But many website owners seem to overlook the simplest and easiest to use methods of driving traffic to their sites. Have you ever wondered how some big hit sites manage to get all that traffic to their site?



Admittedly, a majority of them are forking out a great deal of cash to achieve this through cots involved with advertising campaigns including PPC, buying of text links, paid advertising etc. But this is proving worthwhile. If it wasn't then these companies wouldn't continue to pay out money for things that didn't work.

Obviously not all of us have such deep pockets when it comes to adverting and marketing our websites but that's OK because there are many ways in which to generate high amounts of traffic to your website for low cost.

It is never wise to spend money on something that you can't afford, especially if the risks are high or the returns are low. Many companies have fallen in to this trap and have disappeared from the internet.

So here are three excellent ways in which you can generate website traffic for a low cost.

Obviously your conversion rate will also play a large part in how effective this new found traffic is to you but let's concentrate on getting that traffic for now.

Link exchanges

It's very simple. You place a link on your site to another website and the owner of that website places a link to your website on theirs. This is very basic stuff but it is what the internet is built upon. The internet would not survive or function as we know it if websites did not link to each other.

When you go to any search engine you are usually looking for information. You type in your query and the search engine returns a list of relevant websites. Every result on every page is linked to a website.

But it's not just search engines that should link to you. You must get other websites to link to you. The benefit to you is that the traffic that their website receives will also see the link to your website. If the text that is displayed for your site is well written and of interest to that visitor then you will find more and more traffic coming to your website.

To ensure that the visitors of that website will be interested in visiting your site, you must make sure that both sites share a common theme or subject. This makes the traffic at the other site targeted towards your website which increases the click through rate to your site.

There is also the added fact that search engines will also take in to account how many links you have pointing to your website when it comes to deciding where you will rank in their search results. You must be concentrating on a solid link building strategy.

Traffic Exchange

Similar to the link exchanging method but not as effective. Traffic exchange programs require a small piece of code to be inserted in to your website so that when a visitor leaves your website another window pops up showing another site. This is known as an "exit exchange".

Members of the traffic exchange program all agree to insert a small piece of code in to their websites which causes another members website to appear when a visitor exits their site.

Usually with these type of programs a credits system is used. For each time you display another members website from a visitor leaving your site you earn a credit. Normally you will have to display other members sites five times to earn one credit. One credit means your website will then be displayed once when someone exits another members site. You can usually buy credits too and the payment would go to the owner of the traffic exchange program.

Article writing and submission

When it comes to effective, low cost, website traffic then it is hard to beat article writing. If you can write about a certain subject then you can use this method of traffic generation. Even if you can't write, don't want to or simply don't have time to then you can pay someone to do this for you.

You can expect to pay anywhere from $5 to $15 for an article. The more you pay, the better the quality.

Once you have your article ready you can easily submit it to article directories and send copies to relevant ezine owners who may publish your article to their readers which could be tens of thousands.

If you write the article yourself or have it written for you, you will need to make sure the topic matches the theme of your website. The way in which you will generate traffic to your website using this method is by using the authors "bio" box or "resource" box at the end of your article. In this box you can place your name and a website URL.

If you write an article that is information rich yet easy to read will ensure the reader will want to click through to your site.