One of the most important factor for a successful make money online campaign is your website traffic. The old phrase “If you build it they will come” does not apply at all to the online world. With all the web content available fighting for a spot on the first search page if you don’t make any announcement that “Hey! I’m here” you’ll be buried in the trenches. Hence, the drive for any form of traffic whether it be free traffic or paid traffic plays a significant role.
What is website traffic? Simply put, it refers to the amount of web users that visits a website. It can be measured by visits, referred to as “sessions” to determine the effectiveness of creating traction by attracting an audience.
The more eyeballs, the more sessions, the better the position.
There are many forms to advertise a product or website but it all comes down to either free or paid traffic sources.
For a beginner with very limited funds starting out with free traffic would be the ideal choice. You can spread the news and attract people to your website without requiring any fees or investments.
However, if you want to get a more targeted audience fast then paid traffic would be a better option.
Free Traffic
You can get traffic without paying for it from a number of free sources
- Search Engines (SEO) – largest organic source of free traffic. Making use of keyword to rank your website for more exposure.
- Email Marketing – sending emails to a list of a targeted audience, to lead them back to your site
- Social Media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, etc..) – making use of social media platform to interact with intended customers.
- Guest Blogging on other Websites – write and post on someone else’s website or blog and having them link back to you.
- Post on Reddit/ Quora/ Medium – platforms with an extensive community of people seeking and sharing various pieces of information can lead additional traffic to your site.
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| It’s free you don’t any budget or investments for marketing | The process can be painstakingly slow, it might takes month to get a significant amount of traffic |
| It can be passive as you don’t need to worry about the campaign and leave it there | The tools used for the method might not be entirely free |
| The results are permanent, once you’ve established your brand and connection | Since marketing anew offer/niche takes a considerable amount of time it will take a long time before you discover it wasn’t worth it. |
Paid Traffic
If you have the budget for it paying for traffic can be a powerful means for marketers.
- Display ads – the banners on the side of the page
- Paid search – Google AdWords or Bing Ads
- Social media ads – the sponsored content that appears in your Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook feeds or before the YouTube video you clicked on
- Sponsored content – a piece of article on a website for content marketing of a brand
- Influencer marketing – getting a social media influencer to promote your product or brand.
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| You can get targeted traffic fairly quickly and you also have the option to retarget your audience | It’s not for beginners, it requires learning the general procedure of affiliate marketing because if not done correctly it could be costly. |
| You can quickly test offers and campaigns to see if they will convert | You need a substantial amount of budget as you can reach your budget quite fast |
| You’re in complete control of where and to who you advertise to | Your audience is limited by your budget. Your campaign will only be displayed to a number of audience you’ve allocated with your budget. |
Which Website Traffic source is better?
It all depends on which side of the field you’re at. As a beginner with no budget for marketing free traffic would be better as there’s very minimal to no cost at all. However, if you don’t mind paying to minimize your wait time to get the audience to your site then looking for paid traffic would benefit you more. Then again, there’s no reason why both can’t be used to advertise your site or brand. This way, you have traffic coming in whether you run paid campaigns or not.