A Comparison of Free Versus Paid Traffic

Every Internet marketer knows that in order to be a success, you’ll have to have a high amount of traffic driven to your website. Traffic volume means more income potential, but when you’re just starting out, ad campaigns may not have a place in your budget.

When trying to drive more traffic to your site, you’re faced with whether to go the free traffic route or use paid traffic programs like Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing. Free traffic routes deliver the best ROI (Return On Investment) because there’s no out of pocket cost, just your time and effort. But the traffic you bring in may not be as targeted as a PPC campaign.

You can choose from free traffic-generating methods such as article marketing, social networking, free classifieds, blogging or forum marketing on niche-related message boards using a link-driven signature file, branded ebook or software with give away rights, plus many many more. Like I said above, the only costs are your time and effort.

The problem with free traffic is that it’s a work-heavy advertising technique. In order to gain high amounts of traffic, a marketer needs to constantly advertise their site to get their link exposed to prospective customers. If time is in short supply, free marketing isn’t an option that will benefit you. The beauty of say, article marketing, which is totally free, is that once the article is written, you could literally get traffic for years to come. But as good as that sounds, it takes time.

Paid traffic avenues cost you money to gain traffic, but if executed properly, the ROI will be much higher and the maintenance much lower. If you’re using article directories, you may have to wait 10 days for approval, but a Google AdWords campaign can be live in minutes.

While costs are considerably higher, so is the potential for profits. If you don’t know how to conduct a savvy PPC campaign, you will risk losing money. There are barriers in place to prevent anything bad from happening, such as daily limits to your spending. Unfortunately, many marketers put limits far beyond what they can actually afford, not knowing Google will find a way to tap into your coffers.

The best way to use paid and free traffic is to implement a strategy that combines both methods. You might run a PPC campaign and at the same create a lens on Squidoo – both for the same keywords.

Days later, you notice your lens is #1 in the Google SERPs. Do you need to continue the PPC campaign? That’s what testing and tracking of conversions will tell you. You might find that the PPC ad linking visitors directly to your sales page has a higher conversion than those who click through to the lens and then have to take an additional step to get to your sales page.

What most successful marketers do is implement a combination of free and paid traffic methods. You might use articles or your blog, as well as advertising in targeted ezines and a PPC campaign.

One of the most popular ways today to gain exposure for your site or product is to give something away, then market backend products to those that have opted in to receive your free give away. The people that opted in to get your branded ebook, report or software, are more likely to purchase from you in the future because they are already involved in that specific niche market. So by paying to acquire these
customers, you ROI will be much higher, much sooner and much longer then any free method available.

Don't worry if you can't or don't want to develop your own product, such an ebook or software, you can search online for 'plr' or 'master resell rights' and finds all sorts of sites that offer ready made products that you can pay a very small amount for, and gain the rights to. Then you can rebrand them with your links and give them away. Make sure you read the PLR resell rights agreement before you purchase.

Savvy marketers understand the inherent need to continually test, track and tweak their marketing efforts. Implement new strategies. See what works best for your niche audience. Then wash, rinse, and repeat your success!