You know what. All of us (me included) are misers. We do not want to spend on traffic but just want it free. I have personally found that advertising gives you much quality traffic then free traffic. The only free traffic which I think is better then advertising is article marketing. But article marketing is dying when it comes to traffic because more and more people are joining article directories just to publish their articles and not for reading what is written. Additionally, the directory owner does not promote his/her directory. He/she just places advertisements for quick money. You need an article directory which is not made to seem like a article directory but one which provides quality information and then offers links and that too on only one page. But since there is no such thing, I really think we all should begin advertising. Correct me if I am wrong.
Not only that but the people here are VERY patriotic about what they do. If you say anything which they do not like they will not furnish proofs against it but will just insult you to the moon and back. Well, I guess everyone just likes free stuff but a successful business whether online or offline needs advertising. Yes, there are a lucky lot who have never advertised and make a lot of money. But if a newbie follows this path he/she is likely to be disappointed and leave the whole online money making scene.
Real advertising isn't cheap so people try to find any way they can to get their name out without paying. It's a great way to start and when you start making some money, you can invest into the marketing campaigns. Everybody should be a miser when it comes to marketing costs
But you would be surprised how much more traffic you can get if you start of with a paying campagin. Well that is what I have noticed at least
Why spend on advertising when you can get results for free with a little bit of ingenuity & work? Also, where is the money to spend on paid advertising when you're just starting!
Hmmm...that depends on your website because I for example have a website which teaches beginners the basics of Home Business. Signatures do not help because, the people on forums already have the information. Digg and other bookmarking websites do not help because people are more interested in other subjects. All in all since my subject is very selective, I for one have to advertise. And I believe there are others like me.
i agree with you that we spoiled the nature of those free service. But just put the blame to Google that make us have to do all this thing.
True but I believe that SEO has become next to impossible due to the fierce competition. Hence, I just choose to ppc to the front page on google!
I think it's a bit of a generalization to say DP members don't spend money on traffic. I know members who do and I certainly do. I also know members who spend A LOT on traffic. The only free traffic which I think is better then advertising is article marketing. But article marketing is dying when it comes to traffic because more and more people are joining article directories just to publish their articles and not for reading what is written. Well, for one, article marketing is not dying. No matter what anyone says. Of course it depends on how you do the article marketing.. There is still tons of money to be made...just keep refining your techniques if they don't deliver results.. There are other better than advertising free traffic techniques. Some free traffic techniques are priceless too. There's lots of opportunity in free traffic, don't lose heart...keep trying and be open to new possibilities. Best Regards, Ana
I disagree with you here. Some paid advertising is better than free advertising, but personally I find that I get much more targeted traffic from free advertising. Put it this way. If you bought advertising from the site then the owner of the site will be getting something in return and will like that. But with some people like will want to even earn more and will send some fake traffic aswell or may even get others to try and click on the links by giving them an incentive. With free advertising, if you put your link on a site, then why would the site owner want to send fake traffic to your site when they will get nothing in return, meaning that most of the traffic will be real targeted traffic and not fake.
Yes, such things exist... they're pretty much any content-based site in existence. Most will happily accept guest articles and give a link back (I even do it on my PR6 business blog, and you can find anything from niche sites to sites in major networks like About.com that are willing to accept a guest piece). If you want to do it well, get good backlinks, and actually build a reputation instead of just looking like a hack who can't write for anything better than article directories, then you need to submit them to sites manually, and not to a ton of sites. And there are plenty of other ways to get quality traffic without paying for advertising. Here are a few examples: 1. Blog commenting. You may not get PR value for most of them, but they can certainly lead to relevant traffic from people interested in what you have to say. 2. Press releases. They'll only help in that sense if you do them the right way - submitting to hoards of free distribution sites won't do it. 3. Reciprocal links. Let the Google gods be damned; reciprocal links still have a lot of Web promotion value.
Yes you are right but the problem is that finding such websites is next to impossible. I personally think there shouldn't be article directories just websites which offer quality information and provide links to writers wanting them but keep the content to link ratio in check. Something like 10 articles for a link. Blog commenting definetly works but if you are in the first few comments. The last ones just go unread. But despite what you say I don't know why but as an advertiser I am very fond of PPC. It brings you very specific traffic something which is crucial for success. I have seen that aggressive marketing in the early stages of any business can do wonders. Let's just hope that click fraud does not destroy ppc. Not only is it great for publishers, I believe it works wonders for advertisers as well.
It's not next to impossible. It's extremely easy actually. Just visit any site in your niche. See if they have submission guidelines. If not, shoot an email from their contact page. Even if they don't say so publicly, you'd be amazed at how many will happily take guest pieces. You just can't be lazy about it... you have to ask. The thing with blog comments isn't necessarily to comment on the biggest blogs that get tons of comments. Look for the up-and-comers. Become one of their first regular commenters. As their following grows, so will traffic from them to you. If you use it as an opportunity to build a relationship with the other blogger, they'll also often link to your site in their blogroll or somewhere else. I've used things like this to get one-way sitewide links from PR5-7 sites in my niches, just by having something interesting to say to the person behind the scenes. My expertise is PR, so I use free tactics constantly, and very rarely spend a dime on my sites. I'm not a fan of paid advertising, b/c I have the know-how to get similar results in a more economical way... it's what I'm trained to do, so I do it. The benefit of using a lot of the free tactics (and I'm talking about going beyond things like Web directories, article directories, submitting to Digg, etc.), is that you very often get a PR benefit as well (increased exposure, recognition as an expert in the niche, and the potential for a viral buzz). These kinds of tactics also have lasting value, where things like PPC don't.... you pay for a click, they come to the site, and the statistics say that chances are they won't come back. By following some of these other tactics, you have a permanent link to not only drive continuing traffic over time, but to also serve as a reminder to people who found you that way before, when they see another comment, blogroll link because of them, etc. I doubt PPC is going anywhere though. Click fraud isn't new, and if anything they'll just get better at tracking it. And even if it were suddenly gone tomorrow, there's always CPM, PPA, etc. models that could help to fill in the gaps.