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Top 10 Ways One Pays For Free Traffic (i.e. SEO)

Posted: August 18, 2006

SEO is often called ‘Free Traffic’ that occurs within the ‘Free Results’ of a page. However, ‘free’ is quite a misnomer when you break down the requirements to SEO a site in any sort of competitive markets. There are multiple ways one pays for free traffic, here are just the top 10.

This was originally going to be a follow up to ‘Top 10 Ways PPC is Better Than SEO‘ with my own post on how SEO is better than PPC; however, Todd beat me to it with his ‘Top 11 Reasons SEO is Better Than PPC‘. Therefore, let’s shift the focus to how one pays for SEO.

I think each hour of my day is worth $xxs. Therefore, if I spend 10 hours optimizing a site, I want the payout to be at least equal to $xxs times 10. If I don’t make at least that, then I should have done something else that would have made me $xxs per hour.

With that caveat, here’s the top 10 way one pays for free traffic.

1. Hours spent optimizing a site that never ranked.

2. Hours spent reading Webmaster World’s Google update threads, blogs & forums looking for ’secrets’?

3. Paid links & paid directory submissions.

4. Dollars invested in software and books for link automation, rank checkers,and eBooks.

5. Time spent creating a site for search engines (as opposed to creating converting pages).

6. Hours spent examining search results to see why you weren’t number one.

7. Hours spent spamming blogs, forums, and wikis.

8. How many pages did you make for the search engines (not visitors)?

9. How much did you pay for ‘content creation’,just for additional pages?

10. Time spent reading Matt’s blog looking for the Google sauce.

Note: I don’t believe PPC or SEO is better than one another - they’re different. For maximum web visibility, one should optimize for Organic search, PPC, and Vertical search at the same time. Only through taking a diverse approach to inventory can a website realize it’s full traffic potential.

Lastly: Here’s yet another take on the top 10 SEO and PPC results.

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Related Information:

« Top 10 Reasons PPC is better than SEO

R.H. Donnelley acquires LocalLaunch »

Written by Brad Geddes aka eWhisper · Filed Under Blog

Comments

3 Responses to “Top 10 Ways One Pays For Free Traffic (i.e. SEO)”

Brandon Hopkins on August 20th, 2006 1:58 pm

Another great post Brad!
Search Engine Roundtable on September 8th, 2006 5:56 am

WebmasterWorld Mod’s LocalLaunch Aquired…

Local Launch has been officially acquired by R.H. Donnelley. Local Launch! is a privately held company and terms of the transaction were not disclosed. R.H. Donnelley does not expect this acquisition to affect the current guidance for full-year 2006 re…
Kim on February 2nd, 2007 12:17 pm

So very true. PPC Rocks - at least you know what you’re paying for.