The problem is, no matter how great your product or how gorgeous your website, you need traffic. If people can't find you, they can't buy from you either. Consistent, dedicated marketing will help you to draw interested prospects to your business. Here are a few strategies...

1. Search engines. Optimize your pages and submit your site to major SEs. If you're able to rank within top 10 or 20 sites for a particular key phrase, you'll be treated to a steady stream of targeted traffic. A good place to learn more about SE optimization is http://www.searchenginewatch.com/ .

2. Targeted link exchanges. Find other good sites within your market and offer to trade links. You and your 'link partner' will both benefit from each other's traffic ... plus some of major SEs are now using 'link popularity' to help determine your ranking. 'Zeus' is a neat little robot that can help you with your linking efforts. Find it at http://www.cyber-robotics.com/index.htm .

3. Build your own opt-in newsletter. Your own newsletter gives you opportunity to build your credibility and keep in touch with your customers. You'll be able to market your own products or services to them as well - and even earn some extra income from advertising sales. Find a quick tutorial on starting your own newsletter at http://www.buildyourhomebiz.com/ezine/ .

4. Ezine advertising. Ezines are a very affordable way to reach thousands of targeted prospects for just a few dollars. A great place to pick up deals on advertising is http://www.ezineadauction.com/ .

5. Network through message boards. Join a forum where potential customers or partners may congregate. Become a contributing and respected member by offering help and support. Leave your link at bottom of your posts; people who have come to know you will click on your link for more information about you and your business. Careful, though - it's easy to spend too much time 'chatting'! Search for appropriate forums at ForumOne, http://www.forumone.com/index/index.php .

6. Referral marketing. Encourage your customers to refer others to you. You may want to give them an incentive to do so - for example, provide them with a discount on their next order, or offer a quality free gift.

The great news is that your site can start becoming sticky and viral right away by employing a few simple tools. Before we start looking at these tools that you may add to your site, it is important to remember that this works best if you add them into all your pages, emails, and products, as much as is possible to do so. Here we go:

Email To A Friend

On every page on your site, you should make it easy for people to send that page to their friends. Did you know that most people would look at something their friends send them? The number one rule of making something viral is making it easy to spread. Make sure that each page has a clear link or icon that invites user to send page to their friend. When they click on it, they should be able to send simply by entering their name and their friend's email address - keep it simple. The only other bit of information you may want to ask them for is their friend's name for personalization purposes. To add such functionality to your site, you will need to download a free script. There are plenty to choose from. You can find one in Webmasters Specials CGI Scripts category at www.aboutwebmasters.com.

Free tools and products that pass on

Offer a free version of your product, or something else free. Make sure that it is useful; otherwise no one will really care about it. Ensure also that it is very easy for users to pass on these free products to their friends. If you can integrate this passing on as part of product use, then you have it made because by using product, person will have to tell their friends about it. Something you can quickly make is a screensaver and wallpaper. Download a good product for making these (see www.download.com), get some good images and create a quality screensaver and wallpaper. You can add your site URL and description to some screens on screensaver. Then submit screensaver and wallpaper to popular download sites such as ZDNet.com and Download.com. Every time someone downloads and uses screensaver, they get to know about your site.

Forums, Chat, Community and Office Tools

Provide ways through which your site visitors can add content to your site and communicate with each other. Have forums, chat, and possibly instant messaging. One way to easily add this to your site is using www.everyone.net. Offer free office tools, too, such as calendars, file sharing, to-do lists, group tools, and more. You can do so easily and for free my signing up with www.myevents.com.

Postcards

People love sending postcards. Blue Mountain Arts made history when it was acquired for over 800 million dollars, yet all it did was allow people to send electronic postcards to each other. The magic here is that if someone sends a friend a card fro your site, that friend will almost always want to pick it up, and to do so they would have to pic it up at your site! That is a great way to get new users. To start a free postcards service on your site, all you need is to buy a CGI script that will do all work for you. It is very easy. You can find one in Webmasters Specials CGI Scripts category at www.aboutwebmasters.com.

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