Traffic. Paid Or FREE?

[Andrei Rotariu]

Hi all

In the past i have used both PPC and SEO to get traffic to my blogs and websites. But ill ask you, what do you all believe is the best way to succeed online via paid or free traffic, or is it both?

Traffic is essential to any online business, wether its an adsense site, affiliate site, your own product, or your very own content filled site with your own ad network.

If you where to ask me this question over the last 4-5 years i would probably give you a different answer every time. Thats because initially when i started off i was playing with any free method i could naturally because i had no capital.

Then i worked out how easy adwords could be and especially after reading Google Cash i started submitting ads and getting responses within minutes.

Both have pros and cons of course. With adwords your ad and link can be on the world wide web within minutes and you can have traffic funneling in, the con is that it costs money and if you dont know what your doing it can cost you even more money with no return *Hint*Try to have a few different campaigns and different ads going at the same time until you find the ones that convert best then drill down into those keywords and titles, also for high competition keywords set your bid high 3-5 bucks then drop it down slowly when you start to see results *End of Hint*

SEO can be totally free, it can also be outsourced for a price, but say you go the natural seo route, relevancy, keywords, backlinks all the things Google wants. Well if your a noob you might be wasting your time, cos if you have not taken the time to do your initial research it may be a waste of everything you have done, as you will never hit that first page, trust me, its happened to me plenty of times.

I had a free dog food recipe site that i worked on night and day and only after did i realize that the competing sites had thousands of backlinks which with my resources seemed impossible to beat.

My conclusion to this question at the moment would be this:

Before deciding on a method, do your research first, obviously low competition would mean you would have to be stupid to pay for the traffic and of course if its a high competition area adwords might be the go.

Its a little more complicated then that of course, and even when your site is uploaded and you begin toying with either method dont let that idea calcify in your brain like it did with me, be fluidic in your method. If PPC isnt working, then work your ass of and get some SEO goin and vice versa.

But the question still remains:

Paid of Free, and why?

[War_Guy]

Free, it is easier to control the cost and you can still keep working when you have no budget left.

[vekro]

agree with above person. with some work we can get free traffic and definitely control our cost

[Andrei Rotariu]

But there must be a reason why guys like Frank Kern push PPC. What are your thoughts?

[da1fitz]

From experience (and loads of PPC courses fed out by people with loads of money) (1) PPC is very effective if you have an unlimited budget eg submit the highest bid for your targeted keyword and you get every click therefore every potential buyer "buying keywords prevailing at the standard worst case scenario of 1% conversion" (2) Not having loads of money but being relatively intellegent based on what I previously learned from a Clickbank point of view - After buying related domains - setting up reasonable websites and adds - setting a budget somewhere near 120 USD - returns = approx 120 USD so backing offf and playing in the Article Marketing / backlinking area as this seems a more win - win situation...

But if you got the budget play the game - you really can't lose!!!!

[chris_surfrider]

PPC works a lot better if you're the one selling the product... and you have a backend.

-Chris

[brucekaushik]

free coz i got no budget now! he he

but i prefer the free method because i can write extremely well and also i have time (or take time) to promote myself

if you don't have the above two requirements then it would be foolish to even think of free traffic (you would be paying others anyways , for the content and for promoting)

[kkchoon]

I would prefer SEO traffic for long run, PPC ... a bit too expensive

Doing SEO takes a lot of time, some would prefer to do PPC at start and refine those profitable keywords and turn it into SEO campaign, I guest that have the benefit of both world.

[sanjid112]

If you have plenty of time or have no budget or limited resources to pay anything, pick free. If not, you can consider the paid one. If you want to get more, just do both.

-Malik

[Lucid]

Andrei said:
> But there must be a reason why guys like Frank Kern push PPC.

Of course there is but most people just don't get it. I think because they see SEO as being free and have an aversion to spend money. They forget about the saying "spend money to make money".

Done right - and I must stress this, done right - PPC can get you more targeted visitors using keywords that don't rank well organically. Also, most people use SEO to satisfy the search engines, not the people who see and read the listings. What you say in an ad or organic listing (which is an ad) can greatly influence if people click on it and even if they will eventually buy. PPC can also help with a SEO strategy: you can quickly gather real data on what works and what doesn't.

If a keyword you don't rank well for gets 1000 searches a day, why would you not use PPC? You are leaving potential profits on the table. We all want free traffic but when you can't, PPC is the alternative.

You don't need an unlimited budget. You just have to be smart on how you budget and smarter on how you implement your campaign.

A good strategy is using both SEO and PPC.

[SouthamptonAngel]

PPC can often work out cheaper.

That may sound counter-intuitive but it's because people always forget that time is money. SEO is not free: your spending time that could otherwise be spent on other tasks, so there's a cost associated with it.

[sweetfranky]

Just use both. Everything works. My primary site I am ranked position 3 in organic search and position 2 for PPC. This way, I get more traffic for that specific keyword and more importantly, conversions.

[7_8_shortcuts]

Yes, traffic matters a lot

It's best to use a combination of traffic sources.

PPC is great, but it also has some disadvantages, especially IF you plan to use only that!

Think Google-slap! I have heard plenty of stories where entire businesses were endangered because of the slap of one AdWords account.

And SEO...

That's not perfect either, since Google can again play with your site, or even de-index it... plus... SEO takes time, while PPC is instant.

And essentially what matters is your ROI. If you get more than you spend... why not do it? All traffic is "paid" in the end. SEO takes time and resources which is not free.

[Andrei Rotariu]

Originally Posted by sweetfranky

Just use both. Everything works. My primary site I am ranked position 3 in organic search and position 2 for PPC. This way, I get more traffic for that specific keyword and more importantly, conversions.

I agree totally, the more spots on the SERP that you take up, the better your chances are of click throughs and of course sales. Its like being the owner of more then one horse at the races.

Yeh your spending is up with the training, jockeys, fees etc. But if increasing your chances of winning by even 1% helps you get more sales and increase ROI then it would be stupid to just rely on one method alone.

Like thay say "Dont put all your eggs in one basket".

Last count, on googles search results, i think they give 21 results for a search. Thats with adwords at full capacity, so say you get a tremendous result of 2 organic results and 2 adwords results on page #1 then thats about a 19% chance that the searcher will click your link.

A more realistic 2 results will give you 9.5% chance of getting clicked.

***My Conclusion***

Get as many results on the SERP as possible, payed & FREE.

[rypher21]

i much prefer free traffic..it takes time, effort, patience..but in the end its worthy...

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by rypher21

i much prefer free traffic..it takes time, effort, patience..but in the end its worthy...

Yeah, but PPC can give you immediate traffic!

[sree94]

I will say this... if you focus on PPC, it is VERY hard to go back to doing SEO

SEO takes SOOOO much time, with all the link building, etc. Whereas with PPC, you put up a campaign, and if it works, watch the money roll in