There are tons of ways you can get traffic to your site. Almost none of them will get you a massive influx of traffic in a day.

• SEO is a long, slow process that will result in great traffic over time, but does very little for you overnight.
• Content marketing, likewise, takes a long time to bear fruit unless a piece of content goes viral, something you can’t count on.
• Buying traffic from a cheap seller on Fiverr will get you a bunch of traffic, but who cares? It’s worthless traffic.
• Gaining the attention of Lizard Squad will get you a ton of traffic too, but I don’t think a DDoS is what you had in mind.

What does this leave? Essentially, you have one option; PPC.

PPC vs. SEO for Traffic

Too many people think of PPC and SEO as methods at odds with each other. PPC is the legitimate way to pay for traffic, while SEO is organic. PPC is fast, immediate, and transitory. SEO is slow, but it’s the sort of slow growth you want out of a long-term business.

Essentially, they’re both halves of a single robust whole. When you need immediate traffic, you run PPC. When you want to improve your organic traffic over time, you implement SEO. Ideally, you do both. Your PPC covers your immediate budget needs, while your SEO guarantees long-term growth.

Before Starting PPC

Before you dig into the wonderful world of pay per click advertising, you need to make sure your site is set up properly. Otherwise, you’re paying for users to visit your site and bounce. PPC is the bait; your site needs to be the honeypot to keep users around to experience your sales talk and be convinced to convert.

• Make sure your content is in order. You need enough valuable content to keep users around. It needs to be formatted properly and easy to read. It needs to have some keyword optimization, and should avoid too much overt sales talk. Obviously, avoid duplicate, spun, thin or nonsensical content.
• Your site needs to have a well thought out structure. This means plenty of internal linking, a robust navigation and categorization. Breadcrumb navigation is a good idea as well.
• It’s not necessary, but having a semantic URL structure – words rather than character strings – helps with usability.
• Make sure your site is responsive and that it’s quick to load. If a user clicks on one of your PPC ads and finds your site won’t load, it’s doing you no good.

Once your site is in order, you have to decide; do you want to run Google AdWords, Facebook’s PPC advertising, a third party ad service or all of the above?

Making the Choice

First of all, you can probably discount most of the other third party networks. They work, and there’s no real reason you should ignore them, other than the fact that both AdWords and Facebook – when used properly – are significantly more effective. This is because of their audiences. No ad network can quite boast reaching as many people as Google and Facebook can. That said, if you’re blocked from using Facebook or Google advertising for some reason, or you’ve tried them before and failed to find success, feel free to experiment with other networks.

So, what’s the difference between Google and Facebook, or should you just use them both?

Both networks offer a range of targeting options and ad placements. Both can be expensive or cheap, depending on your niche, your targeting and your bid. What differentiates them?

• Targeting options. Facebook tracks an insane amount of data on everyone using the platform, both aggregated from the site and bought from third party providers. Google, despite their dominant Internet presence, can’t track quite as much information.
• Ad creation. Specifically, a keyword focus. Facebook doesn’t bother with keywords; they target people. Google targets actions, search queries specifically.
• Conversion metric. Google ads offer one thing and one thing only; a link to a page of your choice. Facebook offers several alternatives, from a page link to a Like conversion to a video view objective.

Whichever platform you choose, make sure you use it properly so you’re not wasting your time and money.

Facebook PPC Tips

• Facebook has some very strict guidelines on their advertising. No autoplay audio, no repetition, no exploitative content, no adult content, the infamous 20% text rule, and so forth. Get used to them.
• Avoid an ad that’s overly pushy or annoying, because users are able to block them and that will set you back significantly.
• Use a relevant image. Something related to your business or your product works best.
• Get to know how you can target users. Facebook’s targeting by demographic and interest is the best thing about it. Avoid audiences that are too broad or too narrow.
• Use all of the space you’re given; there’s no reason not to use all the characters available to you.
• Track your Insights to see how your ads perform.

Google AdWords Tips

• Be as relevant to your targeted keyword as possible. Unrelated ads don’t get clicks.
• Don’t forget a call to action. Google works best when you have a clear objective for your potential users.
• Avoid “broad match” for keywords; it will bring in a lot of traffic from people who aren’t interested in what you’re selling.
• Use negative keywords. These are a list of blacklisted keywords that won’t show your ads. You can find lists of these online if you need a template.

In both cases, you need to do a lot of testing with short time limits and low budgets. Make sure to do as much as you can to optimize your landing page, as well as your ad copy. Test, measure, test, measure and test again. The more work you put into it, the better your returns will be.

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