“This is one of the “golden questions” to internet marketing! If there was an easy answer to it, we would all be making a killing online.

Website traffic usually is generated in three ways:

1) You Pay for It – In my experience, the quickest and highest quality traffic you can pay for is simple Pay-Per-Click (primarily Google Adwords, Yahoo Marketing Solutions, and MSN Adcenter). I’ll talk about this more in another question, but it is good, targeted traffic folks! Don’t poo-poo it too soon! Advertising and banner ads can be effective, too (they are not as simple to manage, though).

2) You Generate It – This can be done with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to generate free traffic in the search engines. Article marketing is another way to get people to find you and your website. Social marketing is a great way not only to generate traffic, but increase your conversions, as well. I use all of these effectively and it produces more than 50% of my traffic to a majority of my websites. This can take time and effort, but most of this can be done for free. (If you have the financial resources, this can be outsourced, to some extent).

3) Have others give it to you – but other people are usually not going to send you traffic without compensation. Join an affiliate network or even a CPA Network (Warning! CPA networks can bring in a LOT of traffic but can be rather costly!). Partnering up with others in your niche is a great (and extremely effective!) way of getting traffic to your site. Make sure, though, that you can offer your partners enough to make it worth their while!”

With the Internet growing at a very rapid pace, there is today, more than ever, an abundance of opportunities to make money. The lure of such plentiful opportunity is drawing hundreds of thousands to quit their regular jobs and start their own online businesses. By establishing their own venture, they hope to make money on the worldwide web.

You should consider starting your own venture as well, but perhaps you should be more circumspect about it than other people. Too many people begin an online business and later abandon it. To avoid this, you will want to engage in some careful planning. Planning may seem like a lot of work in the beginning, but it has the potential to save you years of hard, unproductive work.

Before you begin, clarify in your mind exactly what you want to accomplish. Your goals will determine the path that you will take, so you should think over what is important to you. Online businesses usually take a period of time before they “take off” and make money. So if you are in immediate financial straits, don’t expect your online business to provide the solution. It would be better to work on it on a part-time basis. If, however, your goal is to be financially self-sufficient in a few years, that is something that an online business can help you with.

Your first online business must be immediately related to something that you love. If your business is something that tires you or bores you, you are in the wrong business. A majority of businesses fail during the first two years after inception, mostly because its owners are no longer willing to put in the work needed to make it grow. By picking an area in which you have a natural affection and aptitude in, you will increase the chances of making your online business more than just passing fancy.

Take advantage of the numerous ideas available today. Successful businesses are usually those who take an idea and apply them at opportune times. If you perceive a specific need in the market that is not being filled, proceed to attempt and fill that need. Your idea does not necessarily have to be original to be successful; you can also borrow ideas from a variety of fields and apply them wherever you think appropriate .