E-Profit Today

When it comes to making money with your web site, there's a tried and true rule beyond good site design: You need a steady flow of web site traffic. Your web site can be absolute eye candy, but without visitors, it will not deliver sales or commissions.

We've all heard the adage that it takes money to make money. In the world of the Internet, you do not necessarily have to spend a lot of money to generate traffic. There are several ways to generate low cost web site traffic without having to spend what you are unable to afford. Many people have banked on high cost methods and have regretted it later.

There are lots of methods to develop traffic, but here are five simple traffic generation methods that are free or very low cost that could help you start earning something from your site. Even if you see a small percentage of visitors converting into buyers, the more traffic you have, the higher volume of sales you will see.

Link Exchanges May Work With Quality Sites

Link exchanges are a proven way to generate traffic so long as you are receiving strong links from reputable web sites. It is unusual to see a popular web site that has no links coming in or no links going out. Many webmasters are willing to exchange links with one another so that they could produce more public awareness about their sites. If done right, you will see a boost in traffic from other sites. Be careful with your link exchanges. Go for quality, not quantity. For instance, if you have a site about auto repair, you don't want to exchange links with a site that is obviously a machine generated site with tons of reciprocal links to Viagra sites, gambling sites and so forth.

A major factor in exchanging links with other sites is to make sure that the site you are exchanging with has the same general topic as your site. The sites you exchange with should share a common theme so that there is continuity of service and information of interest your target traffic. If the site has a links page, be sure that it is a quality link page that is indexed in the search engines. The link page should be accessible from the index page of the site, not buried in an obscure subdirectory.

Exchanging links with well written web sites can boost your chances of getting a high ranking in search engine results. It is common knowledge that search engines ranks high sites that have inbound and outbound theme-related links. With a good ranking position in the search engines, you will generate more traffic to your web site without the high costs.

Get Creative with Articles

There are many article directories, ezines, and other resources on the Internet which provide free publishing of articles. Authoring your own articles may be time-consuming, but you will save money. However, there are many freelance writers who are willing to write for you for a small fee. If you are truly interested in your niche, you will probably want to write your own articles.

Make sure that your articles are themed along with the subject matter of your site. An example is if you have a site featuring healthy eating. You can write articles about nutrition, cooking or recipes. Write something that you are interested in and have some knowledge about so that when someone reads your work, the reader feels that you know what you are writing about and will be curious to visit your site for more information. Writing articles with useful information is an invaluable practice.

Include a resource box at the end of your article that links to your site. Write a little about yourself and your site. If you provide a light, informative and interesting article, people will go to your site for more.

Become Part of the Media by Publishing an Online Newsletter

At first, newsletter publishing might sound like hard work because of all the content you may need to use to build a newsletter. However, this is not so. There are many authors willing to provide free articles so long as you provide the author's name and resource in on your publication. This provides free advertising for your authors and you get free content.

As your newsletter gets passed around, you can expand your public awareness and build an opt-in list of people who regularly visit your site.

Join Online Communities and Forums

This traffic building option requires some time but does not involve a lot of effort. You can share your experience with many online communities and can promote your web site. You can get free advertising when you go to online communities that have the same subject or niche as your site.

Follow threads that are interesting and then share your opinion or knowledge. As you build your reputation, you also build the reputation of your site, making it a respected resource that could be visited by many people.

Blog It!

Blogs are a great way to generate web traffic. Like the articles and forums discussed above, blogs are a way to share your expertise. You can submit comments containing your site address to blogs. When doing so, make sure your comment is not 'spammy.' It should be thoughtful and well written, which will build your reputation.

Some services on the Internet allow you to post 'mini articles' or blurbs onto their blogs. This is an easy way to get one-way links to your web site.

If you're more ambitious, you can start your own blog that ties into your niche. For instance, if you have a site offering psychic readings, you can set up a blog about astrology, spirituality, tarot or some other topic that is related to your psychic site.

Obviously, the above five tips are just the tip of the iceberg. But they are easy to do and for the most part, are free.