In today’s online marketing landscape, learning how to market successfully can seem like a daunting task. There are just so many ways to drive traffic to your site, and let’s face it without traffic, your business is dead in the water. So if you want to learn the ins and outs of marketing but want to try and do it for as little money as possible, you need to get creative in how you drive traffic to your site. This isn’t as difficult as it may seem, and many of the most effective marketing strategies out there are actually free. So I want to share my top 5 ways to drive free traffic to your website:

1. Write articles

The biggest way you can create and distribute content on the web is to write articles on a topic related to your product or service. Offer information on how to do something, or perhaps write a review of certain products you offer. Then submit them to article directories. There are a number of directories, but you should stick to those that have a high page ranking or else it’s a waste of time. After all, you’re trying to get traffic, so you need to submit to a directory that actually has traffic to give you. You can check the rankings by visiting alexa.com.

2. Create a Squidoo Page

I’m sure by now you’ve probably heard of Squidoo, however if you haven’t, it’s a site where you create “lenses” on anything you want, such as your product or service. They can be about related topics, reviews, whatever you want, but you should make them revolve around whatever keywords you’re targeting. I think you should have a number of different lenses because they get such good page ranks in Google that you’ll want to have several of them pointing to your site.

3.Use forums

This is a great way to build traffic and you can meet some great people while doing it. However, when posting on forums you don’t want to promote your product, this is a no no. You’ll want to find forums that interest you and then join. Post messages, reply to others’ posts, make yourself visible. So you’ll want to make sure that each of your posts has a signature file at the end. It just needs to be a quick 1-2 sentence description or advertisement for your product and a link to your site. You will be surprised how effective this can be.

4. MySpace or Facebook

Many people have a MySpace page or Facebook page to keep in touch with friends, but they can also be powerful tools for generating free leads. They allow you to get to know your prospects, which makes you and your site curious. Just remember not to advertise your product or service on your page, only build relationships with people who may later be interested in what you offer because of that connection.

5. YouTube

Last, but definitely not least, is YouTube video posting. This has become one of the best free ways to market your business online. YouTube videos are completely viral and you could get traffic for a year by posting just 1 video. Think about how you could exploit this if you post a couple of videos a month or even a week.

So here is a short list of free ways to drive traffic to your site. I hope this has been helpful. Take care and happy marketing!