One of the biggest myths of the Internet is the good old line, “If you build it they will come …” So many people throw up a website and sit back rubbing their hands with glee convinced they are going to become supremely wealthy.

Months later they are wringing their hands with regret wondering why they’ve had five visitors, four of which were their friends!

A website does not just automatically appear high in the search engine rankings and get traffic, you have to do some work in order to get this traffic and start making sales. There are thousands, or even more of sites competing for the same traffic you want – depending on your niche and keywords, there could be millions of sites!

You need to promote your website and get it noticed – not only in the search engines, but in other places where you will get targeted traffic who are interested in your website.

Strategy 1 – Directories

There are a whole host of directories on the Internet. Just search for your keyword and “Directory” or “Link Exchange” or anything similar and you will find hundreds of places to put your links. Yeah, it is hard work to do this, but you will get links and traffic to your site. If it’s too much like hard work for you – hire someone to do it!

Strategy 2 – Articles

Articles are an excellent way to gain traffic and promote your site. Submitting your article to directories will get you backlinks and if they are quality articles, will get you known across the Internet as an expert. Newsletter and website owners will pick up your articles and use them as content. This will help to promote your site to a much wider audience.

Strategy 3 – Affiliate Program

Running an affiliate program for your product is an excellent way to promote your site. Instead of you working on promoting your site, you have all these affiliates doing the work for you. And the best thing is – you don’t pay them a penny unless they make a sale. Depending on how much you offer as a commission, you could have hundreds of hungry affiliates aggressively marketing your product all over the Internet.

Strategy 4 – Viral Marketing

Viral marketing is a concept that has been around for some time. It’s a very powerful method of getting traffic to your site. You have all seen those cute or funny emails and videos that people send to all their friends? That is viral marketing. If you can tap into this through a book, a video, games or anything people will want to pass on to their friends, suddenly you have a whole lot of people promoting your site – for free!

Strategy 5 – Forums

Forums are an excellent way to market your website. As you participate in a forum so you can establish yourself as an authority and trusted expert on your chosen subject, which will make people come to visit your website to find out more information. Be aware though, that if you blatantly promote your business without adding value or spam the forums you will do more harm than good to your reputation and your business.

Promoting your website will get you targeted traffic. It will also allow you to organically move up the search engine rankings through backlinks and the use of keywords. If you are someone who is serious about making money online, then you need to start taking your website promotion seriously. Remember though – spam and other unethical practises will harm your business in the long term. Promote your site ethically and responsibly, and you can be reaping the rewards for years to come.

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Since mentoring many small business hopefuls I’ve come to realize a very disturbing fact.  Many very bright and hopeful female entrepreneurs have crossed my office threshold with the mistaken idea that just being a woman gives them an advantage over their male counterparts.  Sadly, this is not as true as we’ve been led to believe.

Certainly the female population of today is much better off than their mother’s or grandmothers, but obtaining financial support/loans isn’t viewed by bankers any differently than it is for male entrepreneurs.
A myth has been circulating for years that has led entrepreneurs to believe that women-owned and minority-owned businesses can obtain loans easier.  Unfortunately, that is only a myth.

If your entrepreneurial dream requires a bank loan, the process isn’t any easier if you’re a woman or a minority.  The only slight advantage is that there may be additional lending sources available if you’re in either of these categories. But you still have to sell the lender on your business and means of repayment.

Both male and female executives in the corporate arena have much in common in terms of professional aspirations.  However, the playing field is far from being equal.  A survey was done by a non-profit research group called Catalyst recently.  Male & female executives at 1,000 of the largest corporations in the U.S. were surveyed and more than half of the women said that they aspire to a CEO position.  They were even willing to make sacrifices such as delaying a marriage and/or children, and that very willingness shouts to us that the field isn’t equal.

Other survey results were as follows:

•    49.5% of all employed managers and professionals are women, but they still tend to manage only other women.
•    The highest-paid female executive still earns only 68% of the salary paid to her male counterpart.
•    Firms that include women on their senior management teams showed greater improvement in corporate performance.
•    62% of the firms that included women on their senior management team saw their market share grow, compared with only 39% of companies with no female senior management.

Advancements in technology should help ease the movement of more women into  leadership.  Computers enable women to work more flexible hours and better balance work and family commitments, which is not expected of their male counterparts.  (How equal is that?)

So-called feminine leadership traits will grow in importance in the 21st century, according to more than 160 international companies and 75 senior executives’ view of their firm’s progress toward gender equity.

Most respondents, predominantly male, predicted wide-spread abandonment of the “command and control” managerial style for a more “team-oriented” approach.  That doesn’t seem all that bad to me.  I can think of a lot of companies that could use more teamwork and less monarchy leadership.

These business gurus saw this new style as requiring skills that are “more feminine than masculine,” thus giving an edge to female managers.  However, another 15-year study has shown that female managers are no more inclusive or democratic than men when making workplace decisions.

As grim as these facts might be, I don’t want to discourage any prospective female entrepreneurs. We female business owners know that we may have to work twice as hard for half the recognition and pay, but ladies – statistics show we’ll outlive our male counterparts.

We know that any woman who is a wife and mother and also in business, could do the job of two air traffic controllers without breaking a sweat even as the airport burns to the ground.