By Terry Dean

Traffic is the most popular subject in Internet marketing.

It doesn't matter how good your sales copy is, you will eventually live or die by the traffic you generate to your web site.

If you have no traffic, you have no sales. There is no way around it.

So what's the best way to generate traffic?

Everybody seems to have an opinion on the subject. Everywhere you turn there is another "Startling Discovery" of how to drive millions of visitors your way.

For only $100 you can have 100,000 visitors sent your way...

But the question is...what kind of traffic do you want?

Do you want visitors who just pop-in and pop right out? Or are you looking to attract targeted hungry customers and buyers for your products and services?

Well, if you're serious about making money, you want real visitors who are ready and willing to buy your products and services.

You're simply not going to get this kind of visitors by joining the hot "traffic generation" technique of the month.

There always seems to be a NEW thing that everybody jumps on...and you see published in a majority of ezines. People will jump on it this month, tire of it, and then be on to something new next month.

I've been doing this business for 7 years now and although things do change quick, I'm still using many of the exact same strategies I did way back when I started.

Some of those techniques are the ones I want to share with you today. These are the techniques which have worked for years, and will continue to work for years to come.

They are not fly-by-night opportunities. They are real...and they can and will generate traffic for you TODAY and for years to come.

They may not be exciting, but they work! And that's the point of this business. Who cares what's the most exciting and most talked about? We only care about what earns our business the most profits.

Traffic Method #1 - Joint Ventures

You have a product. You find people who already have the hungry customers you're seeking.

The most common form of joint venture online is the affiliate program. You set-up the software and you can instantly handle thousands of affiliates selling your products and services for you.

You'll find that a large number of the people who teach Internet marketing use their affiliate programs as their primary selling tool.

Simply find large ezines or high traffic web sites in your niche market and partner with them.

Offer them a percentage of the profits varying anywhere from 10% to 75% of the selling price. It's absolutely no risk to you whatsoever, because you don't spend a penny on marketing until a sale is made.

A good program to use for your affiliate program is here:

http://www.netofficetoolbox.com

Traffic Method #2 - Pay-per-click Search Engines

You don't pay for traffic with these search engines unless their visitors click on and visit your web site. So you're paying for real guaranteed highly qualified visitors to your web site.

The ones I like best are:

http://www.google.com
http://www.overture.com
http://www.sprinks.com

The key to using PPC search engines effectively is coming up with hundreds or even thousands of possible keywords. You're looking for keywords which have decent traffic but very low bids.

You don't want to be spending $1 or more per visitor if you haven't tested your web site to produce that kind of income already. So you have to avoid the most popular keywords and find a lot of less used ones.

A great tool for finding keywords fast has recently been developed by one of my coaching clients. It's awesome. Check it out here:

http://www.bizpromo.com/awa.html

Traffic Method #3 - Content Web Sites

The poor content web site has been attacked, made fun of, and ignored for years. A content web site is one with lots of content on it including: ebooks, articles, and even a discussion board.

This is the exact opposite type of site from a mini-site. A mini-site is a web site with only a page or two and focuses just on a sales letter. A customer either buys or doesn't buy. No other choices are offered to them.

The majority of my web sites are designed in this fashion. They are mini-sites and all they contain are a sales letter and order form.

Content sites have a place. They can be used to draw traffic and visitors. People will link to a content site. Search engines will index a content site much easier than they will a sales letter.

All this traffic can be produced for free (although you will do a lot of work to produce the content).

Then you can get these visitors to sign up for an email newsletter OR drive them to your mini-site sales letters. The content site is never the purpose of your business. It is just a traffic generating mechanism that you use to push visitors to your sales letters.

Take a look at:
http://www.bizpromo.com/free/

Bonus Traffic Method - Offline Advertising

Print media has been taking a major hit in recent years from a loss of advertising revenue. Advertising in printed publications and through direct mail just isn't as popular anymore because they weren't as exciting as the Internet.

That's changing.

Webmasters are finding out that they can drive qualified buyers to their web sites using offline advertising. And those visitors captured offline are worth much more than their average online surfer.

They're also discovering that sending postcards and direct mail pieces to their online buyers is resulting in significantly more sales than simply email follow-up alone.

So you make money offline...by driving offline visitors online...and then contacting online buyers offline.