Today I want to talk about just how you start in the internet marketing arena. If you have been involved in even one program you know that once you sign-up for a program or start preparing to launch your own, the first question is ?How Do I promote my Site?? This is where I made my first mistake. I got caught in the affiliate loop. I signed up for the first sure thing ?Traffic Exchanges.? Traffic Exchanges are basically where you advertise your site for FREE and then you surf through other sites to earn credits. Every time your site is displayed, credits are deducted from your account. Do they work? There are some good ones, but you have to be very selective. Remember, everyone is trying to do the same thing, so you spend a lot of time surfing to earn credits. But it is a numbers game, and you can have some success. I personally have two that I recommend.

Another cheap or free advertising is ezine advertising. Ezines are on-line magazines, just like the one you are reading now, which have subscribers. You can get some fairly cheap ezine classified ads that pull pretty well. There are so many out there, you will need to do a search for one that covers your topic. For example, you probably don?t want to advertise a site selling scuba gear in a sky-diving ezine.

So there are some cheap and free advertising methods out there. But they take time and time is money. I suggest that you prepare yourself for the fact that at some point you will need to open up your wallet. Our goal here is to get by as cheap and effective as possible.

So, do your homework up front, find some good cheap/free advertising, and get ready.

Have you seen those ads that say ?Send your ad to 1,000,000 people FREE?? Sounds too good to be true, huh? Well let me tell you, it is too good to be true. The only things you get from these are the chance to fill your inbox with tons of mail from other people wanting to do the same thing as you; promote their product. So I suggest staying away from most of these. Safelists are advertising you should definitely stay away from. They sound really good, but can actually lead to SPAM complaints. Opt-in lists, however, are a much better way to go. Opt-in list simply means the person has agreed to take your email. Much like when you signed up for this newsletter. You opted in. But the key is to be able to cancel. If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter and I keep sending it, I am crossing the line. There are several good opt-in lists available. Most of them you agree to receive other people?s emails so you can send yours

Note: All of these ?FREE? programs will have very enticing upgrade features which will cost you money. Be careful. It is easy to start racking up huge monthly fees for the hits to your web site. And remember we are not looking for just hits. We want a sale!