A few months ago, I knew nothing about marketing on the internet, affiliates, search engine optimization, etc, etc, etc. I made the mistake of having a website built for me and then having it sit there doing nothing. Yes, I could send prospects to my site and they could learn more about me, however, the site was not generating a dime. In addition, every time I wanted to make a change, there was another charge (cha-ching). More and more dollars were going out of my pocket with nothing coming in.

A business associate introduced me to Social Marketing and how I could drive traffic to my site simply by sharing useful information with others. With Web 2.0, the internet took an evolutionary step that moved it from just being a collection of web sites to an entity the average person (like me) could interact with. With social sites, forums, groups of all kinds, the world was now my marketplace.

Web 2.0 opened the opportunity for millions of people to become social on the internet as they could now share ideas, content, products, services, and interact in many ways. This opened a whole new world to me. By spending one - two hours a day writing a quick article, like this one, and interacting with others, the traffic to my site started to grow.

Through interacting with various successful marketing guru's, I learned how I could generate my own leads and prospects. Using blogs, content sharing, articles, book marking and other social marketing tools, you can drive traffic to your lead capture page. People are starting to ask me for more information, use my affiliate links and interact with me. No more chasing leads!

Did I do all of this on my own? Are you kidding me! Definitely NOT! Two tools have helped me more than anything else - SiteBuildIt to build a website that I can change, update and monetize to my heart's content - and Renegade University that taught me how to use the power of Web 2.0 and attraction marketing to the fullest extent.

Today I am getting between 30 and 50 hits on my site each day - and I am not even on page one of Google or Yahoo (although, someday I will be!) By using the tools taught in Renegade University, I can be confident that my business will continue to grow - not to mention the fun I am having along the way.

There are some pitfalls to be aware of when building on a budget and one of those marketing guru's I mentioned, does a great job of covering those pitfalls in his Squidoo lens.