Let's face it... It doesn't matter how many newsletters and articles you read about starting your own affiliate program or building your opt-in e-mail list, if your web site isn't getting any traffic, these advanced techniques are about as effective as trying to carry water in a bucket with a hole in the bottom. You're not going to make any progress at all!

Affiliate programs and opt-in e-mail are two techniques that you're probably hearing a lot about these days. And with good reason. Both are powerful ways to increase your online income and sales... if your web site is getting the necessary traffic, that is!

Obviously, if your web site isn't getting any traffic, then it's extremely difficult to build a list of opt-in e-mail subscribers. And starting your own affiliate program is pretty much pointless because if your site isn't getting the traffic, then nobody is going to join!

So as a new e-business owner, you may be left scratching your head, wondering, "How the heck do I get these people to my web site?"

If you've been struggling to build a steady stream of targeted traffic to your web site -- so that you can eventually start profiting from some of the more advanced techniques -- then I think you're really going to enjoy the five simple traffic tricks that I'm about to share with you...

Traffic Trick #1:
Purchase Ad Space In Newsletters And E-zines

The beauty of purchasing ad space in online newsletters and e-zines is that you can target your market with laser-like precision. Online newsletters tend to narrowly focus their content to meet the needs and capture the loyalty of a very specific readership… giving you the perfect opportunity to get your ad in front of your best potential customers!

Of course, in order for this type of advertising to work, you need to be very careful when choosing which newsletters to purchase ad space in. There are several factors that should be taken into consideration including:

• Who are the readers? Do they fit the profile of your best potential customer?
• How many subscribers are there? This question is important when deciding what you’re willing to pay to advertise in a particular newsletter. Do the math and figure out what you’re paying per subscriber.
• Where will your ad be placed? Will it be at the top of the newsletter? The middle? The bottom? Will it be surrounded by other ads?
• How big can your ad be? Will it only be a few lines of text? A paragraph? An entire article?

These are all factors that should be taken into consideration when deciding what an ad in a particular newsletter is worth to you.

The best way to find targeted newsletters is by surfing the Web and contacting the sites one by one. If you do this, you’ll likely find a number of excellent newsletters with a loyal subscriber base that have not yet taken advantage of their advertising potential. There are plenty of sites that have developed a strong relationship with their readers, but that have never offered advertising before and likely don’t know what it’s worth.

These can be some of the most profitable newsletters to advertise in! Not only do you get quality advertising at bargain basement prices, you also get first crack at advertising to a readership that is "ripe for the picking!"

However, if you are not having any luck locating ad space, then you may wish to search the sites listed below for newsletters that cater to your industry or niche:

http://ezine-universe.com
http://www.ezinehub.com
http://www.newsletteraccess.com
http://www.zdnet.com/filters/email/
http://gort.ucsd.edu/newjour/
http://www.nwwsubscribe.com/foc36/

Traffic Trick #2:
Buy A Top Spot In The Pay-Per-Click Search Engines

Pay-per-click search engines are much like auctions -- they allow you to bid for top-ranking positions under keywords of your choice. For each visitor who searches the keyword(s) you rank under and then clicks through to your web site, you pay whatever you bid. Prices typically range from 1 cent to numerous dollars per click-through for popular keywords.

For example, let’s say that your web site caters to bowling enthusiasts, and you want to be ranked in GoTo.com (the most popular pay-per-click search engine) under the keyword "bowling." In order to be ranked in the #1 spot, you would need to outbid the site that currently claims the top spot.

For the sake of this example, let’s say that to be ranked #1, you need to pay 12 cents per visitor -- the site that’s currently in the #1 spot is paying 11 cents per visitor. So you submit your bid of 12 cents, and within a couple of days, your web site is ranked in the #1 spot in GoTo.com under the keyword "bowling."

Now when someone searches "bowling" in GoTo.com, your web site appears in the #1 position. If they read your site description and title, and decide that your site might be relevant to their needs, they may decide to click on your link. If they do click-through to your web site, you are charged 12 cents.

There are a few advantages to bidding on keywords through the pay-per-click search engines….

1. You only ever pay for advertising that works because you only pay when someone actually clicks-through to your web site. This means that pay-per-click search engines can be a cheap way to draw targeted traffic to your web site.
   
   
2. Rather than waiting weeks, even months, for your web site to be listed with many of the other search engines, pay-per-click search engines will list your site within as little as a couple of hours -- a couple of days at most.
   
   
3. All you need to do to be ranked in a #1 spot is outbid the other sites. It’s a pretty straightforward process compared to achieving and maintaining a top ranking position in the "regular" search engines.

The most popular pay-per-click search engine is GoTo.com -- it receives the most traffic by far. However, there are many others worth considering, including Findwhat.com, 7search.com, Bay9.com, and Kanoodle.com.

While the less trafficked pay-per-click search engines may not drive as many visitors to your web site, you will be able to purchase top ranking positions much cheaper than you will in GoTo.com, so take this into consideration when choosing where to spend your advertising dollars.

More and more pay-per-click search engines show up each month, so for a current list of them all, search "pay-per-click search engines" in any regular search engine.

Important Note:

Please understand that I'm not suggesting that you start bidding a dollar per visitor when you're just starting out. Focus on targeted keywords and phrases that your visitors will be using to find you in the search engines, but that are what you determine to be "reasonably priced" (what you are willing to pay to attract a visitor will vary depending on your business model, your visitor-to-sale conversion ratio, and your profit margin).

A really effective way to start driving highly targeted traffic to your web site is by persuading other related sites in your industry to link to you.

You see, a link is equivalent to a personal recommendation. A link from another well-respected webmaster establishes your credibility even before the visitor reaches your web site, dramatically increasing the likelihood that they will buy.

Think about it… Gary arrives at his favorite web site and notices that they have posted a link to your site. Gary knows and trusts his favorite site and therefore assumes that, because they’ve linked to you, your business must be credible too.

Gary clicks through the link to your web site and is immediately open to offers you present him with. Why? Because your credibility was established before he even arrived at your homepage!

But how do you do it? How do you persuade other sites to point their traffic directly at yours with a link?

First of all, you need to do some research. Who would you most like a link from? Surf the Net for web sites that deal directly with your target market and collect the personal contact information for the web site owners.

Don't talk about how you'll benefit, how great you are, or how fantastic your products are. Focus on showing potential linking partners how linking to you is going to benefit their visitors. You need to talk about "what's in it for them."

The beauty of this is, once you've secured a link, the site could very easily funnel traffic to yours for years to come. So it really is worth spending some time to start building a mutually beneficial relationship with them.

For my Car Secrets Revealed site (http://www.carsecrets.com/), we spent two solid months locating high traffic car sites and convincing them (by e-mail, phone, and fax) to link to us. It was hard work, but now these links are generating over 22,000 visitors to our site every month!

That's over 250,000 visitors a year, for years to come. And all it took was a couple month's hard work. I'm sure you can imagine the profit we make from 250,000 targeted visitors per year!

Obviously, developing a linking strategy that directs a high volume of targeted traffic to your web site is not an overnight process. It will take you anywhere from two weeks to six months to secure the quality links you need.

However, I promise you that it’s worth the effort! Once you have done the initial footwork, the links that are established will remain on these sites for years to come.

Traffic Trick #4:
Placing Online Classified Ads

When approached with the right technique, online classified advertising can be a powerful way to attract new visitors to your web site and generate impressive sales… all with very little investment!

How can this be? Well, think about it for a moment.. Electronic classified ads remove the hassles and barriers… giving people greater incentive to investigate your offer and BUY!

Think about it…

You've posted an ad for your product. A curious shopper is snooping about, reading the various offers when they come across your ad. Your offer intrigues them and they want to know more, so they simply click on the link that you have conveniently provided them with.

Voila! They arrive at your site where they can view your product, read your sales copy, and easily make their purchase online. It's quick, it's easy, it's hassle free… and you capture the sales of impulse buyers!

The truth is, the online classifieds can be a great source of income. Unfortunately, the majority of people don’t know how to take advantage of them.

Did you know that there are well over 1,000 free classified ad sites on the Net? It’s true… There are hundreds and hundreds of classified ad sites that will allow you to post your advertisement at absolutely no cost, giving you a cheap and easy opportunity to drive more traffic and more sales to your web site.

Of course, you need to be prepared to work at it -- placing your ad on one or two sites isn’t going to do much for your business. While an ad site might receive a reasonable amount of traffic, there might only be a handful of people -- even just 1 or 2 -- each day who are interested in the category that you’ve submitted your ad to. So you might only have a few people read your ad… never mind click through it.

Depending on how much traffic a particular site gets, it may actually be a few days before someone clicks through your ad to your site… and then it’s up to you to convert this visitor into a sale. If only 1 out of every 100 people who visit your site buys (this is pretty standard), it could take months of posting your ad on one particular site to finally close a sale.

That’s why submitting your ad to the free online classifieds is a numbers game. If you want to generate the most sales and traffic, you need to submit your ad to as many sites as you possibly can.

It’s for this very reason that most netrepreneurs will never harness the full marketing potential of electronic classified ads. This goldmine of potential sales will never be within their reach for one simple reason… manually entering classified ads is just too time consuming!

First, you would need to locate the URLs for the various ad sites. This can be a daunting task in itself! How do you know which sites are worth your time… and which aren’t?

Then once you've actually chosen a URL, you need to:

1)		Wait for the page to download
2)		Choose "Post Ad" and wait for that page to download
3)		Type in the ad for each classified
4)		Confirm the ad and submit it
5)		Press back for a new submit or new category
6)		And then go back again to choose another URL.

This is no small time commitment! Did you know that you can expect to spend anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes submitting each ad?

This means that in order to submit your classified ad to 1,000 ad sites, you would need to work full-time for THREE weeks … repeating the same steps over and over again!

Do you have the time -- and patience -- to sit in front of your computer for three whole weeks, submitting your ad to classified ad sites? I know I sure don't… And this doesn't even include the time involved in actually maintaining your ad placement within the sites!

Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long for your ad to start sliding down the page of these sites as other advertisers submit their ads -- and this means that to stay on top, right where you’re most visible to your potential customers, you’ll need to resubmit your ad when it starts to slide!

This is a lot of work…and I should know!

This is the same problem that was driving me crazy. I knew that classified ads held explosive sales potential… but the time commitment involved in submitting and maintaining them was just too great to make it worth the effort.

Fortunately, I encountered a really great piece of software called Power Submitter that remedies all of the old problems of classified ad submission. It automatically submits your ad to the top 1000+ Free Classified Ad sites… all with the click of a few buttons here and there.

It's just that simple! All you need to do is...

1)		Type in your ad
2)		Pick the categories and sections of the classified ad sites that you would like your ad to appear in
3)		Press Start
4)		And then walk away!

In less than one hour, from start to finish, Power Submitter submits my ads to the top 1,000+ sites, and it only takes me a few minutes to set the whole thing up. It’s an easy way to give your sales a dramatic boost… and begin seeing results in only a few short hours!

Is classified ad submission worth three weeks (or more) of your time? I doubt it. Is it worth one hour of your time? Absolutely! If you're interested in learning more about Power Submitter, click here now.

Traffic Trick #5:
Participate In Relevant Newsgroups

Look. I’m not going to kid you -- promoting your e-business through newsgroups is not an overnight moneymaker. This marketing technique takes a serious commitment to the long-term success of your business.

However, with hundreds of thousands of newsgroups to choose from, and millions of people reading and participating in these worldwide discussions every day, newsgroups can still be a great place to…

• Kick-start your sales campaign when you’re first getting your business off the ground by getting your name and your URL in front of targeted potential customers.

• Develop your reputation as an industry expert by making yourself available to answer questions and provide participants with information that they will value.

... with the right approach, that is!

You see, newsgroup promotions are ultimately about selling yourself as industry expert with a wealth of knowledge to share. Gimmicky sales tactics and hype do NOT work! People participate in these online communities because they want to share information -- not because they want to be "sold" something.

So this means that you should be looking for opportunities to respond to questions with the exact information the poster is looking for in order to gain the respect of the community. The trick is to sit back, listen, and wait for legitimate opportunities to share your expertise.

The best way to locate newsgroups that relate to your industry or niche is by using the "search" or "find" feature in your newsreader. You simply type in one or two keywords, and this will bring up a list of potential newsgroups.

You may also want to try searching "newsgroup directories" in Yahoo! as this will provide you with a current list of some of the top newsgroup directories. Some good places to start looking for discussion boards and newsgroups related to your area of interest include…

http://groups.google.com
http://www.talkcity.com
http://www.topica.com
http://www.forumone.com/index/index.php

… but a quick search in any major search engine should also produce good boards and chat rooms to check out.

Final Thoughts:

My best advice is this: don't spread your energy and your budget thin, trying to do everything at once. Clearly focus your efforts, and you're going to see much better -- much more profitable -- results!

Take things one step at a time:

#1:		Get the traffic to your web site!
#2:		Make certain that your web site and sales copy is converting your visitors into paying customers!
#3:		Develop a strong relationship with your growing opt-in e-mail list!

... and then start looking into more advanced techniques like opt-in e-mail promotions and affiliate programs. You'll be far more successful if you do things one step at a time, with your best efforts focused on each.