Cheap Method of Driving Traffic

[Sheldon]

So I've recently started two content driven sites. One is strictly a blog and the other has a blog, and a series of recipes and I'm considering adding premium content. My question is, does anyone have experience with an inexpensive method of driving traffic to a content driven site?
My first thought was to use PPC advertising, but this doesn't seem to be cost effective. Only a certain percentage of the clicks that I pay to arrive at my site will convert to click on the AdSense advertisements on my site. (Incidentally, are there better money making ads?) I discussed this with my friend and he said that AdSense doesn't really make much money unless your site has 100,000+ page views, which is something that right now seems entirely unfeasible. I don't need to make a huge amount of money off of these websites. I have come up with an idea for premium content for one of the sites, but for the other I'd like to continue writing the blogs and eventually compile them into a book. However, until I do that I'd like to at least have that website in the black. Any ideas or criticisms?

thanks,
Sheldon

 

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[brycer9]

tumblr, hands down if you can properly target your market there

 

[CNP]

I do not have any experience but I am just going to give my two cents. As you look through the site would will soon find out that people here will say that content is king. If you have great content, traffic will come. That I would say is the cheapest way to get traffic lol. Another is SEO which you can do and a lot of people seem to have experience in that field on the forum but the thing with seo is that it is always changing so its better to hire someone who is always up to date or you might just be learning out-dated information. Im talking to my guy that is building my website about seo and he said that seo is good but ppc have a better chance of landing you traffic in his experience. I would say just concentrate on content (as a first form of seo) and traffic will come and then worry about making money.

 

[Sheldon]

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

 

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[Sheldon]

I would say just concentrate on content (as a first form of seo) and traffic will come and then worry about making money.

That has been my first priority. Right now my site is just bare bones basically. If anyone were to come across it, they'd be highly unlikely to come back. So, you're right. As of now I'm just building content so there is more information and people are more likely to spend some time on there. I started the site about a week and a half ago and I'm up to five blog posts, but I need more to make it seem legitimate. Plus I have another information section that I still have to get started as well as a premium information section (the pain point I'm solving, so to speak) that I have to develop into something that can actually generate some real money beyond the crappy PPC money. Still a work in progress, however I do think I am going to try the tumblr method as I continue to build the content.

Arigato, Gents.

 

[Tom.V]

Ugh, the misconceptions in terms of SEM in this thread are borderline painful. Since you are running AdSense, using PPC in conjunction will almost always be a losing battle as your costs will almost always exceed your revenue. This is not the right way to proceed.

SEO is great for content sites, so learn the basics of on-page SEO, get your permalinks setup, and just do some minor optimization. There is cheap traffic from a TON of traffic sources out there, so just start looking around. But again, if your only means of monetization is through someone else's funnel, it will almost always be a losing battle.

 

[Sheldon]

I'm a Noob

Ugh, the misconceptions in terms of SEM in this thread are borderline painful. Since you are running AdSense, using PPC in conjunction will almost always be a losing battle as your costs will almost always exceed your revenue. This is not the right way to proceed.

SEO is great for content sites, so learn the basics of on-page SEO, get your permalinks setup, and just do some minor optimization. There is cheap traffic from a TON of traffic sources out there, so just start looking around. But again, if your only means of monetization is through someone else's funnel, it will almost always be a losing battle.

Thanks for the tough love. I realize that the AdSense ads are relatively poor methods of making cash unless I have a huge volume of traffic. However, I'd like to use them as a method to cover my costs at least until I build up the premium content section. As for using them to drive traffic to my site, I know that that's completely out of the question unless I'm actually selling something on the website that is worth the clicks. Right now I'm not selling anything, just building content so it's always going to be a net loss.
Also, keep in mind that I'm completely new at this game. I'm a biologist by educational background and have been in the military for the past five years, so website design, and many of the other topics you discussed are completely foreign to me. To be honest, I had to look up what "SEO" meant and I still don't know what some of the other jargon you used means.

 

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[Tom.V]

I'm a biologist by educational background and have been in the military for the past five years, so website design, and many of the other topics you discussed are completely foreign to me. To be honest, I had to look up what "SEO" meant and I still don't know what some of the other jargon you used means.

If you are serious about moving forward in this direction, I suggest you go educate yourself. This "jargon" really gives you a basic outline of where to start.

 

[ricktx]

So I've recently started two content driven sites. One is strictly a blog and the other has a blog, and a series of recipes and I'm considering adding premium content. My question is, does anyone have experience with an inexpensive method of driving traffic to a content driven site?
My first thought was to use PPC advertising, but this doesn't seem to be cost effective. Only a certain percentage of the clicks that I pay to arrive at my site will convert to click on the AdSense advertisements on my site. (Incidentally, are there better money making ads?) I discussed this with my friend and he said that AdSense doesn't really make much money unless your site has 100,000+ page views, which is something that right now seems entirely unfeasible. I don't need to make a huge amount of money off of these websites. I have come up with an idea for premium content for one of the sites, but for the other I'd like to continue writing the blogs and eventually compile them into a book. However, until I do that I'd like to at least have that website in the black. Any ideas or criticisms?

thanks,
Sheldon

Be careful sending any PPC traffic to site with adsense on it. This is called a traffic arbitrage and Google, for some reason hates it, and will ban you if your not careful. Funny, I could never make any money with adsense. Then I discovered cheaper traffic and created a very profitable adsense site. Good original content, was doing good in the SEO rankings, nothing but quality.

I needed more traffic so I bought some good quality PPC traffic. Wow I was making 30% on every spend via adsense, and one day adsense banned me, out of the blue without warning. After weeks of pleading for a reason. Finally they said is was traffic arbitrage site after weeks of pleading for a reason. I did not understand why that would be a problem or what arbitrage was. My site was good quality and most of the traffic was organic anyway. Embarrassed I did not know what a arbitrage was (other than a ugly bird) I started googleing and it appears it was the PPC traffic. Heck the first call to Google ended with I needed to check the TOS to find the reason, figure out what rule I broke, and that was why I was ban. I though it was a joke at first and laughed, but she was serious and that was how I needed to determine what I had done wrong.

Have you ever read there TOS agreement in detail? Wow they can ban you and keep all the money for any reason they choose. they even reserve the right not to tell you why. I never found what exactly got me banned, and I read every line of that TOS in detail. I did fight it and was reinstated after a long wait, and was paid for all the traffic I sent adsense (a lot better outcome than most adsense horror stories), but have never used adsense again. I just hate a game where the other player can make up the rules as they go along and don't even have to explain them to you.

Many people make a lot of money with adsense. However, I do not know of a one of them, that at some point has not broken one of Google's rules and been banned, and had to go through a nightmare to figure out why, and beg and plead to be reinstated.

I am not saying Google is bad. I am just saying have a alternative to Google. Chances are you are going to need It for a while at some point in time. Bad thing is, most people get reliant on the adsense revenue and then get banned. Very bad news to have the bulk of your income canceled.

 

[H. Palmer]

. Offer great content

. Do SEO (which is a separate thing and requires study)

. Build a list

Then do away with Adsense and create a product out of the content you already have.

 

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[Sheldon]

If you are serious about moving forward in this direction, I suggest you go educate yourself. This "jargon" really gives you a basic outline of where to start.

Look, I'm glad you spent the time to give me any information at all, but I don't need to be talked down to by a kid. We all have various areas of education and experience, and mine, at the moment, doesn't include this area right now. So if you don't have anything constructive to say, I'd appreciate it if you just pass on this thread.

 

[AllenCrawley]

Look, I'm glad you spent the time to give me any information at all, but I don't need to be talked down to by a kid. We all have various areas of education and experience, and mine, at the moment, doesn't include this area right now. So if you don't have anything constructive to say, I'd appreciate it if you just pass on this thread.

I honestly don't feel that Ungodly was talking down to you. His advice was actually spot on IMO. You're going to have to educate yourself so you'll have a better understanding of what it means to drive traffic and all the ways to do so. People around these parts are likely to tell it like it is (no sugar coating). If Ungodly's reply offended you, you could be in for a rude awakening.

 

[Tom.V]

Why do people ALWAYS get mad when you tell them they need to learn about something? It's a very juvenile approach to life considering someone more knowledgeable than yourself is giving advice that could probably help you skip to GO a helluva lot faster.

Also, if you are running Adwords directly to sites with Adsense, as ricktx mentioned, this PPC arbitrage and is a big no-no. Cut your losses now before you get banned and forfeit any profit you may have made.

 

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[Lauryn]

Yes to everything ricktx said.

When I first started making money online, my initial goal was to be like one of those bloggers who made niche sites to make thousands per month from AdSense. I did backlinks, content, article marketing - all of that.

Eventually I realized to make money you needed to really invest in great content, diversify your monetization and not rely on Google Adsense. It's cool but there's way too much risk and it's like the subdepartments of Google - like AdSense and AdWords - don't even really interact or communicate with each other enough. They constantly contradict each other on their best practices, and when it comes to AdSense accounts, you can really lose yours easily without explanation, reason or warning.

I have made a few AdSense payouts, but I've since switched my focus on building Kindle products.

Great content is the best strategy.

 

[mentalic]

- Great content as always
- Build a Facebook page that you update regularly and advertise that.
- Build a Twitter account and attract some followers
- Build a newsletter list (check MailCheat(Chimp))
- Apart from PPC advertising you can always contact other webmasters and ask them to advertise there yourself
- Guest blogging (everyone loves free content)
- Your mission should be to diversify traffic as much as possible. You cannot trust SEO and depend your traffic on one source solely.

 

[XOthermic]

building traffic to a website to make money off adsense and clicks is SLOWLANE as FUAAAAAAK.

3 steps to success....
1. Create something nobody else has
2. Streamline a process for selling item to individuals
3. Scale Process

Yes some people do make money off adsense and some people become movie stars and somepeople hook up with only the hottest chicks on the planet. I'm not saying that you can't be one of these people but there are easier ways to get there.

 

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