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If your goal is to generate income from your site the most important thing you must have is a steady flow of website traffic.  If no one visits your site or knows you exist, there is no way your will generate income.  Pretty simple, huh?  Traffic equals  income and we will discuss this below.

Now before you beginning doubting yourself, understand that it does not take a ton of money to generate traffic and sometimes it doesn’t take any money at all. There are many ways to generate low cost website traffic without having to spend what you don’t have or can’t afford. Many people have banked on high cost methods and have ended up losing their shirt over it.

Below are some simple ways to generate low cost website traffic that will be very beneficial to your site.

Link Exchange

This is a sure and proven method. Rarely would you see a site where there is no link to another site. Many webmasters are willing to exchange links with one another so that they could produce more public awareness about their sites. You’ll soon see and feel the sudden upsurge of the traffic coming in to your site from other sites.

A major prerequisite in exchanging links with other sites is having the same niche or content as the other site. They should share a common subject so that there is continuity in the providing of service and information to what interests your target traffic.

Exchanging links also boosts your chances of getting a high ranking in search engine results. It is common knowledge that search engines ranks high sites that have inbound and outbound theme-related links. With a good ranking position in the search engines, you will generate more traffic in your website without the high costs.

Traffic Exchange

This is similar to exchanging links but on a different higher level. This may cost a bit more than exchanging or trading links but could be made cheaper because you get to earn credits. You can use those credits when viewing others traffic, while you earn credits when someone views yours.

Traffic exchange services are the viewing of another’s site or page. This is done vice versa where a site can use your sites contents and so can you to his or her site. You both benefit from each others efforts to generate traffic. The other sites visitors can go to your pages and know more about your site as well as theirs. Once again the public awareness of your sites existence is boosted.

Article Writing and Submissions

There are many e-zines and online encyclopedias in the internet which provides free space for articles to be submitted. If you want to save costs, you can do the articles yourself. There are many freelance writers who are willing to write for you for a small fee, but to save money, it is wise to do those articles yourself.

It is best to write articles that are themed along with the niche of your site. Write something that you have expertise on so that when they read it, they can feel your knowledge about the subject and will be eager to go to your site. Write articles that produce tips and guidelines to the subject or niche your site has.

Include a resource box at the end of your article that can link them to your site. Write a little about yourself and your site. If you provide a light, information-laden and interesting article, they will go to your site for more.

Newsletter/Ezine

This may sound like hard work because of all the articles you may need to use to build a newsletter but on the contrary, this is not so. There are many writers and sites that are willing to provide free articles as long as they can get their name in on your newsletter. This will also provide free advertising for them as well. As your newsletter gets passed around, you can widen your public awareness and build an opt-in list that can regularly visit your site.

There are many ways to generate traffic to your site, but I’ve included the simplest to get you started.  The ones mentioned about are low to no cost and when implemented you will notice an increase in your traffic.

Tags: Marketing by Carrie Wilkerson
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You’ve see them everywhere and have always wanted to begin one but never thought you could.  Well, below I share some tips to starting your own membership site.

First off the definition of a membership site -  is a website that provides information or services to those people who register and pay to be a member.

Most membership sites bill their members on a monthly basis. Once someone signs up as a member, depending on the owner’s set up, they are automatically billed each month. Those who sign up to become members have access to member’s only information provided by the site owner on a regular basis.

If you want to start a membership of your own you must first determine your market.  Once this is determine you will need to put together a product, service or other information your market is in need of. Remember, it must be valuable enough they will be willing to pay for it on a recurring basis.

Now that you have compiled your information, it’s time to think about how you will receive and keep track of member payments for each billing cycle.

Some popular payment options for members include credit cards or Paypal. Clickbank is also a popular payment gateway for membership sites, since they’ve recently added a recurring billing feature for publishers. The payments are still made by your customer via a credit card or Paypal, but Clickbank deals with all the accounting for you. This saves you a lot of time each and every month. You receive your check after all returns and fees have been removed and that’s it.

Your next step will be to determine which type of membership site software you want to use to manage your members, the content, and all the important confidential information such as logins, etc. that come with a membership site.

If you’re looking to save a bit of money with this step (some membership management software can be a bit pricey) one way you can handle how you offer your content and member access to it is to set up an email list. Each month send an email telling current members where to go in order to access their new information via a special link on your website.

Most importantly before taking this big step…first determine your market and be sure your information is valuable enough that people will pay for it.  You can do it, persistence is the key.

Tags: Marketing, Tips by Carrie Wilkerson
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You’ve always wanted to publish your own eZine or Newsletter but are hesitant.  Below are some pros and cons to consider, but remember publishing an eZine is a smart decision for your online and offline business.

Here are just a few of the Pro’s:

• perfect business to start and any individual can do it
• no large investments needed
• no need for large staff or staff at all in the beginning stages
• no expensive equipment needed

In fact, you can do this from the comfort of your home as the most important thing you will need is an auto responder equipped with broadcast feature.

Some great auto responders are,  GetResponse, aWeber and ConstantContact are highly recommended when it comes to publishing your own eZine but of course there are many more available.

A great advantage is the low start up cost and monthly fees.  You have the ability to  make money from several profit centers within the spaces of your eZine issues, such as selling advertising space.

But one of the best reasons is the ability to share your expertise and marketing of yourself, your products and services.  Publishing your own eZine makes perfect sense to increase your exposure online and offline.

Of course, just as any business has it’s Pro’s they also have their Con’s.

Here are some Con’s to publishing your eZine:

• lack of content
• time to write

If you notice those are the only two I will mention and of course I will give you solutions to those con’s.

You must not be afraid to publish your own eZine because of lack of content or time to write.  Creating content can be tiresome, especially if you are not a gifted writer or you run out of ideas but there are solutions to these problems as well.

To avoid the time issue, you may want to create your content in advance.  For example you may compile 30 days worth of content and not run into the issue of a time crunch.  If you are not blessed with writing skills you may hire a freelance writer or ghostwriter and still take credit for the written articles.

Another alternative is republishing articles from articles directories such as Ezine Articles.  This is a free service and all you need to do is include the resource box of the original author with the republishing rights.

Publishing your eZine or newsletter makes perfect sense.

Tags: Marketing by Carrie Wilkerson
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Tracking your marketing online is very important and something that should be done on a continual basis.  This is the only way to determine whether your marketing strategies are working or not.  If you do not track your marketing efforts you may be investing time and money into a strategy that may not be beneficial for your business.  We will discuss here some ways to track the results of your different marketing strategies.

Business owners who use banner ads have a simple way to track whether or not their banner ads are effective. This is possible because they can place code in the banner ad which will supply them with feedback each time a user clicks on the banner ad. This information is transmitted to the business owner so he can evaluate which of his banner ads are generating the most interest. If the business owner is currently using two different styles of banner ads on comparable websites he can use this information to determine which design is most effective. This is important because if one style is significantly more effective than the other it might be worthwhile to convert all of the banner ads to this style or to make changes which will make the two different styles more similar.

If the business owner is using the same banner ad on a number of different websites, the feedback can help him determine which websites are generating the most traffic for him. If he determines some websites are not generating a great deal of traffic it makes sense to discontinue the banner ads on these websites as they are not cost effective.

Some business owners will incorporate affiliate marketing campaigns and these too can be tracked. This type of tracking is actually necessary because affiliates are often paid according to the results they generate but it is also useful for determining which affiliates are most successful. This information can be useful if different ads are running on different affiliate websites because it can be an indication of which websites are most effective. Tracking the results of affiliate marketing is similar to tracking the results of banner ads. You can place code in the ads which appear on the affiliate’s website to provide you with feedback each time a user clicks on the ad.

Another way to evaluate the results of an Internet marketing campaign is to simply closely monitor your own website traffic and sales. This is especially important when it is done in consideration with the type of marketing you are currently running. For example if you launch a new banner ad campaign with ads appearing on numerous high profile websites concurrently, you may notice an almost immediate increase in website traffic and sales. This information most likely indicates the banner ads are successful.  Another method to track your marketing strategies on your own site is to ask customers or clients to fill out a survey stating where they saw your advertisement so you can solicit feedback on your marketing efforts.

These are just some ways to track your marketing efforts, but most important tip I can share with you is that you must track your different marketing strategies.  This will be the only way to determine if all your efforts are working or if you need to develop a different method.

Tags: Marketing, Work at Home Moms by Carrie Wilkerson
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You have probably heard or read my love for email lists.  Developing lists is a great way to help market your business online.  To promote your business endeavors, email marketing should be one tier of your Internet marketing campaign.

Many business owners shy away from email marketing because they believe all email marketing campaigns are purely spam. However, this is not true and not including this type of marketing can cause your business to lose out on a great deal of business.  Your business may lose a great deal of business to competitors who are using email marketing campaigns to reach customers around the world.

The first step in developing an email marketing campaign should be creating an email distribution list. Below are some options that will help you in your email marketing.

Before we go any further, we need to determine exactly what an email list is.  The email list is essentially a list to which you will email your advertising and promotional materials.  A common way to obtain emails is to purchase a list from distributors.  However, this method is not very effective at all and it is not recommended. The main problem with purchasing an email list is that there is  no way of knowing whether or not the members of the list would have any interest at all in your products or services. This is very important because while you want to reach a large audience with your email marketing you also want this audience to be members of your overall target audience.

A much better way to create an email distribution list for your email marketing campaign is to ask current customers as well as interested potential customers to register with your website to receive additional information and periodic updates about your products and services.  This will provide you with a database of addresses from current and potential clients and those who are genuinely interested in your products and/or services.

Once you have created a list of interested individuals you can send emails or create a newsletter for distribution. These documents should contain a wealth of valuable information as well as a soft sell pitch for your products and services. This information will be valued by the readers and may help to persuade them to try your products and services.  You might also want to include useful links to either your website as well as other websites which may be of interest to your readers.

So what are you waiting for?  You can create your email list and then create your product.  There is not need to wait to create your product first.  Start building your list today!

Tags: Marketing, Tips by Carrie Wilkerson
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