There are many effective ways to promote your business free. However, let's start with a brief look at a few of less- effective methods. Although rare person might get results that justify their continued use, most people find them to be a waste of time. These include:

* Free classifieds in newsletters. Some editors offer a free ad to new subscribers in an effort to build their lists. Unfortunately, if they're getting a lot of new subscribers, they're probably also getting a lot of free ad requests -- which means your ad is likely going to get crammed alongside several others. As you can imagine, readers often ignore 'classified ad' sections such as these.

* Free classifieds on websites, or 'Free-For-All' (FFA) sites where you can post your link. Most people go to post ads, not read them. How often do YOU go to these sites to read ads? Enough said.

* Free banner or link exchanges. You know type: you place a snippet of HTML on your website, and links or banners are automatically rotated through everyone in network. These are not usually targeted enough to give good results.

* Traffic-generating programs. You join a 'network' and 'share' traffic -- on your site, typically a popup or popunder window (advertising another member's site) is displayed as your visitor enters or leaves your site. Other members display your ad in a similar way. A popular example are 'start page' or 'exit page' programs. Sure, this can give you traffic... but most important thing is, does it give you *results* -- subscriptions to your newsletter, for example, or sales? The conversion rate is typically negligible or low for these types of programs.

Now onto good stuff... here are several excellent free marketing methods that have potential to yield great results:

__Targeted Link Exchanges.

Place a link to another related site on your own, and in return, ask them to reciprocate. Do it consistently and you will eventually have a wide-ranging network of targeted, relevant sites on which you are linked.

Your 'link popularity', as it's called, is used by many of major search engines to help determine how well your site is positioned in results. Plus more links you have, more places people can find you. You essentially 'share' another site's traffic.

__Build and Use Your Own Opt-In List.

There's nothing like your own newsletter to develop a relationship with your visitors. Make it your goal to provide quality content and you'll have loyal subscribers who trust you.

Writing and submitting articles is arguably most effective free way to achieve aforementioned, but there is another proven self promotion method that is often overlooked ...

Regular Online forum interaction.

Discussion forums, bulletin boards, Online communities, group chat, etc., in other words, a group of individuals with a common interest that share an interactive environment.

Every niche market has one or more of these high exposure, hot beds of interactivity available to them, and numbers continue to increase.

Reputable forums do NOT tolerate outright promotion, allowing (in most cases) only a signature file as identification.

This is actually a key benefit, as it helps maintain a controlled environment, setting stage for positive, content rich interaction.

Once you've established yourself through regular postings, level of trust, credibility, acknowledgement, and exposure you achieve will increase, commensurate to how well you're received by your fellow members.

Here is a list of Internet Marketing forums that I frequent:

Anthony Blake Online - Entrepreneurial Success Forum http://www.ablake.net/forum/

Bryan Hall's Success Network Forums http://www.bryanhall.net/members/forum/index.php

Neil Shearing's Internet Success Forum (member's only) http://www.scamfreezone.com/privatesite

Jim Daniel's BizWeb 2000 BB http://www.network54.com/Hide/Forum/184615

Klaus Dahl's Forum http://www.klausdahl.com/forum/index.php