However many beginners think that when they get the website built and ready to go that's all they need to make money from it. The sad reality is that owning the website is the only half way through to success. Another half is promoting it in order to get it exposed to as many potential customers as possible.

And here we come to a very important part of successful website marketing which is driving traffic to the website. Nowadays there is many companies, programs and traffic builders available on the internet. Some of them are paid and some of them are free to use. It's not said that free methods of advertising are worse and less effective in driving traffic than paid ones.

Promoting my own website I had opportunity to test out many free methods of advertisement

that gave me very good results and brought me pretty few customers:

1. Traffic Exchangers

This method of advertising is simple: you view the other marketer's websites in order to get your website displayed for them to view.

Some marketers say that traffic exchangers are not effective because they don't drive good quality traffic as people only view your website in order to get their own ones displayed.

However there is a few factors to better your chances to turn random visitor into customer:

- catchy headline that will encourage the visitor to stay on your website and keep reading the message you want to give to him.

- simple, clear and unique design (sometimes funny pictures or videos placed on your website can really impressed the visitor and get him to bookmark it)

- lead capture form that collect information about your prospect so that you can follow up with him.

So the important thing to remember about traffic exchangers is that if they are used smartly they can bring many prospects to your website and potential customers in result.

2. Social Networking Sites

Networking websites such us: Myspace, Yuwie or Facebook aren't only great online places to have a fun and find new online friends from all over the world but they can be very effective free marketing tool as well.

I'm personally using Myspace as my favorite Social Networking Website to promote my business. The strategy is simple:

- create professional looking profile to perform effective business presence

- find the friends representing your niche

- start interacting and building friendships with them

- use myspace goods such us forum, bulletins, blog posts to advertise your business

Being friendly, contacting targeted people who might be interested in your business, building friendships and using free myspace tools will drive massive traffic to your website and get people's attention to your business.

3. Article Marketing

This is yet another great method of free advertisement.

Writing articles on topics related to your business you establish your own professional marketer image. Yet another great thing about article marketing is that it generates good quality backlinks and help increase the page rank and number of visits to your website in result. On the bottom of every article you can put information about yourself and your business including your website address, which better your chances to get your website visited.

Those above are only a few of many free methods of advertising. There are many more available online like classifieds, forum posts and so on, that can also be really effective when used properly. Using outlined methods consistently and frequently will pay you dividends and get your business to the next level.