When I first began attempting to make money on the internet, I fell into the trap of advertising my website with "get rich quick" promoters and products, thinking I'd get my money back immediately with their allegedly wonderful services. After wasting hundreds of dollars on marketing, I decided to take another route: I tried pay-per-click search engines and other conventional-but-expensive means of generating traffic.

I never really saw any conrete results, but I continued plugging away. I talked to business owners, researched different methods, and spent even more money... until I found a few methods that worked for me and have consistantly worked to give my websites exposure. I wrote this article to give readers like you the opportunity to skip the learning curve and move to where I am now. This article will dispell the biggest misconception about marketing and will also give you information about the most effective method to build your online business.

The most common misconception about Internet marketing is that you have to pay an exorbitant amount of money just to get traffic to your website and a steady stream of customers buying your products. This isn't true. Pay-per-click search engines have their merits and e-commerce marketing companies can sometimes be effective, but they can also be very expensive, often driving you too far into debt to recover before you see any profits. This is precisely why less than 3% of people who begin Internet businesses actually ever see a return on their investment. In this article, I will explain why this isn't necessary--and how you can skip this learning phase and begin using inexpensive and free tools to begin putting money in your pocket immediately.

While there are many free and inexpensive methods to effectively market your business and put money into your pocket, I am going to focus on the absolute best, fastest, most profitable, and most recommended method among "gurus" and Internet millionaires: creating your own ezine.

You can begin today by signing up with an autoresponding email address, where you can send opt-in subscribers to be added to your mailing list. I would suggest using http://www.getresponse.com because it can handle the biggest loads. You can open an account for free, but I would suggest eventually upgrading to a PRO membership. This autoresponder is by far the most effective Internet marketing tool and after you see how it works, you will want to reap its full potential.

After you take some time to explore and understand your getresponse account, you can begin writing the first article of your ezine. Take some time to review your site and your products. Make sure your ezine article properly reflects what you're marketing--and make sure you have at least one link to every product you talk about in the issue. Give some general advice, but use persuasive sales language. Entice your potential customers, but do not stretch the truth too much; you want to gain as many TARGETED subscribers as possible. Remember: these people are opting-in to your mailing list because they WANT TO BUY YOUR PRODUCTS. When you have finished your first article, load it into your getresponse account.

Now you are ready to begin marketing your ezine. The best and fastest method of gaining subscribers in my opinion is starting a campaign at http://www.leadfactory.com. Leadfactory will work with you on a pay-per-subscriber basis to help you create a mailing list of PEOPLE WHO WANT TO BUY YOUR PRODUCTS. If you work with Leadfactory, make absolute certain that the ad for your ezine and product is 100% accurate. Remember: you're paying for subscribers, so you want ones that want to buy your products. I personally would suggest buying subscribers from Leadfactory to begin with, but if you want to go the completely free route, you can begin by signing up for the free trial version of Push Button Leads at http://www.pushbuttonleads.com. You can use this product for free for two weeks and then decide whether or not the amount of subscribers you get is worth the $20/mo. fee.

You are now ready to begin increasing the your ezine's exposure. This requires MASSIVE ACTION and a lot of patience. You can begin by creating a boilerplate ad for your ezine that includes information about your products. Make the ad only a paragraph long and use some persuasive sales language. You will then need to submit your ezine to ezine directories and ezine announcement lists. You can begin by going to google and typing in "ezine directories." Begin submitting your subscription information (whateveryournameis@getresponse.com) along with your ad and any other information the site asks for. Do this to as many ezine directories as you can find. I would suggest submitting to a minimum of 50. This will seriously increase your exposure by putting your ad on all of the top ezine directories on google.

Next, go to Yahoo.com and sign up for an account if you don't have one already. Use Yahoo to find ezine announcement lists and promotion groups. Yahoo has about 100 of these groups on their website and some of them have a significant amount of subscribers. To sign up for these groups, send a blank email to the group email list or the group admin. You should immediately receive an email back, asking you to subscribe. Subscribe to them - and do this to as many promotional lists and groups as you can find. Once you're in the group, post your ad along with the address of your ezine whateveryournameis@getresponse.com and the address of your site (if they allow it). This technique can win you between 50-500 subscribers each week. Make sure you use it to your advantage by signing up for as many group as possible.

At this point, you have gone further than most internet business owners ever get. Take some time off, relax, and watch your mailing list fill up with subscribers.

Make sure you continue to send out new ezine issues every week or every other week to let your customers know you've got new deals on your website.

Isaiah Hull publishes Work At Home Right Now, a fresh and informative newsletter about making money on the internet and using proven methods to increase your site's traffic and profitability. If you're looking for time-saving and money-saving tools, as well as honest business advice, come by and subscribe at http://www.workathomerightnow.net