The main thing any website needs is a steady flow of traffic. You can have the most gorgeous, interesting and compelling website, but if no one visits your site, it doesn’t have much of a chance of generating an income. If you have unlimited time then you can probably get traffic free, but even with a small amount of money you may be able to ramp up your efforts. Remember ‘time is money’.
Don’t get discouraged because you don’t believe you have even a red cent to spend. It doesn’t necessarily have to take a lot of cash to generate website traffic for your business. If you are honest you will be able to ‘dig up’ some cash just by making a few sacrifices or cutting back on some things that are not necessities in your life. In the meantime you can get creative and find ways to get traffic free.
There are many ways to generate good traffic without spending money you don’t have or can’t afford. Even if you only get a small percentage of successful visitors who convert to a sale, it still works, if you can get a high number of visitors. When you are not spending an arm and leg to get them there, then it is much easier to profit from the transaction.
There are some ways that you can work everything to your advantage if you are creative and willing to work, in lieu of a huge operating budget. One way is to exchange links, if this is done in a responsible way. (No gimmicks and lots of caution). There are many webmasters that may be willing to exchange links with one another. The point is the more places someone might find your link and click it to visit your site, the better for your exposure.
It is somewhat important in exchanging links with other sites that they have the same or similar niche or market. Yes we are talking collaboration with your competition! The sooner you get past the ‘I win/you lose’ concept, the better for you. When you realize you can both win and benefit from each other, the sooner you understand ‘win/win’.
Exchanging links in a natural, organic way* (NO gimmicks) can also boost your search engine ranking. It is somewhat like the ‘you have to have money to make money’ theme – ‘you have to have traffic to get traffic’. The search engines will definitely note traffic being generated by inbound and outbound theme-related links so this is definitely an advantage.
Again the caution about ‘gimmicks’ – it is not natural to suddenly have a site that pops up with 200 new links in one day such as might be the case if you try to ‘submit’ your links to a service that will ‘display your link 10000000000 times’ – Run Away! Search engines really frown on sites that appear to be something they are not. Keep it real. Actually communicate with other online business owners to make arrangements to exchange links or don’t do it.
Be particular who you are linking with. The other important caution is to be sure that businesses that invite you to exchange links are what they say they are. It could have the opposite effect to be linked to a site that has porn, scams or that are known spammers. Pay attention.
Another related way is to work a deal with another business owner to ‘share their list’ (in a sense). Offer to promote their opportunity to your list in exchange for them promoting yours to theirs. Again you can actually benefit from your competition! Not only do you get the chance to show your stuff, but it is more or less being recommended by someone they already know and trust.
