3 Principles of Traffic Generation
There’s always talk about ways to drive traffic to your website. Usually the vast number of them are “free” and “easy” ways to do it. But is that really the case?
In today’s Traffic Tactics Thursday, I examine what is really free and easy once you understand the fundamental principles of generating traffic.
Basically, there are only 3 fundamental principles of traffic generation. You can either:
1. Purchase traffic,
2. Generate traffic on your own,
3. Or borrow traffic from other people.
Notice no mention of free or easy so far!
Purchasing Traffic
When purchasing traffic, you’ll find that it is definitely the fastest way to build up visitors. It is all about investing in your business using advertising campaigns and it doesn’t require that much work. Unfortunately, this is also the most expensive method to get new visitors.
Think of it this way, it requires the most money outlay with the least amount of time. One of the main operational facts about running a business is how to best utilize both money and time. Each comes with a price and a premium.
Paid traffic is considered to be the high speed route. This method is best suited for those who are more experienced marketers wanting quick traffic and have the funds available to do it.
Free Traffic
When generating traffic on your own, or borrowing traffic, usually involve “free” methods. It basically means that you will not be required to shell out money on your part.
The drawback with either of these methods is that it can take a long time before you start seeing desirable results. That’s why these two methods are considered to be the low speed route.
Also when generating or borrowing traffic, it involves a lot of hard work and is usually real time consuming (again money vs time), but the results for those who do stick with it can be rewarding.
In general, these methods are better suited for those who are just starting out, who don’t have the money, or who are not willing to invest money with it.
Even though free, it does require that you have a lot of spare time on your hands to use exploring and testing different ways to drive that free traffic.
Use Paid or Free Traffic Methods?
Both methods can bring great results and become huge benefits to your online business.
The decision depends entirely on your business and what kind of person you are. But to get a better idea, imagine the following 4 examples:
Example 1 – Someone with a full time job, little free time, and money to invest
If you don’t have enough spare time, but do have money to invest, you may rely entirely on purchased traffic methods to build your targeted ad campaigns.
In the beginning, you will need some time to determine which advertising techniques you will want to use to drive traffic. After that, you will only have to plan your campaigns, track results, and make adjustments when you discover what works and what doesn’t work.
Example 2 – Someone without a job, lots of spare time, and no money to invest
If you’re broke with no money available to invest, you can still run a successful online business. Create a free website or blog and make the commitment to invest your time in studying and using free methods to promote your site.
Once the money starts flowing in, invest some of it by using paid traffic methods.
Example 3 – Someone with a part time job, some spare time, and has some money to invest
Dedicate some of your time testing free methods while investing a small amount of money on advertising to drive traffic. This will help you to speed up the process for generating traffic.
Example 4 – Someone who has lots of free time, good money to invest
This is definitely the best situation to be in of all the examples given. You are free to choose which free and paid traffic methods to experiment with and then discover the best methods that drive traffic to your site.
Next, I take a look at some interesting paid and free traffic generation methods with a brief description for each tactic.
Purchase Traffic Tactics:
PPC or pay-per-click advertising. This method consists of buying traffic on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo or even on social media sites such as Facebook for search terms. The most known services are Google AdWords and newer Facebook Ads.
Solo Ads consists of running email ads on other people mailing lists. You buy so many clicks at a time, and when your email ad is run, those visitors are directed to your sign-up page until that number of clicks is reached.
Generate you own traffic tactics:
Article marketing consists of writing short and enticing articles with value in a specific niche market and posting them to article directories using signature links back to your site.
Email marketing consists of building up your own list of subscribers and creating a lasting relationship with them to transform them into loyal customers.
Video marketing consists of making relevant online video tutorials and then distributing them to share sites, like YouTube, for free (again with links back to your site)
Borrowing other peoples traffic tactics:
Joint ventures consist of creating partnerships with other online businesses and work together to maximize the traffic coming to both sites and mailing lists.
Ad swaps consist of two like marketers who want to help each other out by running email ads to the other marketer’s list around the same time. If one has a smaller list, then often the marketer with the larger list limits the ads exposure to his list to be equal.
That covers the 3 principles of traffic generation outlined above. The best overall results are achieved when you either invest time, money, or both when driving traffic. After all, this is your online business and you must do everything you can to make it work successfully.
Please take time to share your thoughts by leaving a comment below. 🙂
