Copyright 2006 Guillermo Puyol
One of the many challenges of starting an online business is getting traffic to your website. Unfortunately for most beginner webmasters, quality traffic is not only hard to get, but it is also very expensive. In the following article I will discuss the technique that I used to get free advertising and free laser-targeted traffic to my website.
First of all let's consider some of the alternatives most beginning webmasters use to generate traffic:
The first option that comes to mind is Pay Per Click advertising (PPC). PPC is a very effective way of driving traffic to a website, and if the ads are well written they usually bring in highly targeted traffic. The downside of PPC is cost. In order to start a PPC campaign, the webmaster must bid on keywords or phrases related to the content of the website being promoted. After the bidding, the ads will show all over the internet getting hundreds or thousands of impressions. When an internet user clicks on this ads, he or she is taken to the website advertised and the advertiser is charged the bid amount. PPC advertisements are great, but should only be used to promote special offers, introductory offers or high tag items; it should not be the only force driving traffic to your site.
A similar kind of advertisement is Pay Per Impression (PPI). Although they are virtually undistinguishable for the audience they target, PPI are different for the advertisers. With PPI advertisers pay for every time their ads are shown, and not only for the times the ads are clicked on. In order for this type of advertising to be effective, the website where the ads are displayed must offer products that are complementary to those you offer, or vise versa.
As you can see, the driving factor of advertising is your budget. If you can afford to pay for your traffic then you can run an ad campaign, but if you are on a tight budget then you have to create other traffic generating resources.
So what is this magnificent free laser-targeted traffic generating tool I mentioned early on? Well… you are reading it. One of the ways I use to drive the most traffic to my website is to write articles. You don't have to be a certified writer or a literature Nobel Prize winner to write articles, just make sure you know what you are talking about and show your passion for it through your writing.
In order to get your articles to drive traffic to your website you must make sure that they get published all over the internet and that there is a link to your website at the end of each article you write. Article submission websites and article directories are great tools to get your articles published. Most website owners strive to keep their content fresh and interesting to their visitors, but because of time limitations it is often very difficult to come up with original content. This is where your articles come in! These webmasters take advantage of the free content you provide through your article, and they return the favor by displaying a live link to your website. Before you know it you will have hundreds of pages displaying your articles followed by a link straight to your website. The beauty about article writing is that the links you get from it are free and the traffic that you get from your links comes to you looking for "expert advice". These links also help improve your page rank in search engines due to your increased link popularity.
So go now, start your word processing software, put your writer's hat on and type away. Don't try to sound formal or professional if that is not you. Be yourself, write only about things that you know, and enjoy it. You are certainly going to enjoy the traffic from this great opportunity!
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Author of "Turn Ideas Into Cash! Newsletter" The newsletter features great online business ideas, advice and tools that are essential to beginning webmasters as well as seasoned pros. To learn more ways to make your online business more profitable log on to
http://www.TurnIdeasIntoCash.com
