10 Ways For Newbies To Generate Traffic And Make Money Online

If you are new to internet marketing, or a newbie, you may find the hardest part about the whole process is not about finding the right niche market (there are countless), it's not about creating a website (many sites sell you ready made websites, sort of plug and play) and it's not about how to write a killer sales page. It's about the heart of any business – traffic generation. How do you promote your product? Where do your prospective buyers find you?

Traffic is a lingo which means getting streams of visitors to visit your site. Without buyers, a business cannot exist. It's as simple as that. Actually, there are many ways to go about it. Some require capital and some are free. Some are straight forward and some require a bit of creativity. See if any of these will help you with marketing your products.

1. Using affiliates to promote your products

If you have a product in the 'real world' and need to promote it in a big way, what would you need? A good team of hungry sales people, of course! The more the better as you can expand faster and wider globally. This is true even in the virtual world. How do get sales people to sell your products online? They term is called 'affiliate marketing'. Affiliates are sales people who promote your products via their own website or other legitimate ways to receive a commission set by you, the seller or publisher. If you check out Clickbank.com, you can scan through their marketplace to see the various topics and products that are listed. Clickbank, however, specializes in ebooks, or non tangible products. Many of the publishers make money through their affiliate program, not direct sales.

You can promote your ebook here as a publisher and offer your affiliate 50-75% commission for every sale they make. No one has to worry about inventory and overhead costs. It's an ebook, downloadable in a matter of minutes! Buyers love ebooks and they are the hottest products on the internet today. Other sites you can check out is PayDotCom and Commission Junction. These are high traffic sites and your products will be seen much faster than if you were to offer affiliate programs in your own website. But that's not a bad idea too!

2. Distributing articles

There are thousands of article directories on the internet and for successful marketing, article written is gold and must be in the top 3 ways to promote your products. Your articles should be between 400-800 words and should not be seen as blatantly promoting a product. Directories love articles that are not promotional and are factual. Make sure that they are rich in relevant keywords (at least 3-5% of the total word count) as this will help improve your ranking in the search engines. If you are not able to write your own articles, you can purchase PLRs and change about 30% of the content to avoid being accused of duplication and being banned by the directories. If you prefer original articles, you can hire a ghost writer to write them for you for a fee. Writing and submitting articles one by one is tedious and time consuming. One of the best ways to get your articles out to hundreds of directories is to use an article submitter such as articlemarketer.com to do the submission for you.

3. Create an ebook

You may be wondering how creating an ebook can generate traffic to your site. A well written ebook can presell a product and lead readers to a targeted site just adding links in the content. The secret is to present the link as a reference rather than trying to convince the reader to 'click here and buy now". These potential customers are already assessing the writer as an 'expert' in the field of the topic of this book and any links included which reads as a value added information will generate more trust than doubt in the reader's mind. How do you promote the ebook? Give it out as a free gift in your advertisements, blogs, forums or articles. Everyone loves free gifts and won't hesitate to click to get it! Giving out free gifts is one of the fastest ways to make money online for the newbies.

4. Pay Per Click (PPC)

If you want one of the fastest way to generate traffic to your site, this is it. However, you will need to take a little time in selecting high probability keywords to optimize the search engines. Creating a niche market means exhausting every possible keyword or keyword phrases that a prospective buyer will type on the search engines. There is also a lot of trial and error to find which advertisement title and description works and which doesn't. The most popular PPC search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN Live and Ask.

The internet is constantly evolving. New technology that emerges creates new ways to market products online. What is hot last month will be old news next month. The important thing to remember is that making money online needs to be kept simple. Websites have to be non-confusing, easy to read and free of distractions. Your sales page need not be long winded filled with your grandmother's stories. Keep it straight to the point, don't sugar coat facts to the point that it looks unrealistic to the reader, such as "Easy Ways For Newbies To Make $100,000 in 30 Days". It's not believable and you would have lost a prospective buyer within seconds. Persevere, test & retest different methods of marketing and don't give up. Many have made profitable gains on the internet and so can you

5. Blogs

cannot stress enough on the value of blogs or weblogs in promoting just about anything, or just to speak your mind on your favorite topic. One of my favorites blogs is Hupages.com. They have provided capsules to add external links, videos, pictures and RSS feeds. They even rate you and your site on the originality of your content, how active you are in your participation in their community. I notice that Hubpages blogs can dominate the 1^st page of Google on any topic with the right keywords and relevant links back to your site. Other great blogs are Blogger.com and Wordpress.com but they are not as interactive as Hubpages. It is easy to generate traffic to bring prospective buyers to your sites by writing blogs, similar to article submission. The only difference is you have more freedom in including links in your content instead of just in the resource box.

6. Forums

Forums are meeting places for people with similar ideas and issues. They are a great place to search for answers and to introduce your products to. One of the best forums which bring together internet marketers is Warriorforum.com. You can learn a lot of different techniques on marketing from the experts, perhaps find a joint venture partner or find a ghost writer for your articles. Many of the writers in this forum are passionate about making money online. Some are experts but many are newbies. This is a valuable site to check out.

7. Yahoo.Answers.com

This is an interesting site created by Yahoo where visitors can log in and answer questions posed by people on practically any topic. You get rated for your participation and you can put your links as much as you please. A great way to promote yourself as an expert in your chosen topic.

8. Social Networking Websites

I have found community sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Squidoo valuable in garnering "friends & fans" that visit my site often to see what I have recently updated in terms of pictures, comments or links. It is usually easier to get supports from your own list than to get a total stranger to trust your products. Many of my prospective buyers come from this community.

9. Visit related sites

If you google a keyword specific to your product (say "get six pack abs" if you are promoting a book relating to abdominal exercises), you can run through the 1^st 2-3 pages of google's search results and look for sites that allow you to make comments as a guest and leave your website link (which is link-friendly of course). These sites may be forums, sites selling products or blogs. You'll be surprise that even a one line comment can get you listed on Google if your link is there or your keyword is relevant! Make sure these sites have high traffic that you can ride on. Many newbies are not taught this technique to promote their products and it should be a staple diet, so to speak.

10. Offline promotion

When we focus totally on the cyber world, we sometimes forget that people live in the real world. These people have regular jobs and participate in tangible activities. If you are in charge of marketing a product in the real world, where would you advertise? Here are a few options:

a) Newspapers (paid and free);

b) Related magazines & publications;

c) Name card

d) Banners

e) Seminars

f) Brochures

g) Word of mouth

If you can think of 10 more ways to get traffic to your site, write an article about it and put it on your hub. We can always learn new ways to generate traffic, get prospective buyers to visit our site and make money online. You can get a lot of mileage as well as it is a hot topic that marketers can never get enough of. If you are on a tight budget, check out this FREE EBOOK that gives you great tips on how to start generating a realistic income without the need of experience. And watch out for the last part, it will blow your mind away!

Good luck!