When you first come online and are looking for a way to start your own business, the information that you read can be overwhelming. Besides deciding what business you want to go into and designing and building your web site, you must now learn how to get people to come to your site.

It seems like an insurmountable task for people to find your site amongst the hundreds of thousands of web sites out there. Especially when most of us are businesses with budgets and often very strict ones. With this article, I am going to let you know about some of the most effective promotion methods I have found and they are absolutely FREE!

*Writing Articles - Writing articles is a power-packed way of promoting yourself and your business. Not only do people read about your business in your resource box, but because of your articles you will become known as someone who knows what they are talking about and can be trusted.

Writing articles is not as hard as it may seem. Write about what you know and just write as if you were instructing a friend or co-worker. Do not be afraid to let your personality shine through. That is what will make your articles unique. After you write your article, you will need to get them out to other ezine and ebook publishers. Article lists are a great way of doing this. Subscribe to the list below and submit those freshly written articles. mailto:aabusiness-subscribe@egroups.com mailto:article_announce-subscribe@egroups.com mailto:articles_archives-subscribe@egroups.com mailto:ArticlePublisher-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

*Discussion Lists and Message Boards - Those who know me or have read my articles before know that I am an avid believer of discussion lists and message boards. As with articles, you can establish your expertise and build your reputation which in turn will do wonders for promoting your business. Offer advice, help, ideas and post as often as possible! Make sure you have an effective sigline. I have made sales, business contacts and obtained subscribers just by welcoming new people to a group.

Be sure to follow the guidelines for each group/board. You do not want to be accused of spamming! Get started with these groups & boards: mailto:Newbies911-subscribe@topica.com mailto:wahmhits-subscribe@yahoogroups.com http://start-smartz.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi#post http://www.powerhomebiz.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard//ikonboard.cgi

*Ad Swapping - If you publish an ezine ( which you most definitely should), ad swapping is a great way of getting your ad out there for free! Find other ezine publishers looking for swaps and send them an email asking if they would be interested in swapping. Tell them a little about your ezine and let them know where they can see a sample copy. If you don't know where to find other publishers to swap with visit these sites: http://www.freezineweb.com/ad-swaps1.html http://www.bizpromo.com/ezinetrades.htm http://www.businessstructure.com/ezineadswap.htm

*Ezine Publishing - As I mentioned above, you should definitely be publishing an ezine to keep in contact with your website visitors and subscribers. Ezines themselves can be excellent income generators and they can also generate a lot of business for you.

Publishing a quality ezine is very important to your online business. Your subscribers will want helpful information and resources, not just a bunch of ads to read. By giving your subscribers what they want, you will become trusted and they will listen to what you have to say about products, programs, etc. To learn more about ezine publishing: http://www.ezineuniversity.com/ http://www.websuccesscentral.com/ezinesuccess/index.html http://developyourwebsiteandyourself.com/ezrc/ezineresources.htm http://www.e-zinez.com

*Free Traffic Programs - Free traffic programs are a great way to get visitors to your site. Once they get there, it is up to you and your website to keep them there. Join several of these programs and take an hour or two a week and surf for visitors. For each program open a separate window and keep them all going at once. You will receive a lot more visitors that way. Here are some examples of these programs: http://www.clickthru.net/referral?ref=279568 http://www.askmiky.com/home/signup.php?ref=websuccess http://www.ezhits4u.com/index.asp?ref=web-success

These are a few of the more effective ways of advertising and promoting your business for FREE! There are many other ways, but the methods I have covered in this article are some of the most effective, in my experience. Get started with each method and as you learn and get more experience, expand into more email groups, traffic programs, article writing and ad swapping. You will find that a lot of the promotion methods go hand in hand and you will learn more and more ways to promote your business for FREE!

Much success to you and the best of luck with your online ventures.

About the author: Terri Seymour owns and operates MyOwnEzine.com MyOwnEzine.com is a website, ezine and service which provides the resources, tools, guidance and more to help you start, publish and promote your own ezine. You can contact Terri at mailto:ter02@newnorth.net Subscribe at mailto:subscribe@myownezine.com or visit http://www.myownezine.com for lots more info.