Website traffic is the lifeblood of any online business. In fact, without traffic your website is as good as dead. Web traffic comes in many shapes and sizes and QUALITY is by far the most important thing that should be on your mind right now. While “free” SEO traffic is nice, it takes forever to get it and playing the SEO game is definitely not an easy one. If you buy web site traffic then you get it instantly – which is why is so popular and so powerful.

Buying web traffic can be the quickest and most profitable thing you will ever do for your online business, BUT if you don’t know what you are doing you will burn out and probably lose a lot of money. The most important words in paid traffic is Return On Investment (ROI). Since you pay for the traffic it has to return a profit. Paid traffic is just too expensive to just use for branding purposes.

If you ant to buy web site traffic you have so many options and sources of traffic to choose from. Which one is better and where should you start? Lets quickly look at some of the main sources of paid traffic:

- Pay Per Click:
This is by far the highest quality traffic because it comes from highly relevant searches. Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing and Bing offer PPC programs that allows you to buy advertising space based on keywords. You pay “per click” and all 3 these major search engines have a TON of traffic available to virtually any audience anywhere in the world.

- Media Buys:
Media buys is all about buying banner space on websites. Although Google Adwords allows you to buy banners on its Adsense network, there are hundreds of Media Buyers out there. You usually buy banner space on a CPM (cost per million impressions) basis where you pay for the amount of times your banner gets viewed and NOT per click. Most high traffic websites have media buys available and the great thing about this is that you can pick and choose the websites (and the audience) you want to advertise on.

- CPV Traffic:
CPV stands for “cost per view” and its one of the hardest traffic sources to see good return. The payoffs can be ginourmous though as there is a lot of traffic available. CPV traffic is usually full page ads that gets served to users who have software installed on their computers. Many see it as “spyware” but there is a very definite distinction and the most reputable CPV traffic sources like TrafficVance are definitely not spyware.

- Mobile Advertising:
This is the latest trend in advertising and if you want to buy web site traffic from mobile users then this is the way to go. With mobile phones becoming more and more powerful its basically like little computers and users spend a lot of time surfing the web on their mobile phones. Google recently acquired AdMob – the biggest mobile phone advertising network which a good indication of how serious this traffic source will become in the future.
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For the last 5 to 10 years Google Adwords was the number one choice to buy website traffic. It was the number one source for paid traffic and the combination of quality and ease of use made this the “one stop shop” for quality traffic. While it is still a great source of traffic, its become rather expensive and if you are an affiliate then you’ve probably felt the full wrath of Google’s slap. They can be a nightmare to deal with (to say the least).

Marketers seemed to have their eye flaps on and became too complacent with Google traffic. The truth is that Adwords accounted for less than 30% of paid traffic. Those who broadened their horizons really reaped the rewards and today most of us are forced to find new traffic sources. Here are 5 great places to buy website traffic from.

1. Yahoo/Bing
While Google is still “the beast”, the recent partnership between Yahoo and Bing means that they are becoming a real competitor to buy traffic from. Click costs are generally much lower and the conversions are typically much higher. In many cases you can just copy your Adwords campaigns and see a better ROI.

2. Facebook
Facebook is now the most popular website on the planet and even kicks Google’s butt in terms of traffic volume. If you want to buy website traffic from Facebook then you’d be happy to know that their self serve advertising platform is really easy to use. The best part about Facebook advertising is the level of targeting and you can really get your ads to the right audience and the fact that its popular worldwide means an even greater reach.

3. TrafficVance
Commonly known as “pop traffic” or Pay Per View traffic, TrafficVance is the king and has massive user base. Ads get served through their GameVance installs and are usually full screen pop ups. The bidding system is similar to AdWords but much more targeted in many ways. Full screen ads also means much higher response rates and although it can be an unforgiving traffic source, you can see huge returns.

4. MediaBuys
If you are serious and want to buy website traffic in volume then you have to start looking at media buys. Its basically buying banner space direct from website owners and many of the biggest websites in the world have media buys available to marketers. There is potential for huge volume but the costs are usually much higher. The best way to get started is to use self serve networks where you can buy “portions” and networks like Adbrite is a good start.

5. AdMob
AdMob is the biggest mobile advertising network and it has a massive reach worldwide. With mobile phones becoming more and more geared towards internet use, its bound to be a very important traffic source in the future. You can get ridiculous amounts of traffic from AdMob but you need to monitor your campaigns closely as you can burn through your test budget really quickly.
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