Free traffic is time consuming

Well then you're a fool and haven't researched your business niche properly. There are dozens of neat, profitable, unusual, and very effective ways to attract basically free traffic to your website or blog. I know from many years first hand experience.

If you can't be bothered spending the time to do the work then that's fine, but don't come on here implying to all and sundry that it's a difficult task. It's not. And it's neither time consuming or soul draining as you state. It's also a matter of perspective and how you value your business.

free traffic need a lot of time and is very slow.
but it brigs results over time!
I think it s possible integrate both systems!

I made and still make a lot of money from free YouTube traffic, which is not time consuming at all. I had $500 days and months with over $4000.

Free traffic isn't free.

Nope.

You're paying with your TIME.

Since TIME is MONEY, free traffic is PAID traffic.

With that said, the STRATEGIC BENEFIT you get with FREE traffic is that your SCREWUPS and FAILURES don't DRAIN you of cash....

Plus, when you FAIL, the emotional BURN isn't too harsh unlike if you invested HARD-EARNED CASH.

Irony...

Your post and the moderator's note seem a bit ironic.

Free traffic does indeed take longer and more work. But if you keep working at it, like blogging everyday, tweeting and posting on Facebook, overtime you'll gain a huge following and you wouldn't have to work that much. The traffic just comes to you.

I agree.

To each their own.. and if some of you guys want to chase after free traffic, be my guest.
But if I had to choose between free traffic and paid traffic, I'd choose Paid traffic - All day every day.

There's no comparison.

Time is your most valuable asset.

With most free traffic methods you are exchanging serious time in exchange for a small trickle of traffic.
And it's not worth it.

And even if you somehow manage to tap into social media to get alot a whole bunch of traffic one day.. so what?

It's not really dependable. It's not really scalable. So it's unlikely that it's going to last long.

With paid traffic I have something dependable, steady, scalable, etc.

I've been at this for years.. and I've been forunate enough to be surrounded with alot of friends who are also very successful.. And out of everyone that I know who makes over 7 figures online.. None of them got there through free traffic.

I know alot who got there through PPC / media buying / etc.. but none who are hitting numbers like that with free traffic.. so that should tell you something.

I think most people get suckered into chasing after free traffic because deep down inside they have alot of fears and doubts. They are scared to death of paid traffic because of the 'risk'.. What if they spend $5 on an ad and lose it? surely it will be the end of them.

So many people chase after free traffic because it's Safe. it's not as intimidating.. and if it doesn't work out.. No harm done right? they didn't lose any money, right?

Wrong.

If you spend 6 months chasing SEO / social media or some other magical Free traffic unicorn and it doesn't work out.. You just wasted 6 months of your life.. That's time that's gone forever.

And time is priceless. Time is worth more than gold. On his deathbed, the richest man on the world would give all of his wealth to get more of it.. yet you just threw away 6 months of your life chasing a wild goose.

Not only that.. Free traffic is EXPENSIVE.. think about it.

Had you worked a minimum wage job during those 6 months instead and saved up money.. how much money would you be sitting on?

Depends on where you live.. but could be anywhere from $10k - $18k

So what if you just saved up that money and than did paid traffic? Imagine what you could do with an $18k budget.. you'd probably be in a WAY different position than you are now.. and wouldn't have all the stress / headache..

So is free traffic really worth it? you tell me..

Yes you can use Paid traffic for fast results, but in paid traffic u always have to spend money
again and again,

but in free traffic You will get traffic for lifetime like in the youtube videos,
where u work once and get traffic for lifetime, if u know how to use free traffic sources properly
then u can do many great things.

When it comes to free traffic; Youtube and SEO is effective.

Some other methods:

Blog commenting

Forum marketing

I think both have their pluses/minuses so which you use, or in what combination, should be determined by your own particular circumstances, and...

If using paid advertising you should really know what you're getting for the cash layout.

According to this article, only 8% of your ad spend is ever seen by human eyes.
https://moz.com/blog/online-advertising-fraud

Honestly, it is not unusual that a business owner has to work harder than an employee.
Especially, when starting out

Just saying

I really prefer paid traffic to drive traffic to my offers.

Not all free traffic requires a lot of work, and not all paid traffic is non-time consuming (you still have to spend time monitoring and testing a lot of paid traffic sources, which is plenty time consuming).

I think diversification is the key. A good blend of free traffic and paid traffic. I like to spread my net as far and wide as possible. But which is superior? Well, probably paid traffic sites but yes, they cost money so you have to weigh that into the equation.

In my opinion, free traffic and Paid traffic is all about people. Paid can be more targeted than free, however, you must be a traffic generator. Who have media, always have money. I have media and my business is as great as my media. Just my opinion...

Free traffic seems to attract freebie seekers. Go for paid advertising even if your on a low budget. The results are amazing when you use the right traffic sources.

Why not leverage both free and paid traffic methods ? If you are serious about building a long term business build multiple traffic sources the free way and while you're still waiting to kick in leverage paid traffic methods. It's been said time and time again : Time Vs Money. Get serious, get out their, and go get to work on your marketing.

Of courses, paid traffic will be beneficial if you have the cash to invest. But before this, it needs lots of research work to know what paid traffic method is working for your business.

Say you are writing blog posts in the hope of getting free traffic, if you have confidence in it, you can outsource content writers to write blog posts for you. At the same time, you have to keep checking the content writer works so that it maintains the same quality level you were putting...

Where did you hear or read "Free Traffic" would be or should be easy?

Free traffic is much better than paid while it has long lasting effects, that's why SEO worth.
But my personal opinion, every IM should integrate both.

It all boils down to this, really:

Do you have more time than money, or do you have more money than time?

Charlie

From experience, the harder you work for traffic the better and more hardy that traffic is.

It can take time but in my experience a well thought out and executed plan has real long term benefits.

Year in year out I make six figures from a product that I don't spend a penny to promote. The articles and videos have been up for years and each one still ranks high enough on google to not worry about.

I think too many people are sold the myth of free advertising and have unreal expectations.

For me its a long term strategy.

I think you should look at creating content as an investment for the future, where you domain's ranking will improve, it's nice to have the budget for paid and if you work it correctly you can have great benefits but I find that the trail goes very cold when you stop.

Getting into a routine, of at least one blog post a week, 5 Facebook posts a week, 5 twitter posts a day will all grow your site and business.

It's very time consuming IMO, this is why of the benefits of paid traffic IMO, it still takes some time but you see results much quicker

my site has got some php errors..i could not figure it out earlier, but now i have learnt that it might cause a significant drop in search results

If you can afford it, paid traffic is best. But a lot depends on the type of your business. If you are after creating an authority information website, then free SEO traffic is more desirable. In case of thin sites, paid traffic is best because it will take a lot of effort to rank thin websites these days.

There's no denying that paid traffic is faster. But paid traffic is also cold traffic -- takes a bit to warm it up and start getting good conversions. It can also be extremely expensive unless you know who to buy your solo ads from.
On the other hand, free traffic takes more time but the quality is usually better in terms of "know, like, trust" so you're likely to get easier and faster conversions.
I prefer to use both paid and free traffic.
The main thing I like about free traffic (primarily forum posts) is gaining information for myself at the same time I'm trying to help others. Total win-win!

Joyce

You nailed it, free traffic is insanely time consuming as well as highly unpredictable, it's no fun to say the least!

very true indeed. There is a problem that a lot of people in this forum talks about driving free traffic like it's not time consuming. A lot of newbies gets confused and I bet some of them give up after a to short period of time to even start getting some momentum

Yes, free traffic is usually very time consuming, I agree.

However, for many of us, especially when first starting out we tend to have more time than money.

I got started with free traffic and spent HOURS on a daily basis working on getting it.

It was a good learning process though. Now I can outsource the "free traffic" and pay somebody else to perform the same traffic methods which I learned myself by trial and error. So in a sense, I "graduated" from free traffic to paid traffic, by taking the time to learn the free methods first.