web site: buying ppc in search engines, web sites or ezines, banner ads, television advertising, magazine ads, direct mail — all very pricey, and none with any kind of guarantee that you will get traffic. No one can promise you (and be truthful) that you will get any certain amount of traffic from the money you will spend with any of these methods. But, don’t despair! There are also many ways to generate good, targeted traffic that will not cost you a rib. In many cases you will even find ways to generate traffic for free (except for the sweat and tears you expend!). I have listed a few ways I have found to be very inexpensive to free.

Reciprocal Link Exchanges - Although often times a thankless task, this is one way to generate traffic that really does work. And it’s free. Basically all you do is find sites similar to yours that you would like to exchange links with. Create a link page on your own web site and place a link to the sites you find that you’d like to exchange links with. Write to the webmasters of those sites and tell them you have linked to their site and would appreciate a reciprocal link. Give them the URL to the page you have created. Don’t be afraid to ask for the link. I repeat, ASK. If they do not reciprocate, send them another message. If after the second time you write to them they still do not reciprocate, remove their link and move on. It is not the end of the world and it is usually nothing personal.

Writing Articles and Submitting them to article directories - It took me a little while to accept this and finally start doing it because it takes so much time. However, after starting to do it I’ve discovered it is the best free link building method I have used. You simply write articles in your subject of expertise and submit them to article directories. Other people post your articles on their web sites, leaving your resource box intact, and you soon have hundreds of sites with one way links back to your site. For the most part this is free. It does take a lot of time, however. If you don’t have the time nor the talent to write, there are multiple sites nowadays that offer Private Label Rights articles (articles written by others that you can claim as your own) for a fee.

The articles you write (or have written for you) should relate to your niche. People love personal experience articles. Give me a good story and I am your friend. I might even become your customer, especially if you give good tips and pointers learned from your own experience. To find out where the article directories are, simply do a search on “article directory” and you’ll find more than you’ll be able to use.

Publish Your Own eZine - Be sure to offer your web site visitors the opportunity to subscribe to your newsletter. At first you may need to offer a free report to get people to sign up. But, if your newsletter is a good one, it will soon take on a life of its own. Although you can offer a newsletter without joining one of the autoresponder sites, it is hard. It costs around $20 - $30 a month to join Aweber or GetResponse, but the expense is well worth it for the automation. Again, do a Google search on the word “autoresponder” and you will find a list of sites that offer this service.

So, what do you write about? You use your articles! The same articles you send out to the Article Directory sites can be used for your newsletter. You will also find 1000’s of articles in the article directory sites that you can freely use for your ezine. Just stick to your niche subject and write! I have found that each time my newsletter goes out I get a surge of new traffic to my web site

Join Forums and start posting - Although you cannot (should not) join a forum and start blatantly advertising your site or product in a way that will get you quickly banned, there are a couple of ways to do it that are very acceptable. One is the signature: simply put a link to your site in your forum signature. And, second is your profile. Always put your web site link and any pertinent information about it in your forum profile. You will be surprised at how many people click on the profile to see who you are - especially if you offer helpful advice, answer questions politely, or ask good questions. Treat each answer just as though you are writing an article — be thorough, be creative, be helpful. You will soon have your own following on multiple forums — all with links back to your web site

Perhaps one reason many people had rather simply pay to advertise their web sites is that each of the methods outlined above take time. And, time is valuable. BUT, if you want targeted traffic and are willing to spend a little time each week on building your traffic you will soon see a huge increase in visitors to your site. Targeted Visitors to your site are priceless.

~Linda

Spread the Word to: