Traffic Jam
There are two types of people who tend to know how to drive traffic on the internet. And the top players in both categories know how to drive massive traffic.
Interestingly enough historically there hasn’t been much of any crossover between the two groups. In fact, the two groups tend to look on one another with suspicion and disdain.
Internet Marketers
On the one hand you have the hard core internet marketers. These folks go by many different names such as SEO experts, search marketers, affiliate marketers, pay-per-click marketers, ect.
Their realm is that of the paid search results. They live in the land of the Sponsored Results that you see at the top and right side of the Google results pages.
Internet Marketers understand keywords and bidding processes. They know that it takes money to make money and they are perfectly willing to spend what it takes to drive traffic to their web sites because those web sites in turn make them money.
They tend to be really good with numbers and analysis. They use terms like click through rate, impressions, autoresponders, and squeeze pages. Sure they have word skills too.
But their interest in words often only carries as far as it takes to persuade people to take action, whether that is to click on the search ad or make a purchase after their target audience has clicked through to their website. And their websites often consist of a few landing pages designed specifically to convince people to make some purchase.
Good Internet Marketers are making a bunch of money. The best take in millions each year.
Bloggers
The other group that knows how to drive traffic to web sites is the bloggers. Their methods are very different from the Internet Marketers.
Bloggers are the word people, the relational ones. They are really good at generating original content and developing conversation. They network with other bloggers, spend time in the comment box.
For the most part bloggers completely ignore paid search all together. Some even cary that so far as to almost never click on ads or “sponsored results”. Often the only time they pay attention to paid search ads is when they check the few dollars they may earn a month from running Google ads on their blogs.
Instead bloggers live in the realm of organic search. They understand search engine optimization and assume that the only way to be good at it is to master the free side of the search results. They are self restricted from the paid side of the search engines.
Because most bloggers are completely broke.
Bridging the Gap
As I already mentioned there tends to be very little cross over between the two groups. The internet marketing folks are busy tweaking and adjusting their ad campaigns so that they are profitable to have time to generate lots of original content. They may even have a tough time understanding why someone would bother spending time on a website (or a blog) that wasn’t earning any money.
Bloggers have a tendency to be suspicious of anyone motivated by profit. They thrive on independent viewpoints and in their minds once moeny gets involved the independence flies out the window.
But here’s what I suspect. Something tells me that the folks who bridge that gap between the two biggest traffic generators on the web will be in a position to become very wealthy indeed.
As a longtime blogger I’ve recently been doing some heavy research on the internet marketing side of things. And I’m intrigued with what I’m learning.
New Projects
I started looking at paid search because I had an idea for a new project and, with everything else I have going on, that project needs to be profitable if I’m going to make it work. I’m thinking that paid search will play a significant role in that profitability, especially during the start up phase.
Not only will bridging the gap be useful for my own side project but it will allow me to help one of my clients directly. And beyond even that, the simple act of doing the research, gaining the knowledge, has opened the door for another new opportunity for me.
All that to say, expect some announcements in the next couple weeks. Things are happening here at SuccessCREEations!
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Wow very informative stuff here. I like your writing style and sure to be back for more of your articles.
Hi,
Your article is right on. I have recently begin to see the marriage of blogging and internet marketing with my own business interest. If you would like to learn more I would recommend you check out SEOmoz on the web. That site is filled with great info on how to do internet marketing right.
Hi Chris,
For any new site that’s in Google’s sandbox, PPC is the only game in town. You definitely need to understand it to help your customer. The big challenge is that when the pay stops, so do the clicks. Money spent on getting organic rankings has much more staying power.
Mike
Actually I see many people bridging the gap at the moment.
Much of what you’ve said here rings true with us. We are trying to find the right mix of good blogging articles, combined with advertising (mostly free ads like craigslist) to drive traffic to us and build an ever larger following of prospects and customers. We’ll be watching for your developments.
I agree with you that blogs can be a great money making machine, if you can get lots of traffic. I also think that many people will start into blogging without enough knowledge, thinking they will get rich quick with the new fad.
Well, Chris. Like the old saying, “Our trash might be a treasure to other man!” Some people think that the traffic is just an ordinary traffic, while others might think that it can bring some fortune to them if only they could monetize it properly…
I try to encourage anyone I help with SEO to get off the PPC tit. Typically my clients are already doing PPC because they can’t rank with SEO. They want me to help with SEO. The first thing I do is try to get them off the PPC. Sure, it decreases sales, but it also allows the merchant to keep the money he would have spent on PPC when he does get a sale and forces him to work harder at SEO instead of relying on PPC. It’s often a tough road because PPC can work, but it costs a lot and can easily get out of hand – not to mention all the click fraud.
I don’t know about you guys, but when I’m researching competition, if I see an organic link and a paid link I always click on the paid link. Why not? They ARE competition and the link showed up for my search. They must want me to click it!
That’s funny, Chris, because I think there’s a fair amount of crossover. I do some SEM/SEO writing and some blogging as well, and it seems to me there’s a natural overlap between both fields. For instance, when submitting a blog post for a corporate blog, one naturally tries to include as many hot links with keywords as possible. I’ve found this is a great way to drive longtail search traffic to corporate sites/blogs. Don’t you think the two types of writers can sort of merge?
Hi Chris,
At least two of the commenters to this post are definitely bridging the gap, and I thank Jarrod for showing me something very interesting!
Mike
I also think there is little crossover between any two specialised groups mainly because the amount of knowledge necessary is vast. You can either be an expert in one area or be an all rounder. However, being an expert in one area is usually more profitable on the web as you really need to separate yourself from the pack online.
What about the guys that are pro’s at organic seo – I think the big organic seo guys make the most – to be honest there is a lot of spammers if you would – black and blue hat guys that make the most. Really, the people that make the most are simply the ones that have built more or spent more time than the other guy – not because they KNOW more.
Both getting traffic and building links is 10x’s easier with a blog than a regular site. But with an online shop you tend to get more page views.
I totally agree with your article and the comment of Gabriel. Blogs are good ways to generate traffic, but it´s a hard way. Setting up a blog, doing some advertisement and getting rich won´t work – thanks good.
Both my blog and my business website generates very good traffic numbers from organic search and organic search also converts better than my paid ads (adwords).
When combining SEM (both SEO & PPC) with campaigns, lists and competitions I have increased my visitor numbers with over 200 % and it is still increasing.
Chris,
plz tell us about your new project
Actually, driving traffic to your site is just the tip of the iceberg. Lots of people get so consumed getting their sites to top ranking but fail on the most basic essential which is responding to your inquiries and answering your phone. Check out a majority of the top ranking sites. Email them or call them. You will get auto responses or voice mails. Not the real deal. What will consumers do when they get these? They move on. Success is when opportunity meets preparedness. If you get an opportunity but you are not prepared, you lose.
Chris,
The division that you describe is very important. I believe that, whether the marketing efforts are online or offline, integration is essential. The synergy that can be created by fusing different offline facets such as advertising, public relations, and promotions is remarkable. Yet, the firm or client that pursues this integration is still the exception rather than the norm. Your commentary on organic and paid search in the online realm is even more timely.
I agree that both SEO and PPC have their unique benefits (and drawbacks), but when combined, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Very interesting post.
Any method that can bring in traffic is a good method in my opinion! Sometimes it just boils down to whether you have the time or the money. Ideally, both paid or free traffic generation should always be done.
Traffic is one thing, another important factor is your website must have good content in order to entice your visitors, convert them, get them to do whatever it is that you want them to do… be it clicking on ads, buying a product or just participating by commenting on your blog!
As Janice said, both paid or free traffic generation should always be done.
But as the time and cost limited, we need to keep the balance between this two ways to get traffic to our websites. So every blogger and internet marketer chooses his/her own way to do that.
I wish I had read this earlier. I learned blogging from an expert on adwords. Consequently I did some things that were counterproductive for organic searches.
Ned Carey
There are plenty of ways to get good traffic.
People should be smart enough to remember day of expiration of their domains to succeed in business.
Linkbuilding and SEO optimisation.
Blackhat SEO with link spam.
Spam with nofollow links to get pure traffic
Link trading to get dofollow links and relevant traffic, but You need to have better content to get more returning visitors from exchanged traffic.
Buying type-in domains
Buying expired domains with traffic -> easy, cheap way to get huge traffic that remains for months. This is my favourite way as you can get 1000UIPs / month for 20$ and this traffic will remain (slightly decreasing) for about 6 months, and then You can have 200-300 UIP/month for next 12 months.
I know as I’m domain trader
This blog gives some good tips and information into traffic and Making money online.
Helped a lot.
Will definitely be subscribing to the feed.
Thanks
We definitely fall into the latter category! Insightful blog!
I’ve been working on bridging that gap myself. I don’t make a site without putting a blog on it these days and I am reaping the benefits. While I find my conversion goes down I find that my bottom line goes up. Its a good trade I think and one I will continue to work on
both are needed, traffic drives up profit, the more traffic the lower price u can set as huge sale can decrease the cost
What I know there are some bloggers who use paid search to promote their blog. It is faster than organic search.
Very interesting post, you bring up some points that I had overlooked as an online marketer. Thanks!
Get the traffic and the money is sure to come. It’s that simple. If there are 10k visitors on your site a day you can rest assured there’s a way to monetize that traffic.
I agree with you that blogs can be a great money making machine, if you can get lots of traffic. And it is easier to get traffic for a blog than a regular website. But it’s hard work to get money for blogging. Almost impossible to get rich.
My website gets very good traffic from organic search and also from news sites. We entered a few competitions and produced some news from that that were picked by local news sites. We got very trustful links.
It has never been tough for me to retain traffic through internet marketing. My problem is always driving traffic that is relative and profitable. I’d love to see a blog post about how to get the right types of traffic!
A big problem with the internet is that it is inundated with copycats. Even with a great strategy for maximizing exposure on search engines, one can still end up coming off as insincere or “spammy.” The key is to build a grid of all the multiple facets of social media (be it blog content, twitter, etc.) and maintain it — customers can tell when their arm is being twisted or when they’re being mislead. You’re not going to set the world afire in one night, so apply the effort now.
The social media revolution is much more than a trendy internet fad! It is a change in the way people live their lives — the way they communicate. With proper planning, you can potentially target any individual consumer … and once you’ve got their attention, that first impression is critical.
I am already driving a good traffic to my websites (blogs and others). No need to any SEO experts or any marketer.
I believe that if you really want to do it, you can get success.
Thanks for the post,
M. Dikici
Ok, i agree with your article, but it’s kind of hard to generate traffic with a blog, only if you aren’t a skilled writer. A blog takes much time for setting it up, promotion, and of course writing..
I’m a nub and still learn how to drive traffic…. very use full information thx
Each interrnet project required different type of approach. Some projects are better to rely on organic search, for some project payed add is the only option, Other project do not require anything. When you start your project – you need to know exactly what are you looking for and what do you expect from your traffic.
I’ve found that with blogging, money will obviously not come fast. If you continuously work at it, you WILL see money. I basically update my blog once a day, sometimes more. Doing this continuously will allow readers to see you are dedicated, and eventually subscribe
Thanks a lot for the post.
I tried blogging ages ago, had a steady traffic, but nothing major.
My problem was that I’m not english so my writing skills suck a bit and readers sense that I guess.