Internet Marketing Digital_marketing_for_dummies | Page 349

Being Unwilling to Pay for Traffic
There was a time when search engine optimization (SEO) and social media was easy, and
free traffic from the likes of Google and Facebook was reliable and plentiful. Now,
however, although search and social media marketing are still important, the days of free-
and-easy traffic are over.
Today, reliable and high-quality website traffic is bought and sold like grain or gasoline. If
you want a reliable source of gasoline, you go to the gas station and purchase it. Similarly,
reliable website traffic is a commodity, and if you want to market at scale, you need to go
to the traffic store and buy it. The web has no shortage of traffic stores (Google, Bing,
Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and more) that are more than willing to sell you high-
quality website traffic at a fair price. You can find out more about paid traffic in Chapter
10.