Submitting articles to the search engines is a time honored strategy for generating traffic. It has been used since the early days of the Internet and is still an effective traffic generation strategy even in our Web 2.0 times.

There are a lot of questions over the best method of submitting articles for maximum traffic and effectiveness. What are the best techniques and which are the most effective?

The first technique is to submit your article to the granddaddy of all article directories, EzineArticles. This site has built a reputation of being the best article directory in town. It is loved by marketers and by readers and most importantly, by Google.

It is a source of frustration to many marketers who find it hard to meet the submission guidelines or cope with the timescales for articles to be approved.

However, if you read their guidelines and stick to them, your articles will get through without a hitch.

Once they are in Ezinearticles you instantly receive benefits from it. Articles in this directory tend to rank very well in Google, even without backlinks to them.

Add in a few backlinks and suddenly you find your articles are ranking in the top ten for moderately competitive keywords. In fact, even without backlinks they can often rank well just because they are on Ezinearticles.

Once your article has been published you need to do some simple backlinking to it just to give it that extra boost in the search engines.

Firstly, take your Ezinearticle author RSS feed and submit it to RSS directories. You can either use a tool or do it by hand. If you are doing it by hand, just pick the top ten directories in a Google search and that will be good enough for now. You can always submit to more later on, so make sure you keep track of which ones you have added your feed to.

You can also use one of the many ping sites to ping your article. This does give Ezinearticles a lift, but it also gets your article noticed.

Finally, social bookmark your article. Again, you can either use a tool or do it manually. If your article is newsworthy and well written then you can look at adding it to sites such as Digg or Stumbleupon to get further links and traffic.

Of course, there are other article directories out there, but none of them carry the weight of Ezinearticles. Google Knoll is a current contender and is very popular with marketers who are using it to submit their articles too. So far though, these don’t seem to be ranking as well as Ezinearticles, but it is a good way to get the Big G to notice your sites.

For the other article directories it is not worth submitting articles manually to them, except maybe the top half a dozen big directories. Many of the rest get so little traffic it is not worthwhile, except for the backlink. Therefore you should either outsource or automate these submissions to free up your time to concentrate on building your business.

If you are submitting articles then you need to make sure they are on Ezinearticles for maximum traffic. Do some simple backlinking to your article and you will easily find your articles ranking well for their keywords and bringing you good traffic.

Yahoo Answers is a source of very targeted traffic that many marketers overlook. The time involved with it and the ease with which it appears Yahoo ban people puts them off.

The basic premise of Yahoo Answers is that people ask questions and other people answer them. Think of it as an advice board, if you like. Some of the questions are bizarre, some peculiar, whereas others are normal.

The quality of answers varies too from the single sentence, to the rude to the outstanding. The latter is the type of answer you want to be providing.

Firstly, people are only banned if they abuse the system and provide consistently poor answers. So long as you stay on the right side of their terms of service and provide good quality answers you will have no trouble keeping your account. People have had the same account for years and have accumulated thousands of points, whereas others lose theirs in a few weeks because they break the terms of service.

The key to succeeding with Yahoo Answers is to find questions that you can answer and your website provides more information on.

The benefits of Answers are threefold.

1) You gain traffic from people reading your answer
2) Your answer, if chosen as the best answer, will rank in the search engines and get traffic directly
3) You can get a backlink from your answer which will boost your sites rankings.

As Yahoo Answers is considered an authority site by the other search engines, having links from it are considered highly relevant and very beneficial.

You must do an advanced search to find the best questions to answer. Search only questions opened in the last 7 days with your keyword. This will give you the most relevant questions. You then need to go through each question and find the ones you can answer well.

In order to keep your account and to get voted as the best answer, you need to provide high quality answers. This means reading the question thoroughly and understand what is asked.

Start your answer with a greeting, e.g. “Hi there” or “Hi, thanks for your question”. This instantly makes your answer stand out from the crowd and will start to build a relationship with the questioner.

Then provide your answer and sign off with something equally friendly such as “Hope this helps you out” and then sign out with your name.

You should only put your link in your answer directly if it has been asked for. Putting your link in every answer is likely to get your account banned. Your link needs to go in the resources box below. Don’t worry, it will get seen and clicked on, particularly if your answer is voted the best answer.

Yahoo Answers provides a very good method of generating targeted traffic through to your website. It works well for most types of sites and some people earn decent money just from Yahoo Answers. Use it well and wisely and you can receive many benefits from it.

For people to follow you, it is essential for you tweet regularly. The new tweets you make on Twitter are to be fresh and interesting to attract more followers. Your new tweets can include links to your website where you will have new posts and interesting content. Leaving a comment on posts of other followers along with your website link can draw traffic to your website. You can also use Twitter to advertise the special offers related to your product on your website. Such offers will surely draw more traffic to your website. When you comment on other followers queries, make sure you guide them to find answers on your website by leaving your website link along with the comment. This will lead all followers with the query to your website, thus increasing traffic to your website. Do you have an attention grabbing picture on your Twitter profile? As these pictures will be displayed adjacent to your tweet, they act as links to your profile. When you upload eye catching pictures relating to your product, many followers will visit your website to know more about your profile picture.

I am sure that you have always known about badges that are worn by people when they support a particular cause or product. Such badges are now provided by Twitter as well. When you include these Twitter badges on your website, you can gain many followers on Twitter once they relate your product to what they are doing. As you gain many followers on Twitter, you will see your network growing. All your followers who read your tweets will visit your link to gain more info on your product. So make sure you append each of your tweets, posts and comments on Twitter with the link to your website. Your active participation in Twitter can help you generate a great traffic to your website!

Web 2.0 technologies are taking the Internet by storm. They have captured the hearts and minds not only of Internet Marketers, but of their target markets too.

More and more people are using Web 2.0 sites to either connect to their friends and family or to create their own hobby or fan sites.

These technologies can be extremely important in your traffic generation strategies because it allows you a method of direct contact with your target market. Done well, web 2.0 technologies can provide you with thousands of visitors plus a valuable boost in the search engine rankings.

There are hundreds of Web 2.0 sites, with more cropping up every day in more focused niches. These are the sites that are of particular interest to the Internet Marketer as you have a tightly focused niche of people who would be interested in your product or services.

Of course, you can’t just walk into a Web 2.0 site and start promoting your product. Doing this will get yourself shot down in metaphorical flames. Marketers who do this quickly find themselves hounded out of the market.

When you use a web 2.0 site you have to use it like you would a list. You have to establish yourself in the niche as an expert, someone to listen to and who knows what they are talking about. Sometimes this means being yourself, other times you may have a pseudnym.

Whatever the case, you need to spend some time understanding the group and the market so that you can appeal to them in the best way. Be helpful, provide valuable information and you will soon be viewed as an expert.

Once you have established yourself as an authority figure you can easily promote your products and services as people will link your expertise with them. It allows you not only to promote your products, but to promote products as an affiliate.

One word of caution is to not spread yourself too thin. Working on a social networking site to establish yourself as an authority can take a lot of your time and if you try to work on too many, you find yourself unable to do enough on any of the sites. Pick just a couple to focus your attention on, one niche site and one general site.

Other web 2.0 sites allow you to create your own websites. Some of these frown on overt commercialism, whereas others are pretty much a free for all.

This type of site is best used to push your product or information site up the search engine rankings.

You create sites on web 2.0 properties using unique content based around your keywords. You then create active links through to your own website. You do some simple promotion of these properties (pinging, social bookmarking, etc) to give them some link juice, and then they will work to boost your website in the search engine rankings.

Whilst this doesn’t give you direct traffic, it will give you a leg up the organic search engine rankings. This will help to further increase your traffic. Plus, the additional benefit is each of these Web 2.0 properties will rank in their own right and get traffic, some of which will be passed on to your main site.

Web 2.0 sites are an incredible method of getting traffic. If you use them properly and spend the time on them, they can help you get thousands of additional visitors for free!

Social bookmarking is one of the best ways to get your websites ranking well and for getting direct traffic. The search engines know that the social bookmarking sites are a direct indicator of what people are actual interested in. Sure, they know marketers use it, but they realize that the majority of content that is social bookmarked multiple times is real content that people are finding useful and interesting.

You can take advantage of this and use social bookmarking to get your sites ranking well for their keywords.

Firstly, you need to open an account on some social bookmarking sites. Rather than social bookmark each site manually, look at software such as OnlyWire which semi-automates the process. This will make your life a lot easier.

Once you have your account set up, find some Internet marketing colleagues, friends or family who would be willing to set up an account themselves with Onlywire.

Then you simply trade bookmarks. They bookmark your sites, you bookmark theirs.

Most marketers only have their sites bookmarked once, and very occasionally more than once. The search engines are probably very aware of this and so pay more attention to sites that have multiple bookmarks on a single site.

This simple technique can easily get you multiple bookmarks and will give your sites a much needed boost in the search engines.

Alternatively, you can outsource the bookmarking and hire people to do it for you. This will very quickly add up if you are creating a lot of sites. You can find people on forums such as Digitalpoint who will do it very cheaply for you, but it is still going to add up.

You can apply the same technique to sites such as Stumbleupon and Digg, both of which can potentially get you massive amounts of traffic. These sites expect more newsworthy and interesting articles. With a well written article you can expect thousands of visitors in a day, quite literally.

Setting up multiple social bookmarking accounts yourself and bookmarking your sites is possible. However, these sites are smart and will realize what you are doing unless you hide behind proxies. This can be done, but often the hassle isn’t worth it, particularly when it is easy to network with other marketers.

Networking with other marketers and trading bookmarks also has a side effect of building your network of contacts. These could potentially turn into joint venture partners, product partners or more in the future.

Social bookmarking is an excellent way for you to get traffic both from the search engines and from the social bookmarking sites. Do it well and you can benefit from great search engine rankings and massive traffic.

It’s not necessarily a lavish lifestyle, as some people only make an average living working from home. It really all comes down to one thing… Mindset. If you want to just make enough to survive, then that’s what you will succeed at doing. If you strive to be comfortable, then that is what will happen.

Millionaires from all over the world all tend to have very similar qualities and characteristics about them that seem to have a lot to do with why they were able to build massive wealth. Mostly, instead of just wanting to survive or be comfortable… They strive for abundance.

There are many psychologists who study this subject and time and time again it is found that the subconscious and the mind play such key roles in determining the success of an individual. Perhaps that’s why there are multi-billionaires out there who don’t even have a college degree.

It takes a certain “outside the box” mentality that is open and unrestricted. People who make money online are also entrepreneurial and tend to look at things from outside the box.

To make money online from home it takes a similar mentality and it also requires taking action. You can’t just turn on your computer, go online, create a website and expect to make a million dollars overnight. It doesn’t work that way.

However, it is VERY easy to make money online, fast, and without any experience whatsoever. There are so many avenues and opportunities such as affiliate marketing, CPA marketing, freelancing as an article writer, taking surveys online, etc, etc.

It’s important that you educate yourself properly and don’t fall for anything that sounds way too good to be true; because it most likely is. Stay clear of ‘get rich quick’ schemes that seem like they are shady looking, look for real customer testimonials then find the program(s) that is right for you and TAKE ACTION.

This is perhaps the number ONE concept that makes or breaks any internet marketer… If you don’t “take action” then nothing will ever happen. That’s the only way you will ever make money online.