Can you afford to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for marketing firm to bring in customers to your website? While these companies promise their services will bring results, what they do for you may or may not prove as effective as doing it yourself. You, equipped with the right knowledge, can achieve success with internet marketing and not spend extra money beyond your internet connection.

First, let us clarify what "free" means. We are using this term to describe marketing techniques that do not require you to spend additional money, but they do involve investing time. If you are able to come up with the time, it is quite possible to avoid spending money to market your business. Read on to find out marketing strategies that show you how to earn money online in 7 easy steps.

Step 1: Decision.

Decide what kind of business might work for you. If you are new to internet marketing, it is usually recommended that you promote existing products as an affiliate. This allows you to gain experience in making money online by marketing the products of others on your website. Also, as an affiliate you can be paid by check and avoid the fees associated with setting up a merchant account. Note: regardless of whether you decide to sell something that is your own or someone else's, it should be in an area in which you already have some knowledge and interest. Your expertise will be very important in the marketing of your business, as is choosing the right niche.

Step 2: Website.

Find a free web hosting service and start building your website. If your need help building pages, there is free software for that too. Developing your website will be heavily dependent on your marketing decisions, so you will need to focus on the next phase, marketing, while your site is still under contruction.

Step 3: Autoresponder.

Find a free autoresponder to pair with your website. An autoresponder will automatically send an e-mail or series of e-mails to everyone who sends an e-mail to a certain address or registers at your website. This helps ensure that no matter how many inquiries you have, there will always be some sort of reply and follow up.

Step 4: Keywords.

Devote your attention to finding and optimizing keywords for your site. There are free tools to assist you with both keyword selection and search engine optimization. The point of these is to include words on your website that will be in demand by a select group of people who are searching online for what you have to offer.

Step 5: Articles.

Write informative articles that relate to your field on a regular basis. It costs nothing to submit articles to most directories. People who read your articles may be interested enough to follow a link at the end of your piece that leads to your website.

Step 6: Blog.

Develop a free blog and post to it on a weekly basis, or even more frequently if you can. People are drawn to honest, informative blogs and those you win over as readers are more likely to link to your main website.

Step 7: Forum.

Visit forums that relate to your area of business. Learn what questions people are asking to stay current in your ideas of what people want to know. Then add your insightful posts to the forum to get your name and link to your website out to that select group of people.

When you are trying to get your business up and running for free, you may have to make some initial concessions like having someone else's banner ads displayed on your website. But since you haven't had to put down any cash upfront (as an affiliate), whatever money begins to come in can be simple profit. Get your start by understanding how to earn money online in 7 easy steps, and then grow from there. Once you are making money you can allot some of your profits to upgrade your website and software. Whatever you can do to make your site look and operate even more professionally will increase its power of attraction.