The most important thing Internet marketers need is traffic. Without traffic (targeted traffic) how would you make any sales? It doesn’t matter how good your website is, traffic is key. You could have the best headlines and sales copy on the planet and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference in your bottom line. That is because, without a sufficient amount of traffic you will not do very well. This article is going to reveal four very simple things that can be put to use immediately. These are time tested and proven methods for getting targeted traffic to flow to your capture page.

Write articles. This is an often underutilized method of traffic generation, especially by internet marketing beginners, that does more than just bring traffic to your website. It positions you as an expert and builds trust in your prospects’ minds. The value of this is often underestimated. People have to trust you or value your opinion if they are going to order from you or join your “team.” People will pass you by if they don’t first feel comfortable with you and respect your opinions. Submitting articles is a great way to “break the ice”.

Here is what to do. Write a series of articles relating to your market niche. Distribute two articles per week to major ezines such as ezinearticles.com or goarticles.com. At the bottom of the article you are allowed to have a signature (or bio). You can include a small amount of information about your website and a link to your homepage. If people like the information you give them, they will click the link and visit your site. This is why it’s important to provide useful, high quality information. People will only want to visit your website if you give them something of value first.

Exchange links with popular sites. This method works on two levels. First of all, you will receive traffic through the your links posted on other sites. Also, as more and more websites link to yours, your search engine rankings naturally begin to rise. This can be a major source of traffic. Showing up on the first page of results in the major search engines can bring you tens of thousands of visitors per month.

Here is how to get links to your site. Find sites that are very similar in theme to your site. Make a call or send an e-mail to the site owner about the possibility of doing a link exchange. Send them a link to the page that you are displaying on your website that you have already put their link on. Now it is their turn. They will do one of two things, either accept your offer or not. If they refuse to add a link to your site on their website, simply remove their link from your site.

Use Pay Per Click advertising. Although Pay Per Click costs money, it can be a very good way to drive targeted traffic to your site. If you select your keywords with care and make proper bidding choices it can be a very cost effective and useful tool to add to your marketing plan. Google Adwords and Overture are the two top Pay Per Click companies. However, Yahoo and MSN offer pay per click advertising as well, often for less cost per click than the “big guys.” To get the most out of Pay Per Click advertising you need to be armed with at least a bit of knowledge on the subject. I suggest buying a book or ebook on the in’s and out’s of pay per click advertising before starting a campaign.

Submit videos to video sites. Making and posting Videos to Youtube of the best ways to get yourself “found” on the internet. Good quality videos can also be made with the most basic equipment. For instance, you can use a small digital camera that has a movie mode or an inexpensive webcam. You can also make videos from still pictures. So you actually can do videos without a movie camera at all! Processing your movie can be done using a free video editing program that is part of your Windows operating system.

Here is what to do. Make a video about your product or opportunity. Upload your video to Youtube and give it a catchy title and description based on it’s content. There are some things you can do with the title and description to make sure that it is seen by as many people as possible. For instance, make sure to do some keyword research and use those keywords or “tags” that laser target the audience that you want to reach. I could go on about that but that is a subject for another article. For now, learn from others that are already on Youtube. Take a look at the descriptions and tags on highly viewed videos and “learn” from them!

While any one of the traffic generating strategies mentioned above can make a difference in your marketing efforts, I suggest using all of them. Doing this will give you more traffic in the shortest timeframe. The more you put into the methods discussed in this article the better they will work.

If you are looking for ways to draw traffic to your website, you might want to consider holding a contest or giveaway. While these can draw a lot of “freebie seekers” who are only interested in the prize, you can generate a lot of buzz that will bring qualified leads, too.

Consider the products and services offered by your website and then use your imagination to create a fun contest that will appeal to the average customer you will be targeting with this promotion.

If your website is devoted to parenting issues, you could hold a contest where entrants describe their funniest parenting mishap or the most embarrassing thing their children said in public, etc.

Contests can also be used in conjunction with the release of a new product. Suppose you had a website for busy women which offers tips on how to manage time better and that you were preparing to present a new product that discusses what to do to make it through the holidays. A possible contest that you could hold is asking for funniest Thanksgiving food disasters or best tip for holiday shopping time-saving.

Contest prizes can be arranged by owners of other websites or can come from your very own products and services. If you choose to go with a different website for prizes, you won’t have to spend any money on them and the other website’s owner will probably be happy to receive some free publicity. If you do this, be sure to mention the name of the provider of the prizes on your website.

For the less creative, simply asking for visitors to submit their personal information and holding a giveaway choosing a random winner from the submissions is still a great idea. You can use the same system for prizes that was outlined in the previous paragraph.

A giveaway can also be used to increase your customer retention. If you have a service- based business, such as virtual assistance or graphic design, you could hold a monthly drawing and each time one of your customers paid for a service that month, they receive an entry form. For example, if a client paid for three graphics that month, they would be entered three times. Your customers may want to win a prize so bad, that they keep buying your services each month just to have a chance at winning.

To be successful, you’ll want to promote your contest as much as possible. You’ll want to send a notice to your mailing list as well as putting information about the contest on the main page of your website and blog. If you offer a podcast, make sure you mention it to your listeners.

A large number of other sites will allow you to advertise your contest with them as well. Google “contest submission sites” to get a hold of some good possibilities. Press releases can also be well utilized to stimulate interest for your event.

Giveaways and contests can boost the amount of traffic your website receives, greatly benefiting your business. As you use them, think about the results and how you can adjust your ideas in an attempt to match your customers’ interests as well as possible.