There are many aims of advertising. Advertising may be geared towards building a list, selling a product, or even just to brand the website. Always track your traffic to make sure that your objectives are being achieved



Quite often the difference between different ad sources is quite apparent. For instance when doing PPC advertising (Pay Per Click) Content Network Ads are very much less expensive to buy than Search Network Adverts. In Search Networks the user types in relevant keywords which then trigger your ads and this is seen as more relevant traffic than the Content Network where you ad appears on an Adsense Publisher's website and this is seen as not as targeted.

In general it's considered that most people who click on content network ads tend to be researching their intended product and in the main are looking for free information. It's been proven that on the other hand searchers who type in (especially long tail) specific keywords are further down the buying funnel and are more likely to click the buy now button. Inevitably this means that to advertise in the Search Network is more expensive but often more effective.

As a short term way of getting traffic pay per click is very effective but careful watch has to be kept on the cost of this traffic and conversion rates as it is very expensive. Without proper tracking unprofitable campaigns which seem to be profitable are just going to drain the budget. Organic traffic, i.e. appearing high in the search results which is in effect free traffic is the best way to go but unfortunately takes longer. Search Engine Optimization is required here: This is the process of optimizing web pages to get high positions in the search engine results. This is a long term answer to Traffic and initially should be done alongside pay per click.

Its very hard to rank highly for more generic keywords especially in popular niches where competition is fierce so aim for long tail keywords or "low hanging fruit". There are lots of good keyword tools to help you find these and they are much easier to rank for so if you can build a significant list of these and optimize your pages accordingly you will get ranked and also get significant traffic from these.

Article marketing is under utilized and can produce good traffic as well as a significant number of quality links back to your site. Other options include joint ventures and email marketing but remember your primary objective should always focus on Not paying for traffic that isn't generating sales.