I see new marketers all the time who have a goal of $100,000 per year or even a million dollars per year. And how are they getting their traffic? They’re happily submitting articles, writing blog posts and commenting in forums and blogs.

Now, if your goal is to earn an extra $1,000-$2,000 per month, then these methods are great. But if you want to earn far more, you’ll want to change the way you get traffic.

No one that I know of is making large sums of money using only these methods. Instead, they are doing either SEO, PPC, Facebook Ads, or creating their own products and affiliate programs.

Or they have a HUGE list. But how do you get a huge, responsive list? Generally by using SEO, PPC or some kind of advertising.

So the real questions to think about when it comes to not only traffic but also any issue regarding your business is:

A) What is your goal?

B) Is what you’re doing going to get you to that goal this year?

And if it’s not – look for another method.

I will say there are of course always exceptions to the rule. If you’re really good at a particular marketing strategy like blogging, or direct sales using Facebook chats and other social networking engagements AND you sell products that can pay you high commissions, it IS possible to build a 6 or 7 figure income with free marketing.

But for the average person, paid advertising can be a faster path to the higher income tiers. Either way, choose a strategy that works within your current budget and commit to learning how to execute that strategy at the highest level possible if you are in the online marketing game to make a serious and life-changing income.