Paid Vs Free Traffic

SEO
Paid
and of course Free.

It's hard to choose on of them. Simply because by combine both of them would be great.
Paid traffic with targeted traffic purchases, targeted paid advertising, like buy an ad spaces on buysellads (with some research to determine the right site and suit your budget), and PPC marketing.

For free traffic, I'd prefer to forum posting and building a good relationship with other targeted members.
Active on social Facebook and twitter. Yeah, that's pretty much to be done by myself. For other tasks, I would probably hire a freelancer.

It is not about year whether 2012 or 2013, free traffic is far better than paid traffic. Now if you have money to burn then of course paid advertising is the quickest way to go. But I'd recommend you to keep affiliate marketing relatively low investment and rather use guerrilla methods for free traffic. Never depends on one traffic source just like how you wouldn't put all your eggs in one basket. Let's say you're getting a ton of relevant hits to your website from just a YouTube video you uploaded then YouTube decides to take it down citing that you used copyright material. The moment that happens you will no longer get any hits which mean you are not getting any sales. So my advice is to get out there, get involved in different communities, and make a presence known. So that you will not only earn traffic but also earn trust from your visitors.

I would like to do paid traffic strategies, but in this
point of time I can't risk my funds because
I don't make a lot of money!

If you're low with your budget then the option
for you is to drive free traffic. For that reason
my favorite source is social media sites.
This is a slow race but eventually you will
get some results. Everything depends on your plan
and action.

I recommend using Empire Avenue as a source of free
traffic too.

Free traffic is often not good, because you get what you paid for.

I have always been a fan of paid traffic, as you are likely to get better results.

I focus the free traffic:
1. SEO
2. Local marketplaces
3. Social signals
4. Forums

But the free traffic is not fully free.

e.g: SEO - you outsource a link builder, you spend the money for hiring the link builder for attracting the free traffic from Google.

It's an open ended question, because everyone's level of involvement is different. If you're a newbie without a lot of expendable cash for marketing, then of course you would want to focus on "free" methods of traffic generation. On the other hand, if you have any level of experience in the online marketing world, then by all means the paid traffic methods (those understood) would be the most viable ways for you. There is always a drawback to free traffic generating strategies and that is that it tends to come a little slower than the paid methods. By far in my experiences, the solo ad route has yielded the fastest results to date, but not always reliable or for that matter responsive. But not all solo ads (list) are created equal. It's all in the offer presented to them.

Free traffic isn't inferior to paid traffic, or at least it doesn't have to be, but I do think that the concept of "free traffic" is misleading. After all, it's really more a question of, "would you rather pay for your traffic with time or money?"

And even then, just about every "free traffic" source still requires, or at least benefits from, having seed money available.

So, with that disclaimer I lump myself into the free traffic strategy. The tactics I use would generally fall into that category (SEO, email marketing, forum posting, social media, syndication, etc.), but I don't think it's an accurate description.

I prefer free traffic. It is always best to learn how to generate traffic when first starting out.

Also I like to drive traffic without the help of Google. I like to be in full control of my business. With Goggle updating its policies all the time - you can lose all your traffic in a heartbeat if you rely solely on organic traffic.

Nothing has built up my businesses faster than paid advertising. A close second would be free publicity. The myth about "free" advertising is that it's never free, there's always a cost involved and usually it's your time.

I can't test "free" advertising within 15 minutes nor can I scale it up as FAST as paid advertising. More businesses rely on advertising to grow their revenues than anything else, that should tell you something.

RoD

Paid and I'm also working on getting free traffic.

Paid is still what I'll be focusing on.

Free Traffic:

1. Youtube.com
Traffic for youtube has increased rapidly for the last couple of years as more and more people watch videos online, especially with the introduction of smartphones

2. Social Media like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest
Pinterest's traffic is the best for conversion. Facebook and Twitter's traffic may be junk traffic in some cases.

3. Article Marketing
For Traffic from article directories and not for backlinking purpose and SEO traffic as that traffic is dead after Google Penguin and Panda

Paid traffic:

1. PPC except Adwords which is too expensive nowadays. You can also try 2nd tier PPC advertising networks that offers cheaper clicks. The better ones are 7search, Advertise.com and Adknowledge.com

2. Solo Ads
There are many Warriors offering Solo Ads for "make money" niche in the Warrior Forum Classified Ads. You need to read the reviews of other warriors and test out who offers better quality traffic.

Currently, I don't do SEO anymore after being hit by Google Panda and Updates.

facebook ads. its very worthed on my local marketing. for free i use blog commenting on the same niche with my blog

For the best Traffic results i think paid traffic better.
but if you don't have budget,so free traffic its good start.

Free is a great boost. Paid is a great way to make money fast. Also a great way to lose money fast.

Well the best things in life are for free right?

I will be focusing on paid traffic:

Bing
7search
Solos ads

Paid traffic will let me reach my goal faster...for free traffic i will still spent a little of my time on it but the main focus will be on paid traffic

I much prefer paid sources as i can scale what works and eliminate the traffic that doesn't.. I can set budgets and try/test easier...

I like the control that paid sources allow...

Paid traffic is often more productive but always working to get as much added free traffic as possible.

both of them.. use paid traffic while rank up on SE

...though I voted for paid traffic but that does not mean free traffic aren't working or effective because I made over $200 posting just 2 messages on my fB wall. So, let's not confuse those (newbies) that are coming into the IM industry!

If you understand marketing, then paid traffic will give you almost instant results, while free traffic can be sometimes slow but it also depend on your expertise.

I totally agree with you. Paid or Free.

Free traffic if you know how to use it.

If you don't know how to generate free traffic, you do one of two things (or both):

1) Pay
2) Learn to use free traffic effectively

Everyone is right, there's no such thing as "free" traffic, but rather you won't have to pay with cash to attain this traffic.

if your time is more precious to you than your dollar, than go with paid traffic. If you have time and no dollars, you need to be skill building to get to the point where you can make dollars with your time.

ha ha ha... no such thing as free traffic. Perhaps SEO marketing might be a better phrase?

Everything costs you either time or money.

Paid for me because it allows me to zero in on a targeted audience immediately without relying on Google etc.

ABSOLUTELY ONE HUNDRED PER CENT FREE TRAFFIC! And 2014, 2018, 2030 if I am still there...I'll still be using free traffic! :

Paid baby paid all the way.
Know your numbers and you will make a fortune from paid traffic sources.