Hey Nick,

That's one of the issues with teaching this stuff... These sites and their policies are changing all the time. Driving free traffic is still very much a viable approach, but I personally find it so time consuming and frustrating (for the reason's you are describing) that I stopped doing much of it some time ago. I used to rely on free traffic exclusively, but I focus entirely on paid traffic these days.

If your time is limited but you're a decent writer, I'd focus on trying to land guest blog posts. They are harder to get, but tend to pay off in a bigger way. However, if you are able to get your stiff on reddit, that may be a good way to go as well. I see them in the SERPS a lot lately. However, I have not dealt with them in a while.

Good luck and let us know if you start seeing decent traffic from any one particular source.

Hey Nick,

Totally fair concerns. Free traffic is completely doable. It just takes time and patience. I used to rely on it completely and literally generated a few million dollars in online sales with nothing but free traffic. But things have gotten harder and harder and I love the simplicity and scalability of paid advertising. But your concerns are legitimate and not everyone can make it work. But if you're getting views on your articles then that is definitely a good start.

Re: Subscriber value. If your squeeze page converted at 25% and you converted 5% of your subscribers into buyers of a $10 album then you would be making $50 for every 100 subscribers and yes, your subscriber value would be .50 cents. I've seen a number of people bring in subscribers for under .50 but is quite difficult. And yeah, I would say that without additional monitization points you will have a hard time making paid ads work. Bump that conversion rate to 8% - 10% and it becomes more doable. But that would be a pretty high conversion rate, and not something everyone is able to do. The more engaging you are, the higher the conversion rate. Live shows alone can give you the positive ROI you are looking for, as can an upsell. But it given what you have said it may be that free traffic is the way to go for a while. 

Also, don't underestimate old school person-to-person traffic. When you meet people out in the real world that are interested in what you are doing, send them to the squeeze page for a free track. Or better yet, get their email address and upload it yourself (with their permission). Conversions tend to be very high on those real world connections.

Anytime Nick 🙂