Are you dropping BIG bucks on advertising campaigns, only to find that your bottom line has barely increased or worse, stayed the same? Here are 5 first-rate strategies that will help you break-out and generate viral traffic to your web site.

Reciprocal Links - Think of reciprocal linking as a mini joint venture. Go to any major search engine and search for sites that are related or similar to yours. The majority of webmasters that exchange links with other web sites have a links or resources page as part of their site. This link/resources page is presented as a helpful resource for visitors to assist them in finding similar sites. It also provides a very valuable back-link to your site.

Look for the links page and see if they offer information and instructions on how you should link to their web site. Get in touch with the webmaster and inform him/her that you have linked to their web site and request that they link to your web site in return. Remember to provide the webmaster with the page that you have placed their link on so that they can verify its existence. Always make sure that you provide the webmaster with your web site address and description, so that he/she can put up a reciprocal link to your web site.

If you keep contacting additional web sites on a regular basis, at least 10% of the webmasters that you contact will exchange links with you. You will obtain traffic from your link partners as well as from the search engines. Link popularity is a key part of the search engines algorithm. Remember to only contact webmasters with relevant content web sites that have a links page. Contacting dissimilar web sites can result in spam complaints.

Writing Articles - This stratagem creates viral traffic from myriad angles. The key here is to present a resource box at the end of your article with a link to your web site. Once you write your article you will need to submit it to the vast number of article lists on the internet. There are companies that will charge you a small fee to submit your articles for you, or you can submit them on your own for free but be aware, it is time consuming. Once you submit your articles, there is a huge potential for thousands of visitors to your site. E-zine publishers can send your article to thousands of readers and other publishers will place your article on their web sites. Track the spread of your article using the search engines. You'll be amazed at how it blossoms.

If you have a good resource biography at the end of your article, thousands of surfers may visit your web site. Your rankings will start to go up on the search engines due to high link popularity, creating another source of traffic.

Affiliate Programs - This is probably the most gratifying strategy to create viral traffic to your web site. The thought here is to recruit a limitless number of affiliates that are willing to sell your products for a commission. You never lose money with this strategy because you only pay your affiliates when they make a sale. This strategy will also increase your link popularity since many of the affiliates will send traffic to your web site by linking directly to it. If you do your research you will find companies that can setup an affiliate program for you. An alternative is to purchase software that allows you to setup and manage your own affiliate program.

Free Services - Everybody wants something for nothing. Internet visitors are no different. Providing free services is a strategy that Yahoo and Microsoft have been using for decades. The idea here is to offer a free version of a service and a paid version. If someone upgrades to the paid version of your service they gain access to exclusive products, discounts and many other extra features. This strategy can easily multiply the traffic to your web site if you provide a useful and valuable service. Prospects will refer others to visit your web site generating a boundless flow of traffic.

Manual traffic exchanges - A traffic exchange allows you to visit other web sites in exchange for visitors to your own web site. Many traffic exchanges have a referral system in place. If you refer someone to join the traffic exchange, you receive a percentage of visits to your web site any time your referrals surf the exchange. The key here is to do your research and look for a traffic exchange that has a good anti-cheating system in place. A good anti-cheating system will guarantee that only real visitors are viewing your web site and not a robot script.

So there are a few strategies that can really boost your web site traffic. Execute some or all of these strategies into your marketing plan and you will generate a never ending stream of viral traffic to your web site.