What’s more important, your page rank or how much traffic your site is receiving? In my view, the hard and fast rule in making money off of a site is to have steady flow of traffic. Page rank is nice; traffic is better.

Here’s what makes traffic generation even sweeter - you don’t have to pay a fortune to get it. Here are five suggestions to help you round up some low cost traffic.

Exchange Links for Inbound Traffic

Exchanging links is a proven method. Reciprocal links still have value, especially if you are linking with quality, related sites. One way links are better. As more people become aware of your site, you’ll see a surge in traffic.

You can get free, permanent one-way links by submitting blurbs about your site at the blogs listed at the Blurbosphere.

For more information on reciprocal links, visit the “Is It Hype” blog.

If you’d like to join a good reciprocal link exchange that’s free, visit LinkMetro.com.

Traffic Exchanges Deliver Traffic

In traffic exchanges, you view other people’s websites and earn credits for doing so. Your credits are then used as people view your site. There are two types of traffic exchanges: automated surf programs and manual surf programs. You’ll be wasting your time with the automated traffic exchanges because you will not get quality traffic. People just “turn them on” and go to bed while the automated traffic exchange program continually sends “visitors.” However, on the manual surf exchanges, there is a chance that people will actually read your site. This is because each view is on a timer of 20 or so seconds and people have to manually click when they have finished viewing the site. Of course, there are people just clicking away so that they can earn credits. However, if you have intriguing content or a good sales letter, this is definitely worth taking a look at if you are looking for low cost traffic. I’ve had some affiliate sales from using the manual exchanges. A word of caution: If you have Google Adsense on your site, traffic exchanges violate Google’s terms of service.

You Can Get Traffic By Submitting Articles

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of ezines, article directories, newsletters, blogs, online knowledge bases and other places on the Internet that will accept articles. Write articles that are themed with your site’s niche. If you share your expertise in an article, people who read your material will be eager to go to your site. Write articles that produce tips and guidelines that relate to your site’s niche.

At the end of the article, be sure to include your site’s address. You might want to make sure that it is in text format in case the web publisher that picks up your article is using a program that does not read html. If you provide a helpful, interesting article, your reader will click your link for more. All of the back links that you receive from having your article published will help boost your site’s page rank.

Resource of Interest… Visit Article Marketer and discover how you can submit your article to thousands of publishers with just a click. There’s a free option where you can submit to over 7000 publishers. The paid options will allow you to submit to over 60,000 publishers with just one click.

Publish an Electronic Newsletter

This may sound like hard work because of all the content you might need to publish a newsletter on a regular basis. However, there are many writers and sites that are willing to provide free articles as long as they can get their name in on your newsletter. This will also provide free advertising for them as well. As your newsletter gets passed around, you can widen your public awareness and build an opt-in list that can regularly visit your site.

Get Traffic from Online Communities and Forums

This is one of the most valuable resources available for generating site traffic, and it’s free. Find forums and communities that are directly related to y our niche. Many will let you include your URL in your signature file. Others will allow you to announce your URL in a discussion post. Read the community or forum’s terms of service before signing up to make sure you can list your site in the forum. Once in, share your opinions and knowledge. You’ll start to build a reputation and people will be interested in seeing your site.

To your online success!

Urbain Beck

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 3rd, 2006 at 7:22 pm and is filed under Featured, Free Stuff, Internet Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.