If you have a website you are no doubt very interested in driving online traffic to that website. Also, if you do not have the budget to buy leads to generate traffic you will be interested in finding free ways to generate that traffic. This article will give you some ideas to generate traffic for free.

Do not let anyone tell you that you can only get quality traffic if you pay for it, you can get quality traffic to your website with the only cost being a few minutes of your time.

And remember, it's not just about the amount of traffic that you get but the quality of that traffic as well. What do I mean by quality? Quality traffic consists of website visitors who are actually interested in your product or service.

If you are selling golf balls you don't want a bunch of website traffic that consists of people who are looking for tennis balls. You want your traffic to be highly qualified and interested in what you have to offer.

Stick with these free driving online traffic sources:

1. Article marketing. This is by far the best way to generate a ton of quality traffic for your website, if you learn how to do it right. It is totally free to do and only requires some of your time. The premise is simple, you give the search engines what they want, new, quality content and in exchange you get traffic to your website.

The first thing you need to do is get a list of keywords that are closely related to the product or service you are offering. Search for keywords that have a minimum of 1,500 searches a month and competition around 20,000. These are usually good parameters to go by when searching for keywords.

Once you have your keyword list you need to write a helpful, informative article using those keywords in your article. The article should be no less than 250 words in length but no more than around 500 words. Once your article is written you just have to sign up to several online article directories such as EzineArticles.com or GoArticles.com and submit your article. You can sign up and submit your articles for free.

2. Forum posting. To do this you just have to identify a few forums in your niche market and sign up for them. Once you sign up you can fill out a profile and include a signature file. This is simply a brief blurb about your website or product along with a link to your site.

When you participate in the forum and offer valuable information to others you will be seen as an expert in your niche. When people read your replies and click on your link they will be taken to your website. This is a very powerful way to get free traffic.

3. Start your own blog. To do this right you should stay away from the free blogs and instead buy a domain name and get a hosting account. You can and should still use a Wordpress blog but if you do it the way I suggest you will actually own something and will have more control over your blog.

Make frequent and helpful blog posts. These posts should also include keywords associated with your niche, you can even use the same keyword list you made in step one for your article marketing.

These simple and free methods for driving online traffic are the best way to get started.