David says: I’m having a problem that I suspect many marketers share. Quite simply … SEO or just buy the traffic. I noticed that you switched to SEO because you like the passive income component. But when I consider ALL the work and ongoing moving parts to SEO .. visions of the hamster on a treadmill appear in place of couch potato cash. Have you noticed that there is always something new to do … now it’s Google+ ect. and “more to do” is surly on it’s way.

It’s reached the point where it’s mind numbing.

I’m thinking about “less to do” sites with physical products … Amazon and other merchants. And adding a PPC campaign instead of using social media and constantly toiling away building links and writing articles.

Is there an easy way to get sites like this to rank while profiting with some paid traffic? Your opinion on this dilemma .. SEO vs PAID traffic or both would be much appreciated.

The term “couch potato cash” made me smile. One of the reasons I stopped doing pay-per-click advertising heavily was the fact that it was constantly changing, and required active monitoring.

My personal experience was with Google Adwords, and I can tell you firsthand that it took up a lot more of my time than my organic online marketing strategy does now. In addition to actively monitoring each campaign there was split testing, updates & new policies (aka “slaps”), etc, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah.

Not to mention that the ad rates have gone up dramatically over the years, as has the level of competition, and you can easily lose your shirt overnight if you’re not keeping a close eye on things.

Pay Per Click Advertising is still a great online marketing strategy mind you, it’s just not passive or “set it and forget it”. This is just my personal opinion based on my personal experience – and personal preference. I did quite well with my Adwords campaigns back in the day, but there was nothing “couch potato” about it (lol). I was constantly monitoring and managing and tweaking my campaigns.

I had tons of time invested in my campaigns by the time I got them running smoothly, where they required less attention. And guess what? Google made a policy change that dramatically affected my campaigns. Tanked everything I had built up, in fact. Not that I was doing anything wrong (or “blackhat”), simply that the rules changed. And I wasn’t willing to stay on THAT hamster wheel.

Start over? No thanks.

I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m bashing PPC or Adwords, because I’m not. I simply want to give you a detailed answer, and explanation as to why I made the switch to SEO and organic marketing strategies.

Specifically because there’s no way I would go on an unplugged vacation, or take 14+ hour flights to Australia and back, with PPC Campaigns running.

That doesn’t mean I won’t run the occasional pay-per-click campaign, just that I don’t use it as my primary marketing strategy.

Ideal Online Marketing Strategy

You mentioned writing content, getting backlinks and social media – basically an Organic Marketing Strategy – as a more time intensive alternative to PPC. I would disagree with that, and for a few reasons:

• Outsourcing PPC is expensive
• Outsourcing content development is cheap
• PPC is just as time intensive, if not more, in my experience
• PPC requires MORE ongoing monitoring & maintenance
• Social Media is more FUN than testing ad campaigns
• A proper organic marketing strategy can take off on it’s own

That last point is actually the most important of them all. Done right you will have other people (your market) doing your social media & link building for you. They will share, like, vote up and link to your content and spread it exponentially.

With any new website, no matter which online marketing strategy you choose, there is going to be a substantial investment of time needed to get it off the ground.

Ideally you will use a variety of marketing strategies, but it’s not necessary to use paid advertising. I’ve managed to take my new site to profit, with a couple dozen first page rankings and active social media channels, all in under 90 days and with zero invested – outside of hosting, which is covered by profits.

I did that, too, in about an hour a day plus 2-3 hours on Saturday mornings. I can only imagine what I could have accomplished in that niche working it full time.

The thing is, it’s actually been FUN. Unlike tweaking ads, I’m actually out there meeting people and having conversations. And as a result they are inviting me to guest blog (links), sharing my updates, linking to my posts, etc.

If you dislike link building and social media, the key is to build a community where they do those things for you. Or the majority of it anyway. I focus on creating great content, and providing the tools to easily share that content.

As for content, like I said earlier that can easily be outsourced. There are also many ways to make it easier, such as inviting guest bloggers to post and doing interviews (where all you write are the questions).

Once your content ranks well in the major search engines, even more people will find it – and share it or link to it. Rankings bring in a constant source of highly targeted free traffic. And THAT is why I love it. Because even when I am on an unplugged vacation, or a long flight overseas, my sites are getting traffic and making sales – hands off.

Unlike PPC, over time an organic marketing strategy will take on it’s own steam and it will take very little work to manage or maintain.

The only real key being high quality share-worthy content. And even that doesn’t have to be as difficult as it might sound…

I hope that answers your question, and clears up any confusion. I look forward to hearing your thoughts, and everyone’s thoughts on this topic.

What online marketing strategy do YOU prefer – and why?

Best,