It sounds too good to be true, of course. Many companies will promise to do this for you. The catch - you have to put a banner ad, text link or popup on your page. This is not a good deal as it will increase your traffic by only 1% to 2% on each level. Furthermore, it involves hassle of an affiliate programme.

However, it is possible for you to get free viral traffic to your site using visitors you have. All you have to do is make it easy for them to tell their friends about your site. (Note that this tactic may not work if your site is a boring one and your visitors have no intention of telling their friends about your site.) Normally, it is too much trouble to shoot off an email. Therefore, if you want news of your site to spread rapidly by word of mouth, you must make it easy for your visitors to refer their friends to your site. The easiest way to do this is using a form. All they need to do is fill in their name, email, and emails of a few friends, then hit button. A quick email will be shot off to their friends with a link to your site. To have this kind of form, all you need is a HTML editor to make form and a script to process mailing.

The majority of businesses operate in highly competitive markets. What a customer can buy at your business, they most likely can buy at 101 other businesses.

Perhaps an example will clearly illustrate this point. Do a search in any search engine for "As Seen On TV Products". You might be staggered by numerous choices in result set. Which one do you choose? At this point you might as well do "enie-meanie-minie- moe" and randomly click on a company.

Now let's suppose you sell "As Seen On TV" products and you're lucky company who gets this customer's business. They order a number of items (maybe Ron Popeil's Ronco Showtime Rotisserie -- you know, "set it and forget it" guy) and you ring up a nice sale for $100. You beat out your competitors, THIS TIME.

---------------------- Caution: Beware of This Danger Zone! ----------------------

Here's where danger arises. What happens when this customer wants to purchase another "As Seen On TV product"? They go back to search engine, search for "As Seen On TV Products" and once again get overwhelmed by massive result set. They do another "enie-meanie-minie-moe" but this time click on one of your COMPETITORS' web sites.

Guess what? You just gave away your customer to one of your competitors. This is analogous to accidentally doing a slam dunk in YOUR own basket in a game of basketball and giving opposing team point! Your competitor -- or other team -- can't help but to feel gratitude towards you for helping them out.

That's right. Every single day of week businesses are repeatedly "shooting themselves in foot." Instead of you making another $100 on Ron Popeil's rotisserie, your competitor is enjoying fresh smell of that crisp new $100 bill. This is like committing a crime against your own business. At this rate you might as well walk out into your office parking lot and start burning your money.