Internet marketing rewards those who have a smart strategy. While having money can certainly help, there are plenty of opportunities for those with a good plan and a willingness to work.

One of those areas is driving traffic to your website without having to pay a dime.

The following four strategies can drive traffic to a site quickly. It will just take effort to create content.

Before trying any of these, though, make sure the content in place on your site is top quality. It will get you nowhere to drive traffic to a site that does not contain content users can use and enjoy.

LinkedIn groups

LinkedIn is a treasure trove of free traffic for savvy website owners. The first step is to create a top-shelf profile for your business. This is how others on the site will see (and judge) you, so take the time to make sure your profile hits all the important qualities about your business that you want in the spotlight.

A smart next step is joining a LinkedIn group that is related to your area of business. These groups offer a great chance to share links to content on your site. In some cases, these groups have tens of thousands of members. That’s a motivated audience for your product or service.

Niche Blogs

Whatever your business, there’s a blog about it on the Internet. Make that many, many blogs. All of them are looking for quality content to add to the mix. Find these sites and contact the good ones. Pitch them on content that will benefit them and also provide a chance for you to link back to your own site.

You Tube

This involves more sophisticated content creation, but the payoff can be huge. Video has quickly become a large portion of online marketing. Part of this is the fact so many people access content “on the go” from phones and tablets, which in most cases make it easier to watch a video than read content. You Tube reports that mobile video views grow by 100 percent every year. People also retain information on products and brands longer after seeing a video. So while creating video content requires more commitment of time, the payoff makes it worthwhile.

E-Books

Are you an expert in your niche business? Then share that expertise with an e-book. They can feature case studies from your business and testimonials from customers along with useful information for the reader. This is a growing area, with Amazon reporting that 32 percent of daily e-book sales are self-published books. The content created for a book can also be broken out into white papers and in-depth articles for your site.

These are just four ways that a savvy marketer can increase traffic without reaching into their pockets to pay. The Internet thrives as a meritocracy. Those willing to put in the time and effort will reap the rewards.