Why Free Traffic Ain’t Free

There’s a myth out there that you can get “free” traffic on the Internet.

True, you may not have to technically pay for clicks you get from organic traffic on Google or for clicks/Likes/+1s/whatever from Social Media…

…But there’s a cost involved with those things.

Know what it is?

Your Time.

Trouble is, like most people, you probably don’t know how to accurately value your time. But I’m gonna share with you a great way to do that which has totally changed the way I think about my time.

Marketing legend Dan Kennedy has written a number of books under the “No B.S.” brand. And Dan truly is a no B.S. kind o’ guy.

In his book the “No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs“, Dan talks about one of the keys to time management being to know what your time is worth.

Here’s the easiest way to calculate it…

Take your earnings for the year and divide it by 1760. That’ll give you a rough figure of what you make per hour. So if you make $100K per year, you make about $56.82 per hour.

But wait!

That’s actually not your real hourly earnings because most people don’t truly work every minute of every hour. In fact, the national average is that people only work 1/3 of a work hour.

Kinda scary, but that’s the average.

So, if you’re average and only work 1/3 of an hour, multiply the hourly earnings you calculated above ($56.82 in our example) and multiply that by 3 to figure out what your work time is really worth.

In our example, that brings us to $170.46.

What’s your number?

Put that up over your computer, engrave it on your smartphone or iPad (or at least in your memory) and look at it next time you plan to spend some time getting “free” traffic from SEO or social media.

Then think about these questions…

• Is that traffic your efforts may get you worth the cost?
• Is this the best use of your time and one that’s getting you closer to your goals?
• Are you getting an ROI for the time you’re putting in?
• How does the cost of your “free” traffic compare to paid search marketing?

Still think that traffic is free?

Learn to value your time… if you don’t, no one else will.