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The income from your website is usually directly proportional to the number of  visitors or traffic it has. Similarly, if you are selling a product or service, your sales will be higher if  more potential buyers are aware of  your product or service features and prices. You may have the best product or service, but if it is not marketed well, you may not get the returns which you deserve.

Some of  the most  effective free advertising techniques are:

1. Advertise your website, product or service on free classified websites .

List of free classified websites

Craigslist is the most popular free classified website in USA and Canada and you can advertise for free in the services section. Post on alternate days, and highlight different features of the service you offer. Kijiji (owned by eBay) is popular in Canada and India. Gumtree is a popular website in UK. Find local classifieds which are popular with your target audience

2. If you have a website, submit your website to the major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft for free. Initially you may not get much traffic, but after 6 months you will get a few visitors daily if you have unique content. Search engine traffic is "free" traffic, once you set up your  website, not much additional effort is required.

If you do not have a website, you can get a free website from Microsoft for life (subject to certain limitations)

3. Forums, message boards and blogs : Most forums allow you to add a link to your website in the signature which is displayed whenever you post on the forum. If you contribute to the forum regularly and members of the forum find your posts useful, they will visit  your website. A relevant post in a blog will also help in getting targeted traffic

4. Social networking like MySpace, Facebook and social book marking websites like Stumble Upon can also bring regular traffic to your website.  However,  this traffic may not convert well for all website and can result in lowering of eCPM.