RachelYou can monetize your site in a variety of ways, and one of those ways is through the traffic that visits your blog. Unfortunately, you need high influxes of traffic before these companies will pay out – so how can you gain traffic and turn those views into dollars?
First, What is Paid Traffic?
Paid traffic is traffic that has arrived at your website from an advertising source. Essentially, you have paid to attract the visitors to your site. Think of it as purchasing an advertisement in your local paper (back when that was a thing). Advertising your company in the paper will attract more visitors than sitting outside your business with an “open” sign, hoping someone stops in.
Why is Paid Traffic Better than Free Traffic?
Hey, we didn’t say paid traffic was better, but we are saying that paid traffic produces better results. See? There’s a difference.
Organic traffic, also known as free traffic, is traffic that has arrived on your website or blog naturally without influence. This is traffic that has performed a Google search and found your website through the organic results, not a paid Google Ad.
Organic traffic can take months to build. You have to learn search engine optimization, link building, and site structure. All of these are important and should be done anyway, but sometimes you want traffic and you want traffic now. That’s where paid traffic comes in.
Top 10 Ways to Gain Paid Traffic
Below are various traffic sources that will increase the paid traffic to your site.
1. Google Ads
Have you ever done a Google search and noticed the first one or two websites had a small green box outlining the word “Ad” beside the website? This is a Google Ad. A Google Ad can increase traffic to your blog through the purchased space at the top of the search engine results page. This marketing strategy pays off, many people will not notice the ‘Ad’ and click on the top results.
2. Facebook Ads
If your website does not have a Facebook page, it needs one. You can create a Facebook advertisement campaign to promote your website. Promoting your website will lead to more website clicks. More website clicks leads to more traffic on your website. (Pro Tip: Facebook will periodically issue you an advertising credit of around $10. You can run a short campaign for free to increase traffic to your website.)
3. Instagram Ads
Similar to Facebook Ads, you can also run Instagram Ads. Instagram Ads can promote your website on your targeted users’ Instagram feed. These advertisements will lead to website clicks which will increase traffic to your website.
4. Contact an Influencer
People make a living as an influencer, but if you haven’t heard this terminology before, an influencer is someone who has a large following and has chosen to endorse your product. Influencers are a great resource to use when driving traffic to your site because influencers are typically well-known and have a vast online presence, such as a large social media following. When an influencer backs your product, they will link your website to their social media accounts for easy clicks.
5. Email Marketing
We have discussed email lists in-depth in another article, but it is worth mentioning here that building an email list is a productive way to increase traffic to your website or blog. By gathering email addresses and sending a weekly newsletter or promotional email, you can remind readers to visit your site. This will increase traffic to your site from a custom audience.
6. Direct Advertisement Space Selling
If you have a website that is faring well, you can sell space on your website for companies to advertise. This is known as direct space selling, and you can earn money for the traffic that visits your site by selling your valuable virtual real estate to advertisers. This type of ad campaign can last a long as you wish.
7. Pinterest Ads
We have a Pinterest guide for you, but you can use this rapidly-growing social media site to advertise your website; especially if you have pin-worthy images that link back to your website. In your Pinterest Ad, you can include hashtags and other keywords that describe your website and website niche.
8. LinkedIn Ads
Another advertising platform that you should take advantage of is the advertising option on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a social media platform strictly for professionals, so it is prime virtual real estate for you to advertise your website. You can target specific audiences so that the only viewers who see the advertisement are the ones who are the most likely to be interested in it.
9. Twitter Ads
Another social media platform with advertising capabilities is Twitter. Similar to Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn, you can create an advertising campaign based on the audience you wish to target. These advertising campaigns will show up on those users’ newsfeeds to increase traffic to your website.
10. Invite a Guest Blogger
You may have to pay your guest blogger to write a post for your website, but it can pay large dividends. A guest blogger can easily boost your website traffic. You will want to invite a guest blogger who will help add to your website’s content, rather than take away from it. Keeping the website niche in mind, you would not want your beauty website to include a guest post from LeBron James. (Well, that might be kind of cool, but you get our point.)
Things to Remember About Paid Traffic
Paid traffic is traffic that you have influenced to arrive at your website through some form of payment. These are typically advertisements, although other forms of exposure can be used, such as an influencer or guest blogger.
Once you have driven traffic to your blog, you can earn money from these visitors. Place a variety of advertisements on your website to best monetize your website. (And if you need an idea of what kind of advertising managers to use, take a look at our article about MediaVine, Ezoic, and AdSense.)
