Promoting your business, products or services online can be expensive. But it really doesn't have to be. In fact, there are many online advertising methods that are completely free. Here's how you too can get the best internet advertising prices.

Two of the most effective online advertising techniques are achieving a high search engine listing organically and distributing informational articles which are valuable to your potential and existing clients. Other free or virtually free advertising options include link exhanges, banner exchanges, participation in social networks or forums, online classifieds and safelists.

Organic search engine ranking doesn't cost anything if you do your own search engine optimization for your website. If you do hire someone to handle that aspect of your website, it doesn't have to be an ongoing expense. Once you learn the basics and your site starts to bring in traffic on autopilot, you will be able to maintain your optimized site yourself.

Participating in online forums that deal with internet advertising is an extremely good way to get ideas for your products and services and your own advertising strategies. These types of settings are definitely win-win. You get to share your knowledge with those who are seeking it and you can also gain insight in matters that you need help or clarifications with. The same idea applies for participation in the social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Here too, as you participate, you bring recognition to yourself and your business which eventually lead to sales.

Distributing articles is another way to beat internet advertising prices. You can create your own articles that provide information about your products and services, or you can hire someone else to do it for you. You then hand these articles over to the article directories. As more and more people come into contact with what you are doing, you are building brand recognition and links back to your website which is the most important part of good SEO.

You can also create free advertisements on the many online classified websites, join traffic exchanges and safelists. These are all legitimate ways to bring a lot of traffic to your site without spending a dime.

If you do decide to go with PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising, you can do this without over-spending as well. Remember, with PPC, you decide what your internet advertising prices will be and you only pay when you get results so it's an extremely effective way to advertise. The way to get results without spending too much is to bid only on the uncompetitive keywords (those keywords that aren't being searched for so much and who others aren't bidding on as well). It's easy to pick out the right keywords -- your PPC platform will provide you with a tool that indicates exactly what terms people are typing in and how often.