Online businesses and sites thrive on website traffic. That is the number of people visiting as well as purchasing services or products being offered.
As such, it is critical for every website owner to have a strategy of generating targeted traffic to their site or business if they are to be successful.
For starters, there are two kinds of website traffic : free traffic and paid traffic.
Difference between Free vs. Paid Traffic
Free traffic is mostly generated through social media or search engine optimization. That is generating organic traffic through optimizing your blog, content or website for search engines. This way, your content can have a good standing on search engine results pages hence have traffic from the search engine directed to your site.
Free traffic can also be generated through social media by linking your site to social media platforms and building great profiles. The people visiting and interacting with you through these profiles can then visit your site for more details or make actual purchases. Free traffic can also be generated through article and video marketing, among other strategies.
On the other hand, paid traffic involves making payments to have traffic diverted to your site. This includes strategies such as Pay per Click (PPC) where an ad platform is paid to host your ad and you are only pay for each click on the ads that eventually generates traffic to your site by redirecting the visitors. Ad words are an example of paid traffic.
Some social media platforms like Facebook and MySpace also allow placement of paid ads on their site at a fee. In fact, Facebook allows user to sponsor a post that will only be shown to those users that match the ad criteria. YouTube is also a great platform of generating paid traffic. There are many other ways of generating paid traffic other than those mentioned here.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Free Traffic
Although many people hold the perception that free traffic is the best for the simple reason that it costs nothing, this is not the absolute truth.
There are two sides to this kind of traffic.
Advantages
- It is free
This means that you do not need to spend any money to have people visiting your site. All you need is a good strategy that may include good content or incorporation of good SEO tactics on your site. - It is less demanding
Free traffic campaigns are not as demanding as paid traffic campaigns and can therefore be left for a couple of days even as you continue to enjoy good traffic flow. - Traffic flow can continue long after you have stopped the campaign
For instance, when you do a good SEO campaign and get your site at the top of search engine results, you can rest assured of having traffic long after you have stopped the campaign. This is simply because of its ranking.
Disadvantages
- Free traffic can be time wasting if not well managed
This is because strategies like SEO content generation require a lot of effort. - Success is not guaranteed
Sometimes your efforts may not generate any results.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Paid Traffic
Just like free traffic, there are advantages and disadvantages that are associated with paid traffic.
Advantages
- You get traffic fast
With paid traffic, it does not take long before you start seeing the results. Thus, you can end up spending very little or even test the campaign before you commit more money. - It is easier to reach your target market
This is one of the selling points of paid traffic as you reach your targeted market effortlessly through specific keywords.
Disadvantages
- It can be costly
In some instances, you may end up spending a tidy sum of money before you actually make money. That is, while you may get traffic, the conversion rate may be low. - You may have to wait
This menas you may have to wait for payouts before running more traffic.
Which Way, Paid Traffic or Free Traffic?
Having understood the difference between free and paid traffic as well as the advantages and disadvantages of both, you may be wondering which one is best for your website or business. Before making that decision, it is important to understand that none is better than the other because each of them has the capability of delivering desired results.
So then how do you decide what is best for you?
Your choice can be guided by one major factor, and that is your budget.
If your budget cannot allow you to spend on advertising, then you will do well to stick to free traffic. Even then, ensure that you employ good strategies for better results.
On the other hand, if you have some money to spend and need instant traffic, then go ahead and get paid traffic. If you want to have a reference about web directories that can help you to get more traffic, you can go to Ldmstudio Directory or Blogs Directory.
Choose the Traffic By Yourself
Both paid and free traffic are acceptable ways of drawing visitors to your online store or business. You only need to determine which one will work best for you and go for it.
If you have other points related to free traffic vs paid traffic, please let us know.
