One of the most difficult (or expensive) aspects of running an online business is generating traffic. Traffic is necessary to achieve any kind of online success. It is the brick and mortar equivalent of walk-in customers. And without it you don’t have a business at all.

So how do you get traffic coming to your site? Of course, there are thousands of ways. The traditional ways are obvious. You can advertise on other websites, TV, radio, or in newspapers. You can use solo ads, ezine ads, classified ads, or pay per click ads. All of these methods will get you traffic, but, unfortunately, the all cost money.

What are your alternatives if you are just starting out and have little or no money for advertising? Well don’t worry, you have plenty of options. And although these methods are free, it doesn’t mean that they won’t cost you anything. To take advantage of free advertising, you have to commit some of your effort, time, or both. But if you don’t have any cash, it is a workable solution.

Writing articles is a great free way to generate traffic. But to be really successful, you have to write and submit at least one article a day, everyday! You should submit each of your articles to the largest 20 to 25 free article directories. In all, this process will take you about an hour to complete.

Include a resource box with each of your articles. Your resource box will provide a link to your website along with some information as to why someone would want to go there. You will get much more traffic if you give visitors something for free when they visit. Free reports, ebooks, and information always work well. Your free offer should be related to the content of your article. And, of course, your article should be related to the subject of your website. This ensures that your traffic will be targeted to the products that you offer. And this gives you the best chance of converting that traffic into profits.

There is another advantage in writing articles: It positions you as an expert in the field. By coming across as an expert, people are more willing to click on your links and buy your products. This, after all, is why you want traffic in the first place.

So, if you are trying to get traffic without spending a fortune, invest some of your own time and effort. You may be very pleasantly surprised at the amount of traffic (and income) you can generate.

Jo Mark publishes the Million Dollar Article site where you can get a free ebook that will help you learn how to make money online.

Two industries that are often misunderstood are affiliate marketing and traffic exchanges. Let’s take a look at how you should use both to make more money online.

We could probably summarize this article in one sentence: When you use traffic exchanges, go for the lead as opposed to going for the sale. What we mean by that is promoting your affiliate marketing website is not the best way to utilize traffic exchanges.

What you want to do is go for the lead, meaning capturing contact information by giving away something of value such as a free report or ebook. This contact information is normally sent to an autoresponder where you can then follow up over and over for future sales. You know that you have a minimum amount of time for your page to be displayed if you have ever clicked on a traffic exchange. This is another problem with promoting your affiliate website itself.

People just do not have enough time or the attention span to sit and read a sales letter. But they will have enough time to quickly read a short splash page that hits a few high points and at the end has a sign-up box where they can put their name and email address. To do this you will need to create a landing page that is attractive enough to encourage your reader to give you their contact information. This is also an excellent place to brand yourself by including a header.

You might even go so far as to put your picture in the header or on the landing page itself. As you develop campaigns in various traffic exchanges, you will be branding yourself as well as trying to build a list for future follow-up.

This is such a simple concept that it really is amazing that more people do not do it. We have all seen many different things promoted in traffic exchanges. Think about what captures your attention and maybe ones that you have actually clicked on or joined before.

Very few of us ever buy a product off of the traffic exchanges. But we do sign up for free reports and ebooks, which then get us on a list where we begin to receive email. It’s off of these emails that we may very well buy a product from an affiliate marketer. This is the secret few people seem to really understand.

The right way to use affiliate marketing and traffic exchanges is to go for the lead, and then follow-up for a sale at a later date.

William Hutchinson publishes Hutches Affiliate Marketing where you can find the top affiliate programs and where he will show you how to make money online and help you start your own Internet business or develop a few work-from-home ideas.

We are always looking for ways to increase traffic to our website for free. Did you know that some of the best, free, targeted search engine traffic can result just from your domain name alone? Domain names that are keyword rich or specific to your niche can result in higher rankings on the search engines. And higher rankings means more targeted traffic to your website, completely free.

How to Use This Method

Let’s say your niche is “working at home.” You’re going to want to find specific keywords that relate to your niche topic. To do this, go to the Google Keyword Tool and type in your niche. Try searching for several variations of your niche topic, such as “work at home online,” “find work at home,” etc. (you may also want to search for synonyms of your niche topic as well). Research the average search volume on these keywords, then write down the keywords that are specific to your niche and have the highest search volume. I would say to find around 20-25 keywords that have a high search volume and are related to your niche.

From here, swing over to GoDaddy and go to the “Register Domains in Bulk” option on their menu. Take your entire list of keywords and add “.com” onto the end of each keyword and place them in the area to check the domains for current registrations. Search to see if any domain names are available. If some are available, consider purchasing them. If none are available, try to tighten your search method or be more specific.

Once the domains have been purchased and you begin to lay content on them, you have a very good chance of landing a top ranking on Google and other search engines for those keywords. Why? The answer is simple: Your domain is a keyword. Each time this keyword is searched via a major search engine, such as Google, you have a high chance of being ranked first. This will bring in targeted traffic specific to your niche, all for the initial cost of the domain and some time to put up some content. So give this method a shot, because you really have nothing to lose.

Bryan Hufford is a former corporate slave turned online entrepreneur. He has successfully launched several businesses online, working directly from home. Find out how you can start working at home and join his newsletter about earning extra income online at his website.

The inbound link is the holy grail of Web traffic. Getting inbound links from government and university sites is a testament to the quality of your site.

You accumulate inbound links not only to increase traffic, but also to establish your site for providing high value to visitors. However, getting inbound links by link exchange or buying text links is not going to get you anywhere. You need to abandon those archaic ideas and jump forward with an inbound link strategy that provides high value authoritative links.

To obtain high value authoritative links, your site must provide high value to its visitors. Original authoritative articles and tools to solve everyday problems are a few ways to provide a lasting value to Web surfers. Before you embark on your link-building mission, create something valuable.

Links from the government sites have very high value. If your site enables citizenry to interact directly with the government, it is an excellent candidate for a link back from the government site.

Sites that provide community level services (for example, the location of Social Security Offices in the USA with interactive maps) will also have high potential for outbound links from government sites.

Other types of sites that do well are sites that provide information about service performance. For example, a nursing home comparison site; sites that cross inter-governmental boundaries; and sites that allow transactions with the government (e.g., filing taxes).

If your site is a good fit for outbound links from government sites, start with the usa.gov site. It is a central information hub for everything government. On the bottom of the page, you will see About Us and Contact Us links. Read their linking policy before you contact them.

You don’t have to confine yourself only to US government sites. Explore the possibilities of getting links from foreign government sites also. But keep in mind that your site should provide some value to the citizenry of those countries and people who want to interact with them.

For example, most government embassy sites don’t display their embassy addresses in interactive maps. If your site pulls their text addresses from their sites and then places those addresses on Google maps for interactivity, you can contact them to put a link back to your site. Explain that your site adds additional value to their visitors by providing a richer user experience.

College and university sites provide a good opportunity to develop some authoritative inbound links. The key here is to provide services geared towards students. You may also be able to get links if a faculty member is interested in your content.

Don’t start spamming university forums, guest books, etc. People may attack your site and bring it down, report you to your Web host or domain registrar. You will lose your credibility and reputation. Try to establish relationships by helping others. Let them know that you know your topics and are willing to share with them.

If your site provides some valuable services to students, approach the appropriate university authority for linking. For example, if you have a tool that compares student loans from different sources and suggests the good ones depending on a student’s financial situation, university loan offices will be willing to link to your site as a resource.

If you have a blog with original and regularly updated content that talks about the impact of technology on the society, you may approach a faculty in sociology to link to your site from his or her home page located on the university server.

Government and university sites provide good opportunities for developing inbound links if your website matches their requirements. The key is quality content and useful Web tools.

Dr. Deepak Dutta has provided free online marketing tools like free classifieds and free ads sites for more than a decade. He recently launched a social media link building tool.

With the popularity of Google AdWords, many businesses are turning to paying for top placement on search engines. This is a surefire way to get exposure, but who wants to pay all that money? I was paying about $5.00 a click for a swimming pool website in the winter! So I put together this short list of free advertising possibilities to market your website.

• Get a MySpace or Facebook account. Yes, it’s free, and if you just spend about 2 hours a day trying to get friends, you will substantially increase your visitors. I started a MySpace account and had 400 friends by the end of the day and about 300 hits to my website.

• Start a mailing list. This sounds easier than it is. Trying to get people to sign up is the difficult part. You can offer a free download or some kind of free offer if they sign up. There has to be something in it for the visitor. But this will keep your visitors coming back.

• Optimize your website. I will say this a thousand times, but it’s really the big key here. If you have a pretty site with no text, chances are no one will find you. Content is king, so write that content. Oh, and it’s free!

• Comment on blogs or write your own. In order for people to know you exist, you got to talk and interact. The Internet is one big social gathering, and you need to gain popularity and you have to talk and gossip to get ahead. Find a blog you really like and contribute to it everyday and add your link. Or you can write your own blog if you want. Wordpress and Blogger are free!

• Submit articles to EzineArticles.com. I sometimes write articles regarding pool care and Internet marketing and will post them on my blog and on EzineArticles.com. A lot of Web publishers will sift through these articles and use them on their websites, spreading out your link. Sometimes even I use them.

• Here is the key: persistence! Keep at it every day, adding new content. Patience! Traffic will come with more to offer and time. Keep adding to your knowledge.

Matthew Giovanisci is the marketing director of Killer Pickle, an Internet Marketing, Web design and search engine optimization blog.

Very interesting visually — looks a lot like one of those busy maps of subway stops —  and you can download in wallpaper format for your computer (if you don’t mind a distracting, busy background) or print it out for your wall (my preference). It should be interesting to see how the included sites will be ranked or if they’ll even be around in a year or so.

By Information Architects Japan (interface designers).

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Idea comes from easter eggs in software originally done surreptitiously by programming staff.

Directory for promoting online easter eggs:

• The Easter Egg Archive

Related possibility: online scavenger hunt