Traffic, traffic, traffic. It’s one of the biggest challenges and headaches you can face with a website or social platform, especially when you are trying to earn money as an affiliate. You can’t make money from your affiliate promotions if you don’t have people looking at your sites and profiles. At the same time, many clicks on links don’t promise sales.

Affiliate marketing has become a significant form of income for many influencers, bloggers, and other people who create online content. It might seem easy, but it can be tough beating the thousands of other websites to the punch when it comes to getting people onto your website and clicking your links. As competition continues to get stiffer, it’s crucial to find ways to draw people in.

The two main ways of generating online traffic are through either paid or organic means. Each approach comes with its own problems and benefits, all of which you need to consider when trying to generate a stable audience for your website.

So, how do you get your traffic going? This is often a hotly debated topic. Should you generate your audience organically or dip your toes into paid traffic? The answer isn’t exactly clear-cut. In this article, we’ll be looking at the pros and cons of the two options and which one might work better for you.

Organic Traffic

A simple explanation for organic website traffic is that it’s based on the online rankings you receive on search engines such as Google. This means that if you fit specific criteria and follow certain strategies, you can appear on the first page of the millions of search results regarding specific topics, for example.

Advantages

The main advantage of organic traffic is that it’s free. While you might incur certain costs such as SEO tools or copywriters but it’s not compulsory. If you’re clued up on how to write good copy and play the SEO game, you can do all of that work for free. If you have the time and energy to really put in that work, you’ll reap the benefits after continual effort.

To generate organic traffic has been shown to increase your return on investment (ROI) significantly. It means that readers are more likely to buy products that are related to their internet searches, which is the ultimate aim of drawing them into your website in the first place.

Having a high ranking in search results will also give your website added credibility with consumers. Finding your website on the first page will show them that your content is relevant and of high quality, making them more likely to purchase the products you’re promoting.

With the right SEO software or staff, you can gauge your website user data to help you keep up with your target market and know their preferences and trends. This information can help you determine which keywords to use and how to reel in your target audience.

Disadvantages

The main problem is that it takes a very long time to increase organic traffic. Google won’t rank you very high at the beginning as you’ll have to build up a body of content with the right keywords. In the meantime, paid ads will get preference over the organically ranked websites, despite the fact that the content on those websites may be of lower quality.

Paid Traffic

The way to get more paid traffic is by purchasing advertisement space online. Your website will appear in the “paid ads” section of search results at the top of the page. This way, your website will be immediately visible and catch potential customers’ eyes.

Advantages

Paid traffic for affiliate marketing has a much more instantaneous effect on websites. Where you would have to be patient with an organic approach, adverts immediately start appearing in the appropriate places, encouraging users to visit your website.

With ads, you’re able to see which keywords are performing better, helping you to navigate your content better. This way, you can work towards building a powerful affiliate brand with a good ROI.

Most of the people clicking on your links are actively searching for something to buy, which makes your chance of converting clicks to sales much more robust, whereas people looking through organic traffic are often just browsing.

Naturally, you might be wondering about the money. The idea of paying for traffic might not sound attractive, but there are many different pricing options available, making it affordable on any budget. You can start off with a small advertising package and purchase more as your returns grow.

Disadvantages

Oftentimes, consumers are wary of paid ads because they weren’t placed there out of so-called merit but rather because they were purchased. At the same time, it might be challenging to know how your website compares to other, organically ranked websites.

Which One Works Best?

Have you got a better idea of what you want to do? When it comes to deciding between the two approaches, it might not be as simple as you think. Choosing the right traffic-pulling option has many factors to consider.

If you need your website to get off the ground and start making money faster, purchasing ads might be a smart move, as you’ll be able to get people’s attention fast. However, you’ll need to be able to deliver quality content consistently and speedily, as your reputation can wane very fast if a large number of people are clicking on your website but do not like what they see.

If you find the idea of paying for traffic doesn’t appeal to you, organic traffic might be the more economical option. While it takes longer, you’ll be able to build your content up gradually, learning about SEO and copywriting as you go. If you start off with a smaller audience, you’ll have time to improve your content as you continue making it. This way you’ll also grow your confidence in your abilities as you see results.

As with most things, you’ll have to ask yourself what it is that you want from your traffic approach. What is your timeline? How soon do you need to see the results? How much money can you spend? All of these issues need to be considered when making a decision about your affiliate business.

Conclusion

Affiliate marketing can be challenging at the best of times, but those who commit to the process reap the benefits after putting the work in.

Whether you choose paid or organic traffic, what matters most is the quality of the product you promote. You can’t build a thriving affiliate business by trying to promote subpar products.

With NutriProfits, you have the opportunity to promote world-class products at good commission rates. Take advantage of the wide range of cosmetics and meal replacement products that you can promote through links in your articles or social media posts. Take your future into your own hands and start your affiliate journey today by following the quick and easy registration process.