There are many free advertising programs out there and many of them are worth the effort. Know, as I'm sure you know there is a big difference between getting traffic and making a sale. This article does not discuss the art of making the hard sale but does discuss how to get a potential qualified customer to your site the good old fashion way.

The good old fashion way means putting some effort into it and saving your pennies. The effort consists of manually submitting your site information to the hundreds of free directories and free classified sites, plus joining and using traffic exchange sites. It may seem daunting at first but believe me it will pay off over time. I have promoted my site around these three concepts and I can tell you they work.

I promise you that if you put out the effort on these three concepts a good percentage of your traffic will be generated from them and here's why. In most cases these types of promotional sites have a large affiliate program that bring in good-targeted traffic. Once the surfer enters the directory or classifieds site they will search on your keywords, which classifies them as being a quality, targeted click-through. In most cases the traffic exchange sites offer search capability as well.

The advantage of each one:

For most directories you will only have to list your site once, providing your site description and keywords. Here are just a couple of outstanding free directories; FreeDirectories.com -- http://www.freedirectories.com/ and SEO Lab -- http://www.seo-lab.com/directory-articles/best-free-directories.php

You will need to renew your classified ads generally on a monthly basis but for most sites an email is sent to you as a warning of ad expiration and a link is provided that sends you right to the renewal page. Here are just a couple of outstanding free classified sites; Zeoh.com Free Classifieds -- http://www.zeoh.com and USFreeADs -- http://www.usfreeads.com/

Traffic Exchanges in most cases will not expire your free account as long as you surf at least once a week but the best thing about this type of program is being able to earn free click credits from your affiliate downline. Here are just a couple of outstanding traffic exchanges; TrafficSwarm -- http://www.trafficswarm.com and TrafficG -- http://www.trafficg.com/

In conclusion, to receive quality targeted free traffic all you have to do is submit your site to as many quality directories and classified sites, plus spend some time surfing for credits and recruiting affiliate for your traffic exchange programs. Search Google on these free techniques and you will find hundreds of resources.