by:
Tom O'Brien
Tom O'Brien
Why should you pay to get web site traffic, isn't SEO enough?
It's a fair question - after all most businesses on and offline
have tight budgets to play with and need to make each and every
penny count.
So why should you as a business pay good money to drive targeted
traffic to your site?
Perhaps there's a clue in the last question.
What other options are there?
You have 3 basic choices to get traffic to your website:
1. You pay - using PPC, ezine ads, banners etc...
2. You borrow - constructing Joint Ventures and endorsed offers
with partners
3. You grow your own - with natural search engine optimisation
So which is the best?
Well they all do a different job and have different characteristics,
perhaps the best information source you could hope to find on
the subject is found here:
http://www.trackingandtesting.com/dystatic/TrafficGeneration.php
But why PPC?
You need PPC because you can:
* Control the flow of traffic to your website
* Target buying customers and those most likely to buy through
correct keyword targeting
* Test different offers
The last benefit above is perhaps the most important. Remember
a page on a website doesn't have to stay recorded online forever...
Just because you've completed your site in terms of the pages
you want to add (although in truth you'll never be finished as
you can continually add more related content), this does not preclude
you from testing other pages...
The value of testing
Simple scenario: You want to test 2 price points for a product/service.
(Yes you can do this and people don't have to know about it so
don't be worried).
With a PPC campaign you can have your normal web page (Page A)
sitting as normal at the well known web address with all of your
normal links pointing to it.
You 2 price point test pages (Page B & C) are a different kettle
of fish - they sit off to the side and you push traffic to them
using PPC to quickly determine which is the winner.
You can do this for any test you dream up, the bottom line is
you can quickly determine what is working and what is not in your
marketing.
Knowing what's not working is more important than what is (particularly
if you are sailing close to the wind) because you SAVE money you
would otherwise have thrown away.
The Affiliate Advantage
When you have a website that is converting well, you will be able
to attract many affiliates (and even super affiliates if you are
doing a good enough job and providing a good enough incentive
package).
Affiliates can make your business explode overnight if you have
done your homework and have the site converting well.
If you have not you may attract them, they may pump some traffic
and then they will disappear to pastures new when they see you
are not doing a good job.
In summary
If I could give you one reason why you should use PPC and in particular
Google Adwords as part of your internet marketing campaign it
would be this:
"Feedback fast, feedback cheap"
Yes you may spend a little money up front, but you can save yourself
a whole lot of heartache on the back end.
About the author:
Tom O'Brien turns Adwords PPC management problems into profitable
advertising campaigns. For more free tips on Adwords Campaign
Management visit: http://www.pdqprospects.com/benefits/PayPerPerformanceWebTraffic.html
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