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.

I’ve spent part of my working life as a lawyer. Since I am very entrepreneurial and have a range of business interests, I am occasionally taken aback when someone who doesn’t know me assumes that because I’m a lawyer, I’m “risk averse”. They are equally surprised when I suggest that, as a business person, they should take MORE “risks”.

Here’s what this person doesn’t get: there’s a difference between legal risk and business risk. There’s also a difference between being averse to legal risk and being averse to business risk.

When it comes to the law… I don’t believe in taking “risks”. If something is unlawful, I don’t do it. And I would advise any business person against doing it too. If the issue is “grey” I’d suggest getting advice from a legal expert in the area. If I don’t - or the business person doesn’t - agree with the law, I would lobby for change. But not breaking the law while it IS a law.

However, when it comes to “business risk” I believe in weighing up the pros and cons, and if the risk is worth taking - i.e. the risk can be mitigated and there are potentially very high rewards - I am all for it!

Trading professionals (i.e. those who trade the financial markets) favour trades where there is unlimited upside and a known, limited downside. They avoid trades where there is a limited upside and an unlimited downside. My approach to risk is the same.

In fact, it astounds me that some companies take the very opposite approach when it comes to business. They will take legal risks - where there is very often a limited upside and an unlimited downside - while avoiding business risks that offer limited downside and unlimited upside!

Even worse, some companies will take legal risks - sometimes an “easy” option - instead of doing the hard yards and investing the time and effort to come up with creative business solutions.

Take business risks, not legal risks.