The use of message boards and web blogs is becoming increasingly more popular, not to mention that they are very powerful tools. Message boards and web blogs are as good as word of mouth. Real people are on those message boards and blog sites to give their opinions and thoughts for the entire Internet world to read. They, the people, can literally make or break your website.

Regardless of the products or services you are promoting on your website, you must have customers in order to have a business. In order to increase your sales, you need to increase your number of customers, and this is achievable by increasing the traffic to your website through promotion. Unless you are one of the few independently rich people, you will need to promote your website in order to have a successful business and to turn some kind of a profit. It takes a lot of time and money to start up and maintain a website and you should be able to turn a profit to make a return on your investment.

You can have five hundred visitors to your website each day, but this will not mean anything until you make a sale. You will need to target your audience according to what products or services you offer and what your target audience wants or needs. By targeting your audience, you may be able to make about five sales per 100 visitors. Without a target audience, the conversion rate drops even lower.

Remember when you are trying to make a sale; never try to push a sale onto a person. Nobody likes pushy persistent sales people. The important part of operating a business is to build a good relationship with customers. You must build trust and prove yourself an expert in what you are selling. Once the potential customer learns more about you and your services or products, they will trust you enough to buy. They may also send other sale leads your way and return to your website often to make more purchases.

Message boards and blog sites are a great way to increase website traffic and sizeable a source of free internet marketing. Sometimes the best promotion tactics are free. Here are five tips to get you started in increasing website traffic through message boards and blog sites.

1. Before posting on any message board or web blog, visit as many message boards as possible and socialize with the online community. Meet the people, read what they have to say, ask questions and communicate with them. Share your ideals, wisdom, advice and offer words of encouragement.

2. Keep in mind that you want to build healthy relationships with the online community on the message boards and web blogs. You want the people to get to know you, to like you and to be able to trust you. These people are your potential customers and sales leads. If you are nice and professional, they can build up your business. If you are rude and arrogant, they can practically destroy your business.

3. Never spam on message boards or web blogs and never repeatedly post the same messages. Spamming can get you blocked from using a message board and it is very bad business. Most spam is a scam and people know this. Your postings should have some purpose and relevance to the conversation. Never enter into an argument or other disagreement in postings about others. You never want to criticize or post any negative comments or feedback. What goes around comes around.

4. You want to make the most out the message boards and web blogs. You want to choose the boards that relate to your products or services. Find the boards with people who can use your website to their advantage. Introduce yourself to boost your popularity and always include a signature file with your name and URL, but not you personal email address. You can include this information on a profile page that other people can access.

5. Visit as many message boards and web blogs that you can handle. Never do more work than you can realistically handle. You should find some enjoyment and satisfaction in what you are trying to accomplish, avoid any unnecessary stresses.