What would YOU go for: Free or Paid Traffic?

12 years ago

I guess that can't be answered clearly. If you make money with advertisements, you should probably go for free traffic, otherwise it wouldn't work out very well at the end.

If you have a product that converts well enough to make some money even if you had to pay for the traffic, there's actually no FREE or PAID question left, if possible, you should do both in these cases.

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wishfulsuccess

12 years ago

Originally Posted by lifesofree

I guess that can't be answered clearly. If you make money with advertisements, you should probably go for free traffic, otherwise it wouldn't work out very well at the end.

If you have a product that converts well enough to make some money even if you had to pay for the traffic, there's actually no FREE or PAID question left, if possible, you should do both in these cases.

I agree. But if you are allowed to just choose one.. which would it be? That still reveals your most preferred method. If one method had to disappear overnight... which method would you keep and want all knowledge of?

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lifesofree

12 years ago

For me I would choose free traffic since that's the one that works well for my website.

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Chris Ditfort

12 years ago

I would definitely go with FREE traffic as it is FREE and can be really effective, even more effective than paid traffic sources as it is laser targeted. I'd actually say FREE traffic is more effect than paid, seriously people don't be lazy and pay, unless you have the money LOL

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theebookcavern

12 years ago

Personally I would go with free traffic because my site's main income is advertising revenue so paid traffic would not really work.

However, if I had a product to sell then I would go with paid traffic. If you knew what you were doing you could be making sales within minutes using paid traffic. It would take a lot longer with free traffic.

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Welsh Warrior

12 years ago

I mostly use free traffic as that is what I understand - I have a wide range of microniche sites.

That said I am learning paid methods to drive traffic to a new product I have created (on making niche sites). At the moment I am using targeted individuals from expired domains within my niche. Not paying off yet, but this morning I started getting some positive results...so it depends entirely on what the niche is and your monetisation methods I think.

Both have their time and their place, though I do wish I understood paid traffic more

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theebookcavern

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Welsh Warrior

I mostly use free traffic as that is what I understand - I have a wide range of microniche sites.

That said I am learning paid methods to drive traffic to a new product I have created (on making niche sites). At the moment I am using targeted individuals from expired domains within my niche. Not paying off yet, but this morning I started getting some positive results...so it depends entirely on what the niche is and your monetisation methods I think.

Both have their time and their place, though I do wish I understood paid traffic more

Have you tried Perry Marshall's Ultimate Guide To Google Adwords? I'm not sure how much Adwords has changed since but when I used it a few years back it was a really useful guide.

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Alexa Smith

Banned 12 years ago

The one on which I think it's wise to avoid being dependent is the one which so far has 100% of the vote in the poll (but I'll change that in a second) - free search engine traffic.

As so many Warriors (and others) have found to their very great cost, especially this year, a business which is dependent on Google for its primary traffic will only ever be one algorithm change away from a potential disaster.

I don't have any strong feelings about whether traffic's "free" or "paid" (and many kinds of traffic can effectively be either, of course, because one can often substitute labor for money), but depending permanently on Google is short-sighted, and specifically designing a business from the start to become dependent on Google is very unwise indeed. :p :rolleyes:

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wishfulsuccess

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Chris Ditfort

I would definitely go with FREE traffic as it is FREE and can be really effective, even more effective than paid traffic sources as it is laser targeted. I'd actually say FREE traffic is more effect than paid, seriously people don't be lazy and pay, unless you have the money LOL

Ahaha Well technically it is "free" in the sense you don't have to repay substantial costs of ranking. Both paid and free can be really effective. The problem is the time gap.

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

The one on which I think it's wise to avoid being dependent is the one which so far has 100% of the vote in the poll (but I'll change that in a second) - free search engine traffic.

As so many Warriors (and others) have found to their very great cost, especially this year, a business which is dependent on Google for its primary traffic will only ever be one algorithm change away from a potential disaster.

I don't have any strong feelings about whether traffic's "free" or "paid" (and many kinds of traffic can effectively be either, of course, because one can often substitute labor for money), but depending permanently on Google is short-sighted, and specifically designing a business to become dependent on Google is very unwise indeed. :p :rolleyes:

I agree with you about not laying all the eggs in one basket on Google. It shows a hugeeee tendency for many warriors here to choose on priority Search traffic.

I laid the poll here to really see if everyone is leaning on Google. Haha, no wonder the Panda updates on google smacked hard!

----

Oh, and seriously? No one prefers paid traffic... at all?

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Welsh Warrior

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

I don't have any strong feelings about whether traffic's "free" or "paid" (and many kinds of traffic can effectively be either, of course, because one can often substitute labor for money), but depending permanently on Google is short-sighted, and specifically designing a business from the start to become dependent on Google is very unwise indeed. :p :rolleyes:

Exactly my thinking for the move to paid traffic. Thankfully about 80% of my niche sites actually did better after Panda, but everyone elses horror stories has made me very aware that all my eggs are in Googles basket.

Unfortunately the majority of my niches and sites don't really lend themselves to list building, so I have started 2 more niches that do and am driving paid traffic to, to help build my list.

Additionally trying PPC on CPA...the more income streams the better imo

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Adnan Firdous

12 years ago

Obviously free traffic! 'Cause most of the times, free traffic is targeted, which means good conversion!

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jeresteem99

12 years ago

For me, I really want a PAID traffic, for I am so lazy of doing anything, but the problem is that I don't have the money to pay so I will go for FREE. I will just pay if I know if my site is earning more than what I image.

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wishfulsuccess

12 years ago

Originally Posted by jeresteem99

For me, I really want a PAID traffic, for I am so lazy of doing anything, but the problem is that I don't have the money to pay so I will go for FREE. I will just pay if I know if my site is earning more than what I image.

Hi, the post assumes that you have knowledge of paid traffic - and which means you know you can convert huge amounts of traffic doing it right and covering your investments. Even so... would you still choose free traffic if you could cover your costs in paid traffic?

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sitehero

12 years ago

From all my years of experience, free organic search traffic will ALWAYS be the number one source of traffic for any website thats done everything correctly. Regardless of how much someone pays for advertising, this traffic source will rarely even come close to free search traffic.

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HonestAffiliate

12 years ago

Looks like there is more comments to this poll
than actual voters,=).

Maybe the poll question should stand like this:

What does bring you better results/response?

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wishfulsuccess

12 years ago

Originally Posted by HonestAffiliate

Looks like there is more comments to this poll
than actual voters,=).

Maybe the poll question should stand like this:

What does bring you better results/response?

Hmm... that's not really the gist of the question I guess. I was wondering about the percentage of Warriors who deeply desire using Free Traffic methods over Paid Traffic methods, and vice versa - not so much on how much it works for them... because what works for them might not be what they really want to use.

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Jenny4u1

12 years ago

Usually every one likes free traffic. I am also go for free traffic only.

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anahita56

12 years ago

Yes, free is good and very effective but takes a lot of time and effort. Paid is costly but gets quick results, not necessarily result you're looking for, but gets results anyway. However, what is the point of having a lot of junk traffic? The whole point of getting traffic is to get some desired result, be it building your list or selling your product or service. I like free traffic because though you have to work at it, at least you have the option to make it somewhat targeted and if you do get junk traffic, at least you are not out of pocket.

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Daniel Wilson

12 years ago

Hi!

FREE traffic is obviously the most appreciated but sometimes there is a tough competition to beat and you need to go after payed traffic. Also many services lack the content on their site and it makes it tougher to get proper rankings.

For paid traffic I'd choose Adwords due to their high conversion rates.

Daniel

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madzstar

12 years ago

Free. Though it may take longer but hey, i think it all depends on your goals and objectives

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Patrick Kelly

12 years ago

Hi,

Paid traffic is more targeted and instant. That said, free traffic looks might fine to Google!

cheers, Patrick

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Rod Cortez

12 years ago

Originally Posted by wishfulsuccess

This is a very debated topic, and no the thread isn't about whether free or paid traffic is better than the other. This is just to measure the penetration of traffic methods all our fellow warriors here are using - afterall, the majority is the popularity.

Don't try to give a right answer - just vote for the one that you think is not the best... but the method you WANT most to use. Assuming you have all the knowledge about free or paid traffic, which would you still choose?

I'm curious...
Let's find out which is more popular here.

While I use a wide variety of methods to obtain free traffic, nothing has grown my business faster than using paid advertising. With very few exceptions, nothing will take a business from 6 to 7 or 8 figures per annum faster than by using paid advertising.

It's a great way to give Google the bird, build a large, targeted list with speed and efficiency, and duplicate your efforts. The caveat: you really have to know what you're doing, meaning you've got to have all your marketing fundamentals down pat, ranging from sales copy to tracking conversions, and the willingness to take a loss in the beginning.

And pay-per-click advertising is just a small piece of the paid advertising pie.

RoD

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Robert H Cwik

12 years ago

Whereas free traffic to your offer may grow with time, if you keep your site the way big G likes it, paid traffic brings instant gratification. If you do your homework well, you may expect sales hours after you set your offer up. This is at least my own experience. There is no better "quick cash" method than a good offer and well setup PPC campaign.

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TheZafraGroup

12 years ago

Well I started out with a budget so I had to rely on free traffic for quite some time. If I had the choice back then though, I would balance both free and paid traffic. I would use paid traffic to give a boost in my results while working on my free traffic generation methods because as you all know, the long term benefits are with the free traffic generation methods. If we stop ppc for example, everything will stop so I would balance both. Now, what I'm doing is FB PPC and a lot of free traffic generation methods. Working out great so far!

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Dimitris Skiadas

12 years ago

From my little experience, i 've seen people making money online with all kinds of traffic.Whether is paid traffic or free traffic.I voted for free traffic(doing SEO) and i will immediately explain why.

Doing SEO is a job that i love.It certainly is not free at all.Cause most of the times you have to pay someone for backlinks.Maybe sometimes you have to pay a litlle bit more for having backlinks from pages with high Page Rank.Or maybe you ll have to pay someone to review your website as he is an SEO expert to help you out with the rankings.

So definitely most of the times free traffic is not totally free.But for me it totally worths the time spending in SEO cause you have the results you wish and Google sees you in a good way,when you own a website,full of quality content.

Dimitris

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Jonathan Price

12 years ago

Hi wishful success,

I would choose paid traffic, all the way. Paid traffic got me started in Internet Marketing, and it's made me the most money overall. Yes, there's JV's and SEO... and they are integral parts of my business also, but paid traffic is how you build a REAL business. I have seen so many big companies who are essentially doing the same things we are, but they are BIG because they pay for traffic. It's measurable and you can test and scale campaigns as fast as you want. If you want to go deeper, the best kind of paid traffic to me has been email buys and targeted PPC. Free traffic always has it's place, but if you want to build a big business, paid traffic is where it's at!

Thanks,
Mark

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thehorizon

12 years ago

I'm also really interested in what other warriors prefer here. I'm going for banner traffic. : )

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wishfulsuccess

12 years ago

Interesting results - it seems like many (8) warriors prefer free traffic, while paid traffic lags by a 4. Seems like search traffic is a huge thing here...

Would be brilliant if there was a larger sample size though.

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CDarklock

12 years ago

I don't like any of those. I'm a fan of type-in traffic, where your traffic already knows who you are and specifically wants to go to your site.

That's not really paid, but it's not really free either. It's just that instead of paying for people to go to your site, you're paying for them to know who you are.

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roseca

12 years ago

for me free traffic is good...

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CyberSEO

12 years ago

Free Traffic - Search Traffic

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Gary Ning Lo

12 years ago

I always go with FREE traffic + VAs..

Killer combination

Cheers,

~Gary

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What would YOU go for: Free or Paid Traffic?

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