An aphorism used saying it takes money to make money. And it is obviously true in case of starting a business. A business cannot be started without a capital. And after starting it, you require money to expand it too. But now, with the coming of the internet, many ways have sprung up using which it is possible to expand your online business, or more specifically speaking, generating traffic to your site, without spending even a cent.

In the internet, you will find many ways to jumpstart traffic flow to your site, most of which are paid services. There are, however, free methods too to generate traffic. These, when used alone or more profitably in conjunction with other paid services, can help generate more and more traffic.

To use these free methods, however, you need a lot of perseverance and hard work. However, remember that the free methods are not going to work like miracles and get you huge traffic overnight. If you do not have the patience for that, you are better off spending money on advertising and banners. But if you like challenges and would like to generate traffic to your site without spending for it or if you would like to have the maximum traffic possible, then the following guidelines are for you to follow-

Message Boards

Talk about your products on online forums and communities. The best thing about forums is that you can choose a forum or a part of the forum where you feel like getting the right type of people who would buy your products. There, you can discuss about lots of things about the niche that you represent or your special offers. Another great advantage is that you know what you are getting into and you can go prepared. With online communities, you can build up your reputation for your company. You have to impress the people by showing your expertise about the subject and your knowledge about it. The more reputation you have, the more is the chance of people buying your products.

Newsletters

You can also make use of newsletters. You should provide people with a catalog of your products and highlight interesting and entertaining products. If you make it really interesting and entertaining, more people will sign up for your newsletter and recommend it to other people. The more people who signs up for your newsletter, the more people will go to your site and increase your traffic.

Link Exchange

You can also trade links with other similar sites. For this, you don