Before you spend hundreds of dollars on website advertising, you should consider cost effective ways to promote your site for free. Some people think that you can just submit your site to the search engines and then sit back and watch the sales come in, but this is one of many Internet marketing myths.



I used to think that I could just submit my site to hundreds of search engines and wake up in the morning with hundreds of sales. After a couple of months of aggravation and no money coming in I realized that there must be a more effective way to do this. I came to the conclusion that it was going to take a little bit more effort to see the results I wanted.

I have since learned the tested and proven methods that have worked time and time again for Internet marketers. I am going to tell you about the top 5 ways that are 100% free to increase your website traffic, and if you spend time on them and do it religiously you will find that they work consistently

1. Article Writing

These are the two major benefits of writing an article related to your website content and submitting it to free article directories:

* The people who read your article will most likely click the link in your resource box and this will send you targeted visitors to your website. If you write a informative article, people will recognize you as an expert and will want to find out more information about you and your business

* Every person who publishes your article must also include the resource box with your website link in it. The more articles you have published, the more backlinks you will have to your website. This will help increase your search engine ranking and page rank over time.

2. Posting To Forums

There are many forums on the Internet on every topic you can think of.

Many forums will allow you to attach a signature to your post. Many times this signature can include a link back to your website or a affiliate link. You should pick a few forums to visit regularly on topics related to your website and answer questions and make informative posts. After awhile you will build a good reputation with the other members and they will trust you, and you will get free exposure to your website. Some posts receive thousands of visitors. Posting to forums can also be indexed by the search engines.

Be sure to make a useful contribution to the forum and don't just spam.

3. Reciprocal Linking

There are two main benefits to reciprocal linking:

* The more links you exchange with other websites, the more of a chance the person will click on your link leading to your website.

* More links to your site will increase your page rank and it will be perceived as more important by the search engines. There are some things to avoid when exchanging links with other websites.

* You should link to sites that will be of interest to your visitors. And also link to sites related to your site content.

* You should not link to sites that have hundreds of links on one page or a very un-organized directory, this can hurt you in the search engines. Only link to sites that have a clearly labeled link page and not hidden where no one can see or click.

* Do not post to FFA link farms. This is a waste of time and will not get you any traffic. It also might get you banned from search engines.

* Keep track of all your link exchanges with software or a contact sheet. Also make sure that your link partners have not removed your link from there website.

4. Email Signatures

This is the oldest and simplest way to get traffic to your website

Millions of us send e-mail everyday, but most of us just sign our name or nothing at all at the end of a message.

Try including your name with a URL, tag line or slogan. Keep it short and to the point and avoid shouting at someone or hype. You will be amazed at how many visitors this will bring you. People will click your link out of curiosity and send traffic to your site.

5. Traffic Exchanges

This is the last and easiest way to generate free traffic to your website. You can surf for free credits or build a downline and receive free credits for the sites that they surf.

The only bad thing about this is the visitors will not be as targeted as the other four methods. Most people surf traffic exchanges for one reason only and that is to surf as many pages as possible in the shortest amount of time to gain credits for there website.

So how do you grab the attention of someone who is only looking at your website for 30 seconds?

* Spend some time surfing and learn what type of market it is. You are going to want to advertise a site that is going to be of interest to the people on the exchange.

* Use a lead capture page instead of your sales page. If people are only looking at your site for 30 seconds they are more likely to request more info then sign up for a program on your sales page.

Do these five free methods regularly and you should be on your way to free targeted traffic to your website which will increase with time.