Is paid traffic absolutely necessary?

[simon.kline]

Hi all,

I was wondering if paid traffic such as buying links and reviews from blogs, banners from website and ppc traffic from adwords and yahoo search marketing necessary to generate sales, profits and ultimately success in internet marketing?

Do consider this post as a friendly greeting from a new member to all of you mates as well...

Thanks for your time to post your thoughts and insights

[Daniel Molano]

Not at all, there are many forms of free traffic generation such as article marketing.

[simon.kline]

So article marketing is a viable way of getting traffic and visitors to buy my plr niche ebooks as well? or would adwords be better?

[tush]

It is wirth it to pay for traffic. Here are some of my reasons.
1. I guess you are familiar with this saying that never keep all your eggs in one basket. So test and see where you get the highest ROI.
2. There is nothing for free. If is free in monetary terms, you have to invest alot of time. So it depends on what you have in plenty.
3. If you want immediate results, I don't think you have a choice but integrate PPC.. This traffic is very targeted

[Paul M]

PPC is still king when it comes to driving targeted traffic, but there are still many other free ways to drive targeted traffic.

Press release
Articles
Squidoo lens
Hub pages
Social bookmarking
Blog marketing
Forum marketing
Viral marketing
Having affiliates

Just to name a few.

paul

[justinverr]

Paid advertising is not absolutly essential. You could build a huge online business off of free techniques such as joint ventures, article marketing, press releases, video marketing, social networking and the list goes on and on and on.

You just need to know what your doing. Check out MLM Chess.com, theres a free newsletter very helpful and an awesome course.

Be Passionate, Take Action

[TheMagicShow]

There is no need to pay for traffic, there are tons of methods like: article marketing, press releases, viral marketing and much more than can bring you streams of traffic and yes they are free.

[suparo]

if you want to have a huge success you want to do all method to get traffic to your site and paid method especially google adwards the most effective and fast way to get results and is romantic but if you can have it for free it will be more romantic.

[matthewd]

I just talked to the vendor of one of the products I am an affiliate for today and he told me the about his top affiliate. The top affiliate is bringing in over $10k in commission from article marketing alone... not a penny in PPC.

It is definitely possible to do great w/o paid advertising.

[mmurtha]

Simon,

Nope! Absolutely not. I know I haven't paid one red cent for traffic in the past 8 yrs.

There are several ways to get organic traffic... mnost have already been stated in the thread. SEO plays a good part of it, and so does where you post links. Then you also have one-way links.

I'd rather have organic traffic any day of the week instead of paid traffic. But then again that's me.


Mary

[jensrsa]

Yes, there are many free methods available but most of them take time with no guarantee that you will get it right, so if you are in a hurry paid advertising is probably the best route to go and the cheapest ito time and effort. But paid traffic is short term traffic, once you stop, the traffic generally stops as well.

BTW, with Adsense's new rule about not blocking an ad that is underpriced it makes it easier and cheaper to run low cost advertising.

So, for the long term you should use the other methods discussed here as well, because that's where your sustained traffic will come from.

Jens

[BIG Mike]

Important: Before jumping into PPC, make sure you understand it - otherwise you'll piss your budget away without seeing a decent return.

While you're learning about PPC, various forms of Article Marketing, Blog Commenting, Forum Marketing, etc. are good alternatives to get going. I'd hesitate to pay for reviews, backlinks and so forth until I'd exhausted all of the free methods. The one thing I would pay for is a Press Release - those can be very effective.

[lukemeister]

Originally Posted by BIG Mike

The one thing I would pay for is a Press Release - those can be very effective.

Ah yes, never underestimate the value of a press release, especially if it's placed in the media outlets

[simon.kline]

Originally Posted by mmurtha

Simon,

Nope! Absolutely not. I know I haven't paid one red cent for traffic in the past 8 yrs.

There are several ways to get organic traffic... mnost have already been stated in the thread. SEO plays a good part of it, and so does where you post links. Then you also have one-way links.

I'd rather have organic traffic any day of the week instead of paid traffic. But then again that's me.


Mary

Mary,

It sure inspires me to write and submit art8icles and also implement some basic SEO to my sites after hearing you not spending any dough on ppc...

and i would also prefer organic traffic any day of the week, just don't know how to get more or enough of it....

[simon.kline]

Originally Posted by BIG Mike

Important: Before jumping into PPC, make sure you understand it - otherwise you'll piss your budget away without seeing a decent return.

While you're learning about PPC, various forms of Article Marketing, Blog Commenting, Forum Marketing, etc. are good alternatives to get going. I'd hesitate to pay for reviews, backlinks and so forth until I'd exhausted all of the free methods. The one thing I would pay for is a Press Release - those can be very effective.

yea Big Mike,

I've heard and read lots of horror stories of people being burnt by ppc costs and it seems you would need to be very lucky to even break even...

Guess i'll stick to the free methods for now and see how it goes..

[simon.kline]

Thank you everyone for your guidance and advice... It would be a lot better if someone gave a more detailed way in obtaining organic traffic or free traffic but your input has given me some guidelines to follow to get traffic.

I'll try some free ways mentioned for now and perhaps post an update some time later.

[simon.kline]

Originally Posted by TOPGUN08

Luck?? You don't need luck to make money with PPC, you just have to know what you're doing and a lot of people dont know what they're doing which is why they lose money.

well could you suggest which book i read so that i could prepare and educate myself before venturing into ppc?

[freedom40]

I found "Adwords for Dummies" by Howie Jacobson to be very helpful for a PPC beginner.

[David Raybould]

Hi there,

No, paid advertising is definitely not essential at all...

I get thousands of visitors across all of my sites every single day, and most of it comes from free traffic methods, SEO and articles, things like that.

This traffic can be just as targeted and profitable, but it's largely free...

Hope that's useful

David

[TheVCF]

Dear Simon and Fellow Warriors,

IOHO, No! it is Not Absolutely Necessary to pay for traffic!

Please see in the Thread in the previous WF at:

The Warrior Forum - Page Rank 5/10 in < 3 Mo.s!

That we have generated All of our Traffic and achieved the Page Ranks / Rankings mentioned therein and Even Better Now! ...
with virtually No Paid Traffic, Links or Advertising to date!

So, again, IOHO, No! it is Not Absolutely Necessary to pay for traffic!

However, we do eventually plan on using some forms of "paid traffic", e.g. PPC Ads, etc. to further increase our traffic and accelerate our growth, but again we have not yet had the need, and haven't had the time, to do so, you know?

I hope this all helps and Have a Great Day!

- Michael

[Alminc]

Hi guys,

Another question :

Do you know of any paid traffic source with FIXED price (no bidding)
that delivers non-garbage visitors (real visitors that can be converted to subscribers and customers)?

If it exists I would buy lots of it .

[Steven Wagenheim]

I have been told that I am the cheapest SOB on the planet when it comes to
my business. The bulk of my income comes from free sources of traffic, so no, you don't have to pay for traffic to be successful.

Having said that, most forms or free traffic generation take some time to
start bringing significant results. So don't expect to get rich overnight.

[jhongren]

In fact, there are many free traffic sources such as video marketing, article marketing and social networking sites.

You may want to venture into these free resources before investing in paid sources. =)

Cheers,
John

[Anup Mahajan]

Paid traffic is not a necessity but it can give results pretty fast.

There are tons of ways to drive free targeted traffic to your site but it will take some time and effort from your side whereas paid traffic (especially PPC) can give you results within hours.

If you want to drive free traffic to your site you can try Bum Marketing

Bum Marketing Method - Free Traffic Tips

(not an affiliate link)

Regards,
Anup

[betdav]

I use free methods and PPC. I use social networks, article writing and forums for free traffic. I also use SEO for organic traffic.

I would have to agree that PPC does bring quick traffic, and I have had sales with PPC, but I have also had some sales with free traffic.
It is all in what you can afford and how quickly you want to make money.

I do not run my Internet Marketing business full time yet, but I eventually will, and then I can spend more time with free methods.

Remember that it takes a long time to get traffic and sales from free methods, but if you have the time and the patience, it is well worth it!

[denoble]

Hey quys,

I love this thread. The truth remains that "you get what you pay for" but what in case where there not enough funds to pay for 'what to get'.

Apart from being time consuming. I have found out that well planned and targeted free traffic generation campaign gets more response that even the popular google adwords and PPCs.

Thanks
Afam
-------------------------------
Free Traffic Secrets That Actually Sells

[Tim_Carter]

No.

I use Wordpress blogs and set the ping list - add a couple of optimization plugins and presto - I'm near the top of the search engines. I never pay for traffic or do linking.

Search for plr videos and see what is near or at the top in Google.
Then look at my sig.

[simon.kline]

thanks for all your advice mates...

i just wrote a couple of articles to submit to directories, i'll try the free way before going into paid traffic...

again, all comments are appreciated

[crystalq]

dont just do articles, you can comment on blogs
submit to news sharing sites, use social bookmarking,
trade links, submit ur site 2 directories and more.

Look here Free Traffic | MakingBigCash.com

[David Surk]

I disagree. Personally I think any paid form of advertising is much better then most free methods. Mostly because paid methods are much more predictable and quantifiable. This is huge when it comes to expansion, scalability and systemization.

Of course this assumes your doing solid tracking along with optimizing and pruning your paid traffic sources.

Don't get me wrong, free methods are a good. But I would not look to them as a primary source of traffic. It leaves you open to factors way beyond your control. I personally don't want to worry about my traffic tanking because of changes in SEO.

You can also leverage paid advertising to make your free traffic generation methods more productive. For example, you can better focus your SEO efforts by focusing only on keywords that have shown to convert well in PPC beforehand. Basically in most cases it's best to test with PPC and if you have winner expand into free methods. Starting out with free methods can cause you to waste alot of time waiting to find out if something is even worth pursuing.

Just my .02

Much love,
Dave.

[drr]

Solid paid methods (such as Adwords) can get you measured traffic quickly. I would also point out there are lots of scams out there RE paid traffic so it's important to do due diligence and read reviews on anything new you may be considering.

Personally, I think you can generate more than enough traffic for free - as has been mentioned on this post, things like articles, forums, youtube videos, yahoo answers, social marketing...the list is endless. SEO is not the only way to go RE free traffic.

__________________
A Few People Only - Try Traffic Now With My Compliments. Click This
Sizzling New Resell Rights, Private Label Rights, Source Code, IM Videos & Resources In One Place - Click This

[Michael Gentry]

There are a lot of good free and paid traffic methods and there are also a lot of bad ways. You need to track your results.

[jbsmith]

Let me start by saying that 90%+ of my traffic comes from free sources - content in articles, blogs, social networking sites and video directories, affiliates and various other references such as directory listings and interviews that have been published online and offline.

But, there are 3 reasons why you do want to pay for traffic:

1. To test keywords, ads and on-page factors for their ability to generate traffic and convert. What do you do when you have a list of 1,000 keywords generated from Wordtracker or the Google Keyword Suggestion Tool - if you had to write a 1000 artilces to test them out, not only would that take you months, but 2/3 or more would turn out to be ineffective in converting your traffic into sales. So - it's much quicker to run a 1-week PPC campaign to test the 1000 keywords and quickly determine which ones result in more sales. At that point you can continue paying (so long as you are profitable - why NOT!) and organize your free traffic generation techniques around these keywords first.

2. Split testing - when you first start out it can take months of trying different headlines, sub-heads, first paragraphs, and other copywriting aspects of your pages to improve conversion - with paid advertising you can test this and get it right much faster.

3. All out frontal assault - yes, you generate a ton of traffic from free content, but so long as your paid advertising is profitable, you can also generate a ton MORE traffic taking your business to the next level by using paid advertising.

Jeff

[Ragtime52]

I guess it also depends on your keywords. How hard are they? What are your future customers looking for? And how do they do it?

[Arindam Chakraborty]

Originally Posted by simon.kline

Hi all,

I was wondering if paid traffic such as buying links and reviews from blogs, banners from website and ppc traffic from adwords and yahoo search marketing necessary to generate sales, profits and ultimately success in internet marketing?

Do consider this post as a friendly greeting from a new member to all of you mates as well...

Thanks for your time to post your thoughts and insights

Why pay when you can get more for free?

At first you will need to do some basic SEO but you can do that for free too (just decide whether you want to spend time or money). And when you get a few customers, just convert them into affiliates. Let affiliates promote the heck out of your product by spending their money and sweating, while you watch out for the sales rolling in….

Arindam

P.S. Would you mind being my friend?

[naruq]

Paid traffic is not absolutely necessary. However, In my opinion if you want to build a solid Internet Business you want to do both. You want to track both your free and paid advertising.