To generate an income to your website you need a reliable flow of traffic going to your site. If no one goes to your website, you can never have a chance of earning an income online. Many sites have just wrap up after they have tried and failed to generate an income because of no traffic. It takes patience, perseverance and focus to generate traffic at minimal cost and it takes money to make money and maintain an income generating site.

Have you ever wonder how big sites drove traffic to their site? Most of them are spending lots of money in their advertising campaigns, investing in many different forms of marketing strategies and schemes to generate worthwhile traffic and have been very successful in converting into high earning and big hitting websites.

However, if you don't have the resources there are many ways to generate website traffic having without to spend more than you can afford. Herewith, are the top five ways in generating website traffic that will not cost you a fortune.

1) Exchange Links - This is a proven method that sites has to link each other to generate traffic. Many webmasters are willing to exchange links with one another so that they could produce more public awareness to their sites. You'll soon see the sudden upsurge of traffic coming in to your site from other sites.

A major prerequisite in exchanging links with other sites is having the same niche or content as the other site. They should share a common interest or subject so that there is continuity in the providing of services and information as to what interests your targeted traffic.

Exchange links also boost your chances of getting rank in search engine results. It is a common knowledge that search engine ranks high sites that have inbound and outbound theme related links. With a good ranking position in the search engines, you can generate traffic to your website at no cost.

2) Traffic Exchange - This is similar to exchanging links but on a different level. This may cost you a bit more than exchanging or trading links but it could make cheaper by earning credits. You can use these credits when viewing others site while you earn credits when someone views your site.

Traffic exchange services are the viewing of another's site page. This is done vice versa where a site can use your site's content and so can you to his or her site. You both benefit from each other's effort to generate traffic. The other site visitors can go to your site pages and know more about your site as well as theirs. Once again, the public awareness of your site's existence is boosted.

3) Submit Articles - There are many article directories in the internet where you can submit your articles. Some ezines in the internet willingly provide free space to your articles. You can write your own articles yourself to save cost but if writing is not your forte or you don't have time to do so, there are free lance writers who are willing to write for you in exchange of a small fee.

Write articles that are themed along with the niche of your site. Write something that you have expertise on so that when they read it, they can feel your knowledge about the subject and will be eager to go to your site. Write a little profile about yourself so people will start to know you more. If you provide a light and significant information laden and interesting articles,they will go to your site for more.

4) Make a newsletter - This may sound like hard work because of the articles you may need to use to build a newsletter but on the contrary, this is not so. There are many sites and writers that are willing to provide free articles for your use as long as they get their name in your newsletter. This will also provide them free advertising for them as well.

As your newsletter gets pass around, you can widen your public awareness and build an opt in list that can regularly visit your site.

5) Participate in Online Communities and Fora - This only require your time and nothing else. Carve your name together with your niche and share your experience, knowledge where you are an expert at. You can get free advertising when you go to fora that have the same subject or niche with your site.

Share your thoughts and let them know your personal views on the subject. As you build your reputation, you also build the reputation and total exposure of your web site, making it a reliable source of information to reckon with that can be frequented and trusted by many people.