There are various ways of promoting your internet business,

and some are more costly than others. If you have limited

resources to spend on your advertising, then you will need

to know about the most effective and yet not very costly

methods of drawing traffic to your website.

1. Have an appropriate Domain name for your internet business

Although this seems very obvious, it is often

underestimated in its importance. It is ideal for your

domain name to have some of your internet business? key

words to make sure that you can be found when someone does

a search for your keywords online.

2. Word of mouth in your circle of influence

Everyone has a circle of influence; being people that you

interact with in your life. These people are your potential

customers; and you must tell them about your internet

business. This does not cost you anything. You just have to

list all the people you make contact with in your daily

routines and identify the best way of telling them about

your internet business. Call them, email them, write them

or give them your business card.

3. Email marketing

If you have another internet business already, it is

recommended that you email your existing customers or if

you have a newsletter, your subscribers list; and tell them

about your new online business. You can also email all your

colleagues in your email address book. The more people you

tell about your internet business, the more visitors you

will get to your website.

4. Your Email Signature

Your email will need to look professional, and you must

have in your signature the details about your internet

business website: the URL, the business name, email address

and other contact details. You can also set up different

websites for various purposes. Having your website address

in your signature in every email you send out is a cost

effective way to promote your internet business.

5. Submit your website to search engines and directories

This is another cost effective way of driving traffic to

your internet business. It is FRE*E if you can manually

submit your website to search engines and directories.

There are various companies that can submit your website

for you at a cost. For your website to be picked up by

search engines, you must have on your website high quality

unique content and your content must be keyword-rich.

6. Write and distribute articles

Writing and distributing articles is one of the very

effective ways of driving traffic to your website. There

are several objectives that are to be accomplished with

writing articles; namely to be picked up by ezine

publishers, other websites, and also by offline publishers.

By writing high quality articles on a regular basis, you

come to be viewed as an authority or expert, which will

further make your articles popular. In your articles, you

put a resource box to build back-links, or to sell. By

submitting articles, you have search engines pick up your

website and eventually, send you some FRE*E traffic.

7. Link Exchanges and Traffic Exchanges

It is important to create some links with websites that are

similar to yours so that you can get visitors coming to your

site via the link on your partners? websites. For your

internet business to be successful, you need a lot of

traffic. Creating links with partners can be time

consuming. If you can afford it, you can use a software

called The Link Machine which automates the process for

you. Although two way links are important, one way links

are even more effective ? and you can create these by other

methods such as article submission, forum participation,

directory submission etc.

8. Forum Participation

There are a lot of forums or groups for almost any interest

or niche or business. Participating at these forums, with

your email signature that has your website, can help you

generate some targeted traffic for your site. You can get

more visitors through this, which will support the growth

of your internet business.

9. Offer Freebies

Giving away FREE gifts, tools or resources to your

prospects is a very powerful way of growing your internet

business. Because a visitor to your site benefits by

getting some of your freebies, they will be encouraged to

come back to your website again in the future, giving you

some repeat business.

10. Publish an ezine or newsletter

Ezines are a targeted form of advertising, and they can be

easy to prepare. Having an ezine helps you create a long

term relationship with your potential customers. Over the

long term, your subscribers will trust you and will do

business with you.

If you consistently use these strategies to promote your

internet business, you will see traffic to your website

increasing.

By John Terry