We all know that in order to be successful in Internet marketing business, we have to promote our websites to generate a steady and increasing number of visitors. This is true whether you are promoting a product, a service or a business opportunity. Also, it does not matter whether you are promoting your own products or somebody elses via an affiliate program.

In the process, you would probably come across many challenges some of which are listed below:

1) It is too expensive

Most of the newbies when first started out, are not willing to invest financially due to lack of knowledge and uncertainties. Especially with those lacking the required budget, there is a great reluctance to spend on promotion. Hence the progress of promotion is very slow in the beginning. It takes time to study all the countless and seemingly very attractive offers and to make the decision to part with their money.

2) Can this offer still work?

With the Internet, what used to work 6 months ago might not work now or two months down the road. For example, E-books or articles on the 12 top search engines published 3 months ago might no longer be valid. The recommended strategy would therefore no longer apply.

3) It takes to long to learn

How often have you heard this: You dont have to be a computer techy. In fact you dont have to have any computer knowledge as long as you can type and send an e-mail! Our software would do all the jobs for you!? Once you have done the process of ordering and parted with your money, you realize to your disappointment and frustration that itd take months for you to learn the so-called a-few- easy-steps procedure.

One of the main reasons most Internet marketers have given up after having failed to achieve any positive results is the fact that they have wasted too much time searching for the ideal the promotional strategies. Whatever they have tried or purchased do not work according to plan or the promise given. As a result, there is still no effective system to ensure traffic flow to their sites after months or even years.

One of your objectives should therefore be putting at least one or two traffic-generating systems such as writing and submitting articles to directories and optimising search engines (SEO) through the selection of keywords. This entails only minimal financial commitment on your part. If you are good in writing and enjoy doing it, you might decide to write your own articles. Otherwise you could join an article cooperative to get access to private label articles OR hire someone to write articles for you.

Lets discuss the differences of these 3 possibilities:

1) Do Your Own Research and Write Your Own Articles.

The main advantage of writing your own articles is that it's "free" and it would give you a sense of pride in accomplishment. You might enjoy writing articles to share your experience in Internet online business. The downside is that it'd take up some of your time to conduct some research work.

2) Join An Article Cooperative to Get Pre-written Articles.

A recommended article cooperative is InfoGoRound where you could get hundreds of pre-written articles for a small enrolment fee. From these you could choose those discussing subjects related to the content of your website. These are referred to as the "Private label articles which you have full permission to use and also add your own name and article resource box to the article as the author.

3) Hire Someone to Write Articles For You.

If you are not comfortable writing your own articles or if you find it too much a hassle especially when you're new to this business or if you do not fancy pre-written articles due to lack of originality, you could use an article ghost writing service such as Just Articles to put your own ideas into writing.

For a relatively small fee you can get your articles written very quickly.

For article marketing on the Internet, articles written with between 400-700 words would suffice. It goes without saying that your articles must be relevant to your Internet business. Hence topic of your articles should be related to: "working at home", "home based business", "Internet marketing", "making money online", "promoting a website", etc.

Submitting your articles and getting them re-published on others' websites and newsletters/ezines is one of the most powerful Internet marketing strategies. Your articles will then start working as a free advertisement for you forever. And you do not have to pay even a dime for such advertising space. You will continue to enjoy free traffic driven to your website for a long, long time!

Search engines are the first things Internet surfers look for when they are searching for goods or services. Where your website appears to the visitors in their search results is of utmost importance. The objective of all Internet marketers is to ensure that their URLs appear right at the top of the first page or at least the first 50th position since this would mean higher chances of the visitors clicking on the most prominent URLs. First and foremost, it is the Keyword. Keywords are the foundation on which the entire search engine system works. If a top ranking site suddenly drops drastically, it may mean that certain content of the website has become invisible or inaccessible to search engine spiders and crawlers. Very often certain particular keyword or phrase has been ineffective due to fierce competition.

Hence, Search engine optimization refers to the development of the right keyword strategies to ensure good ranking of your website. The most effective advertising technique online today is good placement in the search engines.

In conclusion, with writing and distributing articles and optimizing search engines, you would have at least two effective systems to ensure traffic flow to their sites after months or even years.

Copyright 2006 John Woon http://www.johnwoon.com