Pay Per Click, SEO & Article Marketing: Which Method Should You Choose?

There's no question, the three most popular ways to drive
targeted traffic to your website are pay per click advertising,
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and article marketing.

And if you're on a limited budget like most marketers, you need
to know the answers to the following three critical questions:

1. Which of the three methods work the best?

2. Which of the three methods should you use?

3. Which of the three methods is the most cost effective?

In this article, I'm going to answer all three of those
questions and then give you my recommendation.

Let's examine the most popular of the three marketing methods
first, pay per click advertising:

Pay Per Click advertising is a huge, multi-billion dollar a year
industry and are huge cash cows for both Google and Yahoo. There
is no faster way to drive targeted traffic to your website than
with a ppc advertising campaign.

For instance, with Google Adwords, you can literally be driving
targeted traffic to your website and making money in just a
matter of minutes.

Does ppc advertising work? Yes and no. For some, it works
extremely well. For the vast majority however, ppc advertising
simply leads to frustration and money down the drain.

So, what's the problem? Actually, there are several problems:

Inexperienced marketers who don't have a clue about how to write
ads that will enable them to get the most out of their ppc
advertising campaign.

Exorbitant keyword costs.

Click fraud.

Because of the "pie in the sky" climate of Internet marketing,
many marketers have a fatal "get rich click" mentality, because
of what they've read in some e-book.

They want instant gratification...that magic pill if you will!

They're not interested in taking the time to learn how to do
things the right way. So, they throw a bunch of money at a ppc
ad campaign, fall flat on their face and then come away
convinced that Internet marketing doesn't work and is nothing
but a scam.

Exorbitant keyword costs is another huge problem. While doing
research for this article, I visited Yahoo/Overture to price the
popular keyword, "Internet marketing."

This is what I discovered. At the time this article was written,
if you wanted the #1 position, it would cost you $2.51 per
click. Ouch! Just to be listed last on the first page at #31, it
would cost you 95 cents per click. Double ouch!!

Needless to say, you have to be one of the "big boys" to play
over at Yahoo's sandbox.

The keyword "Internet marketing" was much more reasonably priced
over at Google. The minimum bid was only 10 cents.

That price isn't bad. But then you have to contend with another
huge problem that could potentially eat away at your profits...
click fraud.

It is estimated that 30 percent of all ppc clicks are
fraudulent. In fact, according to the June 28 issue of the San
Jose Mercury News, both Google and Yahoo recently had to settle
class action lawsuits regarding this very issue.

Google has to refund an estimated $90 million to advertisers.
There is no word yet on the exact amount Yahoo has to refund,
although they are liable for $4.95 million in attorneys fees
alone.

When you consider the billions of dollars both companies make
from their ppc programs, the settlements amount to litle more
than pocket change.

Search Engine Optimization is another popular method marketers
use to drive targeted traffic to their websites. Should you
optimize your website? Yes, definitely. SEO does work. However,
I personally don't think you need to invest thousands of dollars
in SEO. Here's why:

With the ever-changing algorithms of search engines, you could
spend big money on SEO that may put you at the very top of the
search engines today, and then with one major algorithm change,
you could drop completely off the charts tomorrow. (Remember
Florida?)

Instead, I think you should focus on SEO basics like keyword
density, title description, meta tags and acquiring plenty of
inbound links.

You should also diversify your efforts to make sure you're
receiving traffic from sources other than search engines. You
never want to put all of your eggs into one basket. Which brings
us to our third and final marketing method:

Article Marketing: Writing articles is quickly becoming the most
popular way to drive targeted traffic to your website.

The reason I like article marketing so much is because it's
free, and also because articles are viral. If you write articles
and allow them to be freely published, your articles become
viral, meaning your articles can actually spread like a virus
and have the potential to be viewed by millions (yes millions)
of Internet users.

And because search engines love articles you can expect to get
linked to by many high-profile websites, thereby increasing your
PR (Page Rank) and traffic as well.

There's also another important by-product of article marketing:
Credibility.

Other than testimonials from well known expert marketers,
writing articles is the quickest way to establish credibility
online.

If you write good, quality content, not only will your articles
get published regularly, but they will also brand you as an
expert in your field, which will instantly enhance your
reputation and bottom line tremendously.

Don't know how to write? No problem. Hire an affordable
ghostwriter over at elance.com.

In closing, all three methods of marketing discussed in this
article today work. To what degree however, will obviously depend
on the experience, work ethic and ingenuity of the individual
marketer.

So, which marketing method should you use?

Because it's both free and viral, article marketing is obviously
the most cost-effective of the three methods discussed here
today. Therefore, article marketing should be your number one
priority.

That said, I also think you should use a combination of all
three marketing methods for optimum results.

However, I would caution you to spend your money prudently, in
regards to ppc and SEO.



Dale King is an ex-advertising salesman and the owner of
GuruKnowledge.org

http://guruknowledge.org