If you don't know what you're doing, then do smart thing and hire an Internet marketing expert.

What? You say you can't afford to hire an Internet marketing expert. Well, believe it or not, there are other ways to hire an Internet marketing expert, besides paying an expensive flat rate or hourly fee.

You can hire an Internet marketing expert by simply buying his products. So, why should you buy his products?

Because Internet marketing experts are masters at marketing. They've already arrived at place you want to get to. They also derive great pleasure from sharing their incredible knowledge. They have answers to every single one of your questions. All you have to do is ask them.

However, you shouldn't expect any Internet marketing expert to spend their valuable time mentoring you for free. Like I mentioned earlier, at very least, you have to buy their products. I mean, let's get real. You wouldn't walk into a doctor's or lawyer's office and expect to get free help and advice.

Well, Internet marketing experts are highly trained professionals as well, and deserve to be compensated for their time. And some of them will offer you some sort of limited consultation, if you buy their products or use their service.

So, how do you go about finding an Internet marketing expert? It's actually a lot easier than you think. Most of your top Internet marketing experts are very high-profile.

In a nutshell, a vast number of pages, many of which had ranked at or near top of results for a very long time, suddenly disappeared from results altogether.

To so many on Internet, Google has become omnipotent "hand of God" and it's sickening! Why are so many people falling into trap of optimizing their website's to cater to Google's ever-changing algorithms? I refuse to play that game! I personally could care less about my search engine rankings. I never have. My search engine rankings go up and down like a yo-yo! They have for years. Yet, I'm still able to comfortably support myself and my family.

If you only remember one thing from this article, remember this: DO NOT DEPEND SOLELY ON SEARCH ENGINES FOR YOUR TRAFFIC! Find alternative ways to attract traffic to your website. If you're fortunate enough to achieve a high search engine ranking, consider it a bonus. But DO NOT MAKE THE SEARCH ENGINES A PRIORITY!

Why? Because when you stop to consider that Google, DMOZ and Yahoo! has millions and millions of pages in their directories, you'd really have a better chance of winning lottery, than getting high enough in results pages where it's going to make a significant difference in your traffic.

In fact, I receive a very tiny percentage of my traffic from search engines.

So, where's my traffic coming from? Well, vast majority of it comes from dozens of articles I've written that have been picked up and published on popular websites. I also get traffic via word of mouth, newsletters that my articles are published in, and a few other secret methods that I use.

Yes, like Colonel Sanders, I too have a secret recipe!

And if all of search engines disappeared tomorrow, I'd be just fine, because I'm a marketing man. I know how to market myself and my service. I was lucky enough to be born a "baby boomer." That means I had honor and privilege of personally seeing first-hand, some of greatest copywriting in history. I took lots of notes and learned my lessons well.

Back then, mailorder was Internet of its time, and boy was there marketing talent everywhere! You should really do yourself a favor sometime and go to library and read old mailorder books. Some great titles to look for include, "How To Get Rich In Mail Order," by Melvin Powers, "Money In Your MailBox," by L. Perry Wilbur, "How To Make A Fortune In Mail Order," by Al Stern and "Building A Mail Order Business," by William A. Cohen .

You'll come away a lot smarter and you'll discover some ingenious ways to market your website, besides search engines.