Running a website these days is not all that difficult. There are numerous programs and guides that can teach a person how to setup a website within a matter of hours. However, making a website is only half the battle. The other half is getting people to actually visit the website. Therein lies the dilemma: how can you get people to come to your web site without spending a fortune? For years, people have been trying to answer that question and come up with new & innovative ways to bring in targeted site traffic. Those methods have been tested and used to death, but the facts speak for themselves; they are still proven methods of getting free traffic hits.

Article Marketing

Article marketing has got to be one of the most successful techniques of generating traffic. Not only is it a proven method, but it seems to be one of the most effective methods that anyone can begin with. This whole technique revolves around writing informative articles and submitting them to different article directories all over the internet. The trick to this technique is to add in your web sites URL to the bottom of the article (in the resource box). That way, once the article is approved and officially added to the article directory, it will start to bring traffic to your web site.

Although this is a very effective way to begin driving traffic to a web site, it is not a "sure thing". That simply means the article you write is not guaranteed to bring in traffic. Why? Because the reader needs to learn something. If the article is just full of nonsense, the person will not continue reading and they will not likely follow the link to your website. The information they read doesn't have to be revolutionary or profound either. The article just has to teach them something they didn't know or reaffirm something they thought they knew.

There are other important factors involved with article marketing; for instance, targeting keywords and specific phrases. Those things should be learned in order to maximize an articles efficiency, which will ultimately bring in more free traffic hits.

Some people take the lazy route and choose to churn out articles via article writing software, but those people usually find that software based articles don't pack the same type of punch that handwritten ones do.

Viral Marketing

This method is a bit on the sneaky side, as it involves attaching your product, company name, and/or website link to a video, a silly game, e-book, and/or an interactive web page. If the game is entertaining or if the video is funny (or informative), then the video or game will likely be passed along to friends and family. It may even hit forums and start spreading like wildfire throughout the web. Even though the viewers are watching something entertaining, they are also watching a clever advertisement made by you. They won't realize it at the time, but they will see the web link and will want to head to that website out of pure instinct. Presto, instant traffic headed your way.

"Are there other proven methods of getting free traffic & hits?" You bet! There is an entire arsenal of different ways that you can drive traffic to your web site; you just have to have the patience & determination to learn those methods and utilize those techniques.