Kikabink News

When it comes to getting traffic to your site, there are pros and cons associated with every traffic generation method.

There are also costs. Some are obvious, such as the monetary cost of paying to run an ad in a newsletter or on a search engine. Some are not so obvious, such as the time and possibly monetary cost of harnessing search engine optimization or viral marketing.

As discussed in yesterday’s feature article, it’s important to be aware of all the relevant costs and make choices accordingly. Otherwise you could end up paying much, much more for something than you first expected.

In particular, there is often a large, yet not-so-obvious cost, associated with relying on seemingly free traffic generation methods such as search engine optimization (SEO) and article marketing. Many Internet marketers are attracted to these methods because they don’t necessarily involve any hard costs (unless you hire people to help you). But, apart from the time taken to do them – for example, the time taken to optimize your website, write articles, seek back-links, etc – there is another significant cost.

It’s the opportunity cost associated with not knowing how appealing your product or service offer is, or how effective your conversion tactics are.

There is often a lag between when you begin SEO and article marketing and when you start generating significant traffic. That being so, days, weeks, months – even years – could go by while you wait for enough traffic to be able to assess how appealing is your offer and effective are your conversion tactics.

Given that you didn’t pay anything while you waited, you might be content with that. But what if, after all those days, weeks or months go by, you discover that no-one wants to buy your product, or that your current conversion mechanism is an abject failure?

Not only did you waste time on doing SEO or article marketing… but you missed the opportunity to spend time on alternative offers or conversion tactics that WOULD have generated results.

So what’s the alternative? It’s to aim for FAST rather than FREE. It’s to pony up some money to invest in advertising – such as (but not just) pay-per-click advertising with the objective of TESTING your product or service, your offer, and your conversion mechanism (e.g. landing page).

Sure, this may cost a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars. That may sound scary… but if it ends up SAVING you weeks, months (or more) of wasted time and ignorance about what does and doesn’t work… it’s actually very cost-effective.

None of this is to say that you should neglect SEO, article marketing or other (seemingly) free traffic generation methods, or that you should just focus on paid advertising to test what does and does not work. It should be noted that there ARE ways to generate substantial search engine traffic in a relatively short amount of time WITHOUT paying for advertising… In this case, it may be possible to generate traffic FAST and (somewhat) FREE.

The point is, however, to fully assess the costs AND opportunities involved in each traffic generation method available to you BEFORE choosing one or the other.

Last Thursday I closed my Facebook account. No, it wasn’t out of protest against the new Facebook design… or because I don’t like my Facebook “friends”… or because I have anything against Facebook.

It was simply because… I just don’t use Facebook!

And rather than continue enduring that nagging thought, “I’ve gotta do something on Facebook to promote my business”… I realized I had fallen into the same trap so many Internet marketers fall into: thinking we need to do EVERYTHING to promote our businesses.

Having worked with both small Internet businesses and large corporate Internet marketing departments, I am yet to meet an individual OR an entire team that is able to pursue every single avenue for promoting their business, product or service. Everyone has limited time and resources. And with the Internet evolving all the time, it’s hard enough to stay on top of one aspect of Internet marketing, let alone several.

I’m not saying anything you probably haven’t heard before, but let this article serve as a gentle reminder: it’s better to do a few things really well, than do a lot of things half-baked. And just because you hear some guru preaching about how you MUST get involved in social networking… or blogging… or article marketing… or podcasting (see above!) or anything else… it doesn’t mean you have to at all.

Jay Abraham - a true marketing genius and guru in my opinion - wrote a book called “Getting The Most Out Of All You’ve Got” and that’s really what we should focus on as entrepreneurs. We should do what we can to get the best possible results based on what we have in terms of time, money, skills and other resources. This principle should guide us in deciding what we do in our businesses, and if that means stopping or cutting back on certain things - or closing a Facebook account we never use - so be it.

Of course, let me say that closing my Facebook account doesn’t mean I don’t see value in social networking. Or that you should do the same. It’s just not where I can get the most out of what I’ve got right now. You may find that it DOES work for you, while other things don’t.

P.S. One social network I AM loving at the moment is Imeem. Not sure about a business angle yet (if ever), but I just LOVE creating playlists and listening to music while I work. Check out my Imeem profile here: http://www.imeem.com/annaj/ I also use Twitter. You can follow my “occasionally regular” ramblings at http://www.twitter.com/annajohnson