When people think about creating success on the Internet they immediately associate it with how much traffic their website is receiving.

Traffic is a pretty good indication of how well you are doing online because without visitors, how can you sell anything?

The problem is to get more traffic to your site you're going to have to advertise your online presence which will cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars without any guarantees of how effective that advertising is going to be.

The beauty of the Internet is that it was designed to be free, so this means there are an incredible number of opportunities for you to "advertise" your business online...for FREE!

With that, I'm going to go over some of the best ways you can advertise online for free.

Email Signature files:

This is such a simple and easy way to promote your business. Yet, I find it amazing how few people use their 'Sig file' to promote themselves. Every e-mail you send out should be accompanied by a four to six line "advertisement" for your business.

To get the maximum response from your 'Sig file' you should offer some incentive to visit your site. If you offer a free report or ebook you are more likely to generate interest and click thru's than if you simply ask them to come to your site.

Another good use of your 'Sig file' is to promote your newsletter or e-zine. Let people know that they can "Get an informative monthly newsletter by visiting www.yoursite.com and signing up now!"

Even though email signatures are extremely basic, and even though it will not single-handedly create your online success, it won't hurt. So, start including a 'Sig file' at the end of all your emails.

Tell-A-friend:

Using a "Tell-A-Friend" feature on your site is a great way to get qualified traffic. Because it is a personal referral from one of your visitors it is very powerful. If they didn't think your content was useful they wouldn't recommend your site.

Anybody who is referred to your site by a friend is less skeptical and more likely to buy. That's the visitor you want, right!

One more little trick to get people to refer your website to their friends is to offer an incentive. Similar to how you got people to click through from your 'Sig file'. Are you starting to notice a pattern here? If you want people to do what you want (click thru's, refer a friend, or buy your product) you have to give them a reason, an incentive, a BRIBE!

It's completely ethical; you're just giving your prospect a little push in the right direction ;-). It's difficult to get people to do what you want on their own accord so you have to answer "what's in it for me?"

To get four resources that will help you quickly and easily implement your "Tell-A-Friend" campaign send an email to: mailto:[email protected].

Search Engines:

If you've used the Internet at all you know that search engines are the most common way people find websites. Having a high ranking in a search engine can be priceless... and drive a ton of traffic to your site. The best part...many search engines are still free. If you haven't submitted your site to all the major search engines you won't be getting all the traffic you deserve!

With that said, just submitting to the search engines often won't help you as much as you'd like. Being indexed in the search engines is the first step but if you really want to explode your traffic you are going to have to get ranked HIGH, preferable in the top ten!

For more information on how to succeed with search engines send an email to: mailto:[email protected].

Free Classifieds:

This is another cheap and easy way to get qualified traffic to visit your site. If you think about it, who is more qualified than someone who is willing to search through online classifieds for a specific product or service? When they run across a website, that will meet their needs, they're already primed and ready to buy.

Let me make a few things perfectly clear. You will not make your fortune online using free classified ads. But you will gain visitors by using them. There is absolutely no such thing as 'bad traffic'. Any visitor you get to your site is another chance to convert them into a paying customer.

Discussion lists:

This is a way of promotion that is not as popular or as useful as it use to be. Discussion lists are places where people go to discuss a specific topic. There are literally tens of thousands of these discussion lists ranging from car racing to square dancing.

Discussion lists have fallen out of favor because most people now use them only to advertise their products or services. They no longer engage in actual discussions about the topic. There are still some discussion lists that are closely monitored and are still relevant.

The one advertising method that is still acceptable in discussion lists is advertising in your 'Sig file'. I would encourage you to make a meaningful contribution to the group discussion and at the end of all your messages include your 'Sig file' that has an incentive to visit your site. This way you can establish your self as an expert in your field and still entice people to visit your site with out offending people with blatant advertising (also considered SPAM).

You can check out www.usenet.com and search for discussion lists related to your interests.

To find 5 more powerful techniques to advertise your online business for free send an email to: mailto:[email protected].

About the author: Matthew Bell has spent the last two years researching Internet marketing and finding the best marketers on the Internet that can help you build a successful online business. Learn the secrets of the best online marketers in a free 15-part e-course. http://www.internet-marketing-results.com/mktsecrets4.html