Who else here makes money without buying any paid traffic, solo ads, etc?

10 years ago

Hey Adie

You pay with both traffic sources.

1.) You pay $$ for PAID traffic
2.) You pay your time for "free" traffic.

Time is your most valuable asset, so you use it accordingly.

I think BOTH paid and free traffic are effective and should be used.

If you have the money it's always good to invest in $$ traffic.

But like you I don't want to be constantly having to turn to paid traffic for the answer.

I need traffic, but I also need a consistent flow on autopilot as well.

That's why it's always good to have a blog, or some kind of landing page

find one method that you prefer marketing, and do it to the best of your ability!

Hope this helps!

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JRJWrites

10 years ago

I use free traffic, but I hope to branch out to PPC just as soon as I get my act together and earning a little bit more than it is right now.

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satrap

10 years ago

I have never paid for traffic. Neither have I ever bought solo ads.

I am not saying its wrong or not profitable, it's just that I never needed it. I have been doing this 3-4 years now and all my traffic comes from search engines and referrals.

That said, I have to admit, relying too much on search engines can be scary. But then again, if one day you do lose that traffic, you can always go for the paid ones.

But until I have it, I will use it, since its free and very targeted (especially traffic coming from long tails keywords I rank for).

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Adie

10 years ago

Originally Posted by satrap

I have never paid for traffic. Neither have I ever bought solo ads.

I am not saying its wrong or not profitable, it's just that I never needed it. I have been doing this 3-4 years now and all my traffic comes from search engines and referrals.

That said, I have to admit, relying too much on search engines can be scary. But then again, if one day you do lose that traffic, you can always go for the paid ones.

But until I have it, I will use it, since its free and very targeted (especially traffic coming from long tails keywords I rank for).

We are definitely in the same boat. The penguin/panda affected me a little and did not really swayed much of my affiliate earnings.

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anton433

10 years ago

Originally Posted by satrap

That said, I have to admit, relying too much on search engines can be scary. But then again, if one day you do lose that traffic, you can always go for the paid ones.

But it takes time to learn PPC and find the profitable keywords for your offer. If the worst case scenario hits, you can't replace your organic traffic with paid traffic overnight (or maybe you can but you won't be profitable). I think it's best to always have a mix of paid and "free" traffic sources.

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Declan O Flaherty

10 years ago

I use both. My question is: If you sent 100 people through your funnel and $200 came out the other side, wouldn't it just make sense to pay for traffic then? I don't see any logic in ONLY focusing on free traffic. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever - and you most definitely are leaving money on the table.

This is not about right, or wrong. It's about making money - and the most efficient way to do it. Okay, you get a lot of free traffic. That's cool, but it still doesn't justify not buying money at a discount, which is essentially what you will be dong if your funnel spits out more than you put in.

Sorry guys. But none of this makes sense - and there's no justification for you just focusing on free traffic. It's like you're proud to make a living from free traffic and are happy to ignore the benefits of using paid traffic too... to make even more money.

I value my time much more than i do money. Not trying to purposely stir things here, but you should, under no circumstances, just focus on one over the other. Actually, that's not entirely true. If I had to pick one, I'd definitely focus on paid traffic over free traffic every bloody day of the week.

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cagwatson

10 years ago

Originally Posted by Declan O Flaherty

I use both. My question is: If you sent 100 people through your funnel and $200 came out the other side, wouldn't it just make sense to pay for traffic then? I don't see any logic in ONLY focusing on free traffic. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever - and you most definitely are leaving money on the table.

This is not about right, or wrong. It's about making money - and the most efficient way to do it. Okay, you get a lot of free traffic. That's cool, but it still doesn't justify not buying money at a discount, which is essentially what you will be dong if your funnel spits out more than you put in.

Sorry guys. But none of this makes sense - and there's no justification for you just focusing on free traffic. It's like you're proud to make a living from free traffic and are happy to ignore the benefits of using paid traffic too... to make even more money.

I value my time much more than i do money. Not trying to purposely stir things here, but you should, under no circumstances, just focus on one over the other. Actually, that's not entirely true. If I had to pick one, I'd definitely focus on paid traffic over free traffic every bloody day of the week.

This is the most sensible post I've read here in a long time,kudos.

I like the instant scalability of paid traffic, it can be money on tap with the right products/funnel etc

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dewayneboyd

10 years ago

Originally Posted by cagwatson

This is the most sensible post I've read here in a long time,kudos.

I like the instant scalability of paid traffic, it can be money on tap with the right products/funnel etc

Um, no. He left out the part where a lot of people lose money. And making $2 per click is not even remotely possible for a lot of offers.

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Chriswrighto 10 years ago

Originally Posted by dewayneboyd

Um, no. He left out the part where a lot of people lose money. And making $2 per click is not even remotely possible for a lot of offers.

The OP obviously has a good product and offer if he is making money from the organic searches.

Chances are, pumping paid traffic (as long as you target your campaign) will bring in more money.

The people that lose money will be losing money without PPC the majority of the time.
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Declan O Flaherty 10 years ago

Originally Posted by dewayneboyd

Um, no. He left out the part where a lot of people lose money. And making $2 per click is not even remotely possible for a lot of offers.

Isn't that the whole point of testing and tweaking until you get a winner - and then scale it up? What you lose in the beginning is pittance compared to what you get back in the end.
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dewayneboyd

10 years ago

Originally Posted by Adie

This forum has a lot to offer. There are solo ads, PPC, PPV, media buys etc. All types of paid advertisement that people who want to have fast traffic in order to generate sales, wanted to pay.

I am running several sites (both personal and affiliate sites) but honestly I never paid for any ad or traffic for around 3 years now even after the penguin/panda things are created. The last time I purchased some kind of PPC was through 7search and the result was more than disappointing.

As I mentioned several times in other threads, my focus this 2014 is Clickbank and I actually have a very good start since December 31st as my sites are gaining more popularity in Google.

I am not discouraging anyone not to buy traffic. I just think it's just not for me.

So, aside from me, who else here really don't pay for advertising and promotion and why? Are you already satisfied with your earnings even without buying traffic or paying in promotion?

If you ask me what is the real reason why I am not willing to pay for traffic or promotion, my answer is this. My websites are designed for long-term business and I believe buying traffic is not really a solution. I have a VA who focuses more on organic promotion and the long term result is better and more cheaper than buying an unreusable traffic.

What do you think?

There are several types of people who are going to answer this question. Here is a partial list:

1. People who sell traffic in some way. They will disagree with you.

2. The occasional person who is successful at buying traffic. They will disagree with you.

3. The person who has lost money at buying traffic. Some of them will agree with you.

4. The parrots who don't really know but spout off about what other people have told them (probably the worst kind on the WF, cause they create the false sense that a lot of people are successful at something).

5. People like me who actually get free traffic like you. So yes, I am in your category. And there are a lot of people like us who really don't feel the need to post anything on an Internet marketing forum.

The truth is, it is possible for some people to buy traffic and make money. But it's possible to completely lose your lunch, too. So it's really bad advice for newbies. Yet, on the WF, newbies are completely inundated with generic advice about buying traffic or even solicited with such offers.

P.S. In my business, I would almost be guaranteed to lose money on paid advertising because I survive on the kind of traffic that is interested in certain kinds of information and is not even there to buy anything. It would be a bloodbath. So for some people, buying traffic will almost always be a bad idea. It just depends on what kind of niche you are in.

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Declan O Flaherty

10 years ago

The truth is, it is possible for some people to buy traffic and make money. But it's possible to completely lose your lunch, too.

Most people will lose money using paid traffic in the beginning. Does that mean they shouldn't do it? I'd rather go out and get a job cleaning toilets to fund my paid advertising. Because like I stated above, when your funnel spits out more money at the back end, than what you put in, you can't bloody lose.

So it's really bad advice for newbies. Yet, on the WF, newbies are completely inundated with generic advice about buying traffic or even solicited with such offers.

What are you on about? Most newbies are told to do SEO. Flakebook - and all that stupid nonsense that ends up wasting months, even years of their valuable time. I'll say it again: When your funnel spits out more money on the back end than what you put in the front end, you have a winner - and no amount of time wasting on free methods can top that.

You spend $100 and make $200. You're essentially buying money at a discount - and are NOT spending any time generating traffic. Therefore, you have much more time to work on conversions.

P.S. In my business, I would almost be guaranteed to lose money on paid advertising because I survive on the kind of traffic that is interested in certain kinds of information and is not even there to buy anything. It would be a bloodbath. So for some people, buying traffic will almost always be a bad idea. It just depends on what kind of niche you are in.

So what you're saying, is that it would be pointless building an email list in your market? Care to enlighten us to what business doesn't benefit from having an email list?

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dewayneboyd

10 years ago

Originally Posted by Declan O Flaherty

The truth is, it is possible for some people to buy traffic and make money. But it's possible to completely lose your lunch, too.

Most people will lose money using paid traffic in the beginning. Does that mean they shouldn't do it? I'd rather go out and get a job cleaning toilets to fund my paid advertising. Because like I stated above, when your funnel spits out more money at the back end, than what you put in, you can't bloody lose.

So it's really bad advice for newbies. Yet, on the WF, newbies are completely inundated with generic advice about buying traffic or even solicited with such offers.

What are you on about? Most newbies are told to do SEO. Flakebook - and all that stupid nonsense that ends up wasting months, even years of their valuable time. I'll say it again: When your funnel spits out more money on the back end than what you put in the front end, you have a winner - and no amount of time wasting on free methods can top that.

You spend $100 and make $200. You're essentially buying money at a discount - and are NOT spending any time generating traffic. Therefore, you have much more time to work on conversions.

P.S. In my business, I would almost be guaranteed to lose money on paid advertising because I survive on the kind of traffic that is interested in certain kinds of information and is not even there to buy anything. It would be a bloodbath. So for some people, buying traffic will almost always be a bad idea. It just depends on what kind of niche you are in.

So what you're saying, is that it would be pointless building an email list in your market? Care to enlighten us to what business doesn't benefit from having an email list?

Sorry to burst your bubble, but you're not talking to a newbie, pal. I have built lists before, and I know what works and what doesn't. I didn't say paid advertising can't work. I said it is risky. So stop trying to exaggerate my comments.

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PinkStar

10 years ago

I have paid for traffic in the past for different reasons. And I've had mostly positive results.

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johnben1444

10 years ago

Somehow you have to pay for the traffic you receive either/both time or energy.

Also, if you do pay for SEO services then you are indirectly paying for traffic.

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harvie316

10 years ago

i have a travel blog, makes about $140/month with affiliate links and adsese.

i pay $0 for any advertising costs.

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harvie316

10 years ago

i have a travel blog, makes about $140/month with affiliate links and adsese.

i pay $0 for any advertising costs.

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gamestoenjoy

10 years ago

I make money from my arcade site without buying traffic.
I work on promoting my site by using SEO techniques,
and this way I get quality traffic without paying for it.

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sethczerepak

10 years ago

Haven't thought about the difference between paid and "free" in a long time. It's more important to ask where your ideal customers go to find trustworthy content. Then, find a way to show up there with a message they'll respond to. No traffic is free in the beginning anyway . You either pay in time or in money. There are cats on this forum who will dump 40 hours a week into "free" traffic strategies before paying a lousy $50 to buy it. Others blow wads of cash on unqualified traffic or sending out irrelevant messages.

The most important thing is to market to the right people and find out what messages they respond to.

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Horacioplus

10 years ago

I haven't use paid ads since Nov. The results using facebook to build my bussiness is amazing. But when i started was spending 3-5 hours a day. But once you position your self you only need 1-2 hrs a day to mak those commissions. However! I started using some paid ads during the last few days. but i make 3-5 sales day using facebook.

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BIG Mike

Banned 10 years ago

While I would never recommend anyone try to depend solely on organic traffic (changes made by SE's can be devastating), I've always used both free and paid traffic for everything.

There's one very important point no one brought up yet, so I will, especially as it relates to the "Time is Money" crowd.

Think "Residual Benefits" s it applies to both types of traffic.

Paid traffic stops benefiting you when your campaign stops (your traffic stops).

Time spent on building Organic traffic however, does have the added benefit of continuing to drive traffic long after you stop working on it.

Depending on what your traffic needs are, some combination of both is often the best choice, i.e.; paid traffic for product launches/list building combined with organic traffic, for long-term benefits.

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cagwatson

10 years ago

Originally Posted by BIG Mike

While I would never recommend anyone try to depend solely on organic traffic (changes made by SE's can be devastating), I've always used both free and paid traffic for everything.

There's one very important point no one brought up yet, so I will, especially as it relates to the "Time is Money" crowd.

Think "Residual Benefits" s it applies to both types of traffic.

Paid traffic stops benefiting you when your campaign stops (your traffic stops).

Time spent on building Organic traffic however, does have the added benefit of continuing to drive traffic long after you stop working on it.

Depending on what your traffic needs are, some combination of both is often the best choice, i.e.; paid traffic for product launches/list building combined with organic traffic, for long-term benefits.

Good points mike but if you work paid traffic correctly and collect leads it's not a one time hit, you can provide value and generate sales over and over. Some people get blinkered when it comes to traffic sources. Use all available resources and ensure you capture leads to work with in future.

For example, You might spend a few bucks on a solo add and it doesn't convert, so what, you now have a lead Works with them, tweak test etc.

Free and paid work, you just need to know how to work them

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Moneymaker2012

10 years ago

Hi Adie,
If you have SEO knowledge so you can get much more without paying for traffic.

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jasondinner

10 years ago

I've done both successfully and I prefer paid traffic simply because there is endless amounts of it and you can scale much easier than with free traffic.

Plus in most cases with free traffic, you are playing an ass kissing game with Google and they can put you out of business overnight. No thanks...

Most people don't venture into paid traffic because they are scared of losing money.

When you get good at paid traffic and work towards mastering it, you will have the keys to the castle.

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Zeus66

10 years ago

It often depends on your business model. It's tough if you're into something like Amazon aff. marketing to pay for traffic and make a profit. But if you have your own products in certain niches, you can "spend" quite a bit on traffic up front and still be profitable through your sales funnel conversions, backend sales, and relationships that lead to other profitable ventures.

SEO is a tough gig these days. If I was still heavily into aff. marketing through niche sites or blogs, I'd use social media and contoversy/curiosity/sexy stuff to generate lots of potentially viral opportunities for traffic through sharing.

John

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Kingshouse 10 years ago

Free traffic sounds cool but is it really free?

I mean how much time are you spending getting this traffic?

Surely your time is worth some monetary value.

Could you use some of the money you are making to outsource your
free traffic and save time for some other part of your business?...for even more profits???

I've used free traffic and it cost me time and I did not really check how much money would have been the time equivalent - if I was to pay myself.

When I bought traffic (from PPC to SoloAds) I saw it as an investment and as I had to keep an eye on the pennies. This got me more focused to deal with things in dollars and cents.

That said if free traffic works for you then scale it up!

Just my thoughts.

Will D
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simonpiemon

10 years ago

"Free" traffic is fine until it stops working and leaves you with Zero income.

So ensure you're using it to build lists and recurring membership income etc so if (when) it stops flowing then you aren't left with nothing.

Speaking from painful experience!

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ryanbiddulph

10 years ago

Hi Adie,

Me me me

As a newbie I had a tough time affording even cheap paid traffic methods. Then I fell in love with blogging and social media. Now I truly enjoy using free marketing methods AND my leads are hyper qualified.

I find my trust factor has increased significantly compared to people who bring in cold prospects, strangers really, through paid traffic.

I dig your approach too. You can prosper thru paid traffic but for a long term, sustainable websites, building trust through content creation and social media was the way to go for me.

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vinniebiu

10 years ago

The sad truth is most people lose money on purchasing traffic. That however doesn't neccessarily mean that all paid traffic is bad. So if you got some way as dewayneboyd mentions you can make more money that you put in, then why not. You are definitely leaving money on the table. Just be smart about it and make sure you have good data/analytics.

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jasondinner 10 years ago

Originally Posted by vinniebiu

The sad truth is most people lose money on purchasing traffic.

The sad truth is most people lose all of their time they'll never get back focusing on free traffic which doesn't produce any results.

It can be said for both.

Paid traffic, once figured out, can get you from point a to point b a lot faster than free traffic.
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workingm0m

Banned 10 years ago

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jasondinner 10 years ago

Originally Posted by workingm0m

I do not do paid advertising either. With my business I get 100% commissions and they give me the tools to produce free advertising.

Most, if not all of the top producers in your business spend money on traffic. It speeds up the process
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Adie

10 years ago

Originally Posted by Ken_Caudill

Paid advertising is the only consistent way to get traffic to your site.

Consistent if you have money to pay.

Originally Posted by ryanbiddulph

Hi Adie,

Me me me

As a newbie I had a tough time affording even cheap paid traffic methods. Then I fell in love with blogging and social media. Now I truly enjoy using free marketing methods AND my leads are hyper qualified.

I find my trust factor has increased significantly compared to people who bring in cold prospects, strangers really, through paid traffic.

I dig your approach too. You can prosper thru paid traffic but for a long term, sustainable websites, building trust through content creation and social media was the way to go for me.

I build my own list from organic traffic. I never considered SEO as a free traffic because I also invested time and money indirectly building my sites' reputation. My goal is pointing towards a business that will focus on earning a passive income and I think organic traffic is the only way. Buying traffic is the last resort for me when everything goes wrong.

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sethczerepak

10 years ago

What if you make a lot of money but force yourself into a business model that burns up all your time? The way I see it, making money isn't the only outcome to consider. Financial independence is also about HOW you make your money. It`s about scalability first, profitability second. Otherwise you end up more trapped by your business than you once were by your job. Why not ask which traffic method will help you reach scalability faster?

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Charles E. White 10 years ago

I haven't paid for traffic in years BUT that doesn't mean it isn't a good thing for some people. Test it, if it works for you then use it! Regardless, of what business you are in anytime you can focus on buyers is a good thing, especially at the start. Hopefully someday after you do that you will get enough repeat buyers that you don't have to pay for traffic anymore.
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DNChamp

10 years ago

I paid for Adwords once in November for one of my Amazon sites. It helped a but but once it was done I am still getting sales. My traffic is not huge but it is enough to gain sales from my sites. My main use of traffic is from SEO and ranking keywords but I also do social media to make sure that my followers and pins are for those who are truly searching for my topics and not just people who follow to boost numbers. So for me SEO and Social Media are my traffic sources.

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Sarevok

10 years ago

Free traffic is more of a hobby for me.

Paid traffic is business.

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Adam Humphreys

10 years ago

There really is no right or wrong answer here.. Paid traffic is fast and easy to scale up with, but can have impact on your wallet if you get it wrong. Free advertising can be very slow and boring, but returns very high quality leads when you get going.

I started out with free traffic and moved into paid marketing as soon as my advertising budget was big enough for some testing.

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Raimundas M

10 years ago

I still have a few sites that make money from SEO and Youtube.

The problem with free traffic is that it's not predictable and very unstable.
One day you jump around having great traffic and money flow,
the other you stress out because all of your traffic gone downhill.
It's more of a 'hope game'.

After recent Google changes that has a huge impact on my sites, I moved to paid traffic.

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sarah23

10 years ago

I do get tons of traffic from SEO which in return brings me several thousands every month but I believe paid traffic brings instant traffic as well as instant revenue.

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figuringmoneyout

10 years ago

I don't use paid traffic. I've never really been big enough that it made sense for me. Maybe one day, but for now I'm happy to make money without the paid traffic.

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jasondinner

10 years ago

Originally Posted by figuringmoneyout

I don't use paid traffic. I've never really been big enough that it made sense for me. Maybe one day, but for now I'm happy to make money without the paid traffic.

Just think how "big" you can be if you did use paid traffic and used it effectively

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RobertoM 10 years ago

I think that if you have a budget (even if it's tiny), is crazy not using paid traffic to get fast results.
If you don't, well...go to the long road of free traffic methods.
It is like if you want to cross a wide turbulent river: if you have a boat, use it. Otherwise you'll have to suffer swimming hoping not getting tired in the middle of the river :rolleyes:
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JakeRhodes

10 years ago

I don't currently pay for any traffic, listings, ads, etc.

After experimenting with the above I've not found any to be particularly profitable. I'd rather spend my time and effort on guest posting and other methods of organic traffic.

However I don't think the niche I'm in lends itself well to most common forms of online advertising. If I went into a different niche then my attitude might be different.

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LimitlessTraffic

10 years ago

I use both free and paid traffic for my business at the moment.

Paid traffic is definitely faster and a lot easier to scale. But it requires a lot of testing and tweaking to find a winning conversion.

Free traffic can be tedious and slow but once it's set up right, it's practically passive income.

That's my 2 cent

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celente

10 years ago

I make good money and gets millions of hits to my sites from 1 thing! OFFERING VALUE.

ALMOST NO ONE IS DOING THIS, cause we live in a world that is greedy.

That is how you are ever going to get anywhere online.

Stop asking and getting greedy and finally give in and try to do something good in this world, and by doing good, you will receive.

The simple reason is yes traffic is good, but what happens when they get to your site, if you are just SLAPPING stuff in their face, what is the reason they are going to buy. GIVE THEM ONE! Leave them craving for more and help them out more.

Traffic is just traffic, think past the traffic, cause if its targeted traffic, you need to work out a way to get money in your pocket. Its not the hard sale that works these days, its the easy sale, and giving quality info.

You might be thinking, celente you totally missed the point of this post. NOPE! What I am doing is getting you past the age old question of how do I get traffic to your site. Cause if you give away quality stuff, word of mouth spreads pretty quick, I have found out, and soon if you have or give away quality the traffic to your site, will be bandwitdth busting for you host. And do you really what that sort of traffic, without having to spend your days, and nights paying for it? Its a simple question, with a simple answer. :-)

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CompGeek

10 years ago

Free traffic can be more targeted than paid traffic, and you pay for that... It all depends on what market you are after.

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jasondinner 10 years ago

Originally Posted by CompGeek

Free traffic can be more targeted than paid traffic, and you pay for that... It all depends on what market you are after.

Paid traffic is all about ROI - you spend $1, you get $2 back (hopefully if you know what you're doing)

Some guys will spend $1 to get $1.20 back, but they're spending $10K a day to make $2K in profit.

And you can make paid traffic extremely targeted.
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ejm 10 years ago

I agree that free traffic is not really free because free traffic takes up time and we all know that time is money. Either way there is no such thing as free traffic.
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savidge4 10 years ago

I personally use both with a catch. I use PPC to confirm the funnel is producing the correct conversion. For me that is anything above 3%. After that its all SEO.

Everyone says SEO is hard work? Ok, ive been doing it a while I guess. but anyways. When I build a site/page. when it uploads its DONE. I may have some minor tweeks but nothing major. If you understand what you are doing up front, SEO is really not that hard.

I could see using PPC if you were dropping right into a squeeze page, but that's not what I do. My personal work I build authority sites. I wouldn't sell one weight loss product, I would sell 8 and have a site built behind it all.

If you are honest in your delivery of these products, you build RELATIONSHIPS with your list/customers. They try one product, they try another etc. your not quietly pitching them in e-mails, they go to your blog and can see the other options, they can read what others are doing and using... ah the power of word of mouth advertising, and its not YOUR mouth.

so back to the subject.... building that kind of site brings SEO to another level. 8 products on weight loss, each page set to bring in a specific keyword 20 pages plus blog for each.. you have 160 keywords targeted, you have countless others reinforced and targeted with the blogs. Its not an SEO campaign anymore its a machine.

And all of this laid out and calculated before a single ounce of code is dropped into a page layout. If you are in it to win it, you need to understand what winning is! Throwing up crap and fixing it later sucks.. been there, done that. Bringing your game up to being calculated and in control that is the secret to SEO success.

I ask any of you, how many pages does your website have? 5? 10? think of the power of 160. ( not including the blogs ) think about even 80 targeted pages. Select a niche.... write down the top 80 keywords. Go out and find 8 products in that niche. corallate your keyword list to each product. 10 keywords per product. build it, and they will come.

Hope that Helps!
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desbravador 10 years ago

I just viewed a video for a traffic generation by an IM expert called RYan Diess, if what he says is true, organic traffic is the best way to go (which he means natural free traffic), reling on good content, backlinks, activity on the website which some time he uses paid traffic to just get some activity on his website.
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Peter Lessard

10 years ago

Hi Adie,

I want to start by saying we always pay for traffic :-)
If you optimize a site, learn seo, monitor natural ranks, hire someone to do seo etc.. then there are real costs to this in time and sometimes in time and money so really there is no such thing as free or unpaid traffic.

Buying traffic is a waste in the following situations.
1. Your product or offers sucks but you believe more traffic would fix that.
2. You will buy traffic without being willing to learn the skills to buy proper traffic or you are not willing to do the work and put in place the infrastructure to help in turning bought traffic into a profitable purchase.

With natural seo you generally get some sales and it seems the process is simple as you stop there with very little risk. With paid traffic you can actually lose money so it seems so much worse but the truth is that with natural seo it will be very hard to scale up and all you can do is try to increase conversions however with paid traffic you must accept there will be losses until you find the correct audience and sales funnel for maximum conversion but once you find that magic formula scaling up is as easy as buying more traffic.

I have had thousands of clients in small niches with small sales generated from seo and they were very happy. Small risk, small expense and an ok living. Of course I received many of my client and still do because they relied on this and every time google changed their business was in great pain.

I have also had clients that make 2 million+/yearly in sales from online marketing.
Not a single one relied on natural seo alone and in almost every case natural seo accounted for less than 20% of sales if they were doing aggressive paid traffic and generally much less.

It really depends on many factors if you should do paid traffic but it is as good as you make it like anything else.

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JosephC

10 years ago

Im going to be honest. I do not use free traffic methods because I'm lazy.

I spent weeks working on free traffic methods, and it does convert, but not very well. When I started using PPC and solo ads to affiliate offers, I made $150 bucks in my first hour. Then I started making a list. I only work about an hour a day, make great money, have a pretty big list that makes money on practically autopilot by just sending one email a week. I am happy with paid traffic. Free traffic is not guaranteed.

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icykalimu

10 years ago

I use SEO for free traffic

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dewayneboyd

10 years ago

Originally Posted by Ken_Caudill

Paid advertising is the only consistent way to get traffic to your site.

This is nothing but a blanket statement and blatantly incorrect. I never use paid advertising and got close to a million page views last year.

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savidge4 10 years ago

Originally Posted by dewayneboyd

This is nothing but a blanket statement and blatantly incorrect. I never use paid advertising and got close to a million page views last year.

ha ha ha I love it...
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discrat

10 years ago

Originally Posted by Ken_Caudill

Paid advertising is the only consistent way to get traffic to your site.

I disagree.

I would say Article Marketing Syndication is a pretty darn consistent way to get traffic if done right. And it is free 'Monetarily' wise but maybe , at FIRST , not free 'Time' wise.

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yakim1

10 years ago

I have been online for a very long time. In the beginning I dabbled in paid traffic until I discovered how to leverage other people's assets. I've used all kinds of Joint ventures to use the assest of others. I think just about with all my websites but one, I have a partner to gain access to the asset I lack for that site.

I've even had 3 sites where I had 250 to over 1,000 jv partners. I leveraged those 3 sites to build my lists.

My newest site that I'm going to be launching later this month has as a partner who used to be a joint venture broker and used to teach being a joint venture broker.

We will be using joint ventures to do a big lanch on this new site.

This is an example of a way to do free advertising that does not cost a bunch of time or money.

I hope this is helpful,
Steve Yakim

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awledd

10 years ago

Yep i make money from FREE traffic. Not much though. something like $150 - 500/mth. Trying to scale up.

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jasondinner 10 years ago

Originally Posted by awledd

Yep i make money from FREE traffic. Not much though. something like $150 - 500/mth. Trying to scale up.

Invest some of that money into paid ads, get good at it and watch you add another zero to your monthly number within 30-60 days
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meghanswim

10 years ago

My strategy has been to use marketing practices I can scale. Starting out with free to low budget strategies was great to get going however to take my time away from the task and scale it I have been learning to use paid facebook strategies. As I know ads are working I can increase their budget and you can do very targeted and niche marketing using their platform. They have built an online marketing goldmine.

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Greenfatman

10 years ago

I believed free traffic would change my life, the funny thing you pay for loads of articles, seo bs backlinks etc etc for nothing,what wasted time and money.... Pay what you want for target traffic, you can't go wrong!

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steven8433

10 years ago

There's no such thing as free traffic. seo takes time. time = money. paid traffic takes very little time, but it takes money. imo its best to start with seo if you're starting out with less money and a lot of time, and then graduate to paid traffic with the big boys

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tyronne78

10 years ago

A great strategy would be to drive traffic to your wordpress pages with facebook ads. So you can rank your content with SEO and do paid traffic with Facebook. Traffic providers like Google and Facebook love content rich sites (wordpress blogs).