There are two ways to do things online---on a shoestring or with a budget. If you are operating on a shoestring, you are going to need to do things like article submissions, forum posting, and other free traffic methods. If you have a budget, you have the flexibility of adding in ezine ads, PPC, and paid article marketing.

You need to decide up front how much money you can spend online, and then you need to stick to your budget. If you have a campaign that is not making you any money, you cannot throw money at it and have it start making money. You will just be spending more money. On every campaign you do you will either bring in less than you spent, you will break even, or you will make a profit. This sounds simple, but I think that too often people forget that every campaign they do needs to make money. Just because you are making more than you are spending online is not enough. You must make changes to every campaign that is either breaking even or losing money--even if you have plenty of others that are making you money.

If you decide to go the ‘free’ route and generate traffic without spending any money, know one thing: you will pay for your ‘free’ traffic with time. And there is nothing wrong with that, as long as you know it up front. You will need to commit several hours per day to generating traffic. If you do, you should make it online. If you do not, you will not make money online.