 |
Return to Member-Center Contents
Let's take a few minutes and talk a little bit about traffic exchanges. Traffic exchanges are one of the most popular and cost effective ways to advertise on the Internet. As a matter of fact, there are hundreds of traffic exchanges that you can advertise your business on the Internet for free. Unless you already know about a traffic exchange you are about to join, you should always join as a free member. Try it out,and if you like the way it works,or, feel it will give you the exposure you are looking for, you can always upgrade to a pro or paid version. If you upgrade you will have to pay a monthly fee, but you will be given a certain amount of free credits to use each month. Some exchanges also offer banner impressions, link impressions, and other additional advertising methods to pro users. Just be sure to try it out before you upgrade. Don't just jump in blindly and start spending money on traffic exchanges. It can add up very quickly. Try them first. The way it works is very simple. When you surf, or view other peoples websites, you will gain what they call credits. You can then use your credits to have your site shown to other surfers, or members of the traffic exchange. Each traffic exchange has their own ratio of credits to sites surfed. In other words, if an exchange has a ratio of 1:5, that means that you will gain 1 credit for every site you view, and for every 5 credits you have, your site will be displayed 1 time. So, if you view 100 sites, you will get 100 credits that will allow you to display your site 20 times. On many traffic exchanges you will also receive bonus credits as you surf, which will help you get a better ratio. In order for the traffic exchanges to make money, they all have a upgrade, or pro version. When people pay the monthly fee and upgrade, they receive a certain amount of free credits each month and usually get a ratio of 1:1. Monthly fees for upgraded positions will run anywhere from $10 a month to $50 a month, depending on the exchange. A few things to understand Now that we have talked about how traffic exchanges work, we want you to understand a few things about how well they work. By the way, they do work! The first thing you need to remember is that everyone using traffic exchanges is trying to get you to visit their website and purchase their product. Because of this, do not expect to have your website shown 100 times and get 50 sign-ups. if you show your site 100 times and get 1 sign-up, be happy, because this is rare. The next thing to be aware of, is that their is a difference between a manual exchange and an auto traffic exchange. If you are looking for sign-ups or sales make sure to stick to the manual exchanges. If you are looking to just increase your hits to your website in an attempt to make the search engines happy, than auto exchanges are fine. Remember, when you use an auto exchange, more than likely, the only thing that is viewing your web page is another computer. Another thing to keep in mind is that your site will only be seen by other surfers for 15 to 20 seconds. By the time your site loads, your viewer may only see it for 5 to 10 seconds. That's how long you have to grab their attention. Many affiliate sites are very large and take awhile to load. If you have a large affiliate, or retail site, you may want to think about a splash page, which loads fast and can grab the attention of others. If you are using a free exchange you will need to surf at least two hours a day. If you have a small, or no marketing budget, you can still become very successful as long as you understand that you will have to spend extra time building you business. Any free time you have should be utilized surfing and gaining credits for exposure of you site. Traffic Exchange As mentioned earlier each exchange is different. For the most part, there are two basic ways that traffic exchanges use for you to set up your link to be shown. With some exchanges you will need to set up a heading box, message box, and URL. Others will only want the URL of your site. As a free member, most exchanges will also auto assign fifty percent of your credits. This means that if you are advertising more than one URL you will have to set one up as auto assign. The program will then usually take half of your credits earned and assign them to that URL. It will then automatically show that URL until those credits are used. Each time you surf half of your credits will be automatically set to that URL. You may use your remaining credits any way you want. For the most part, there are also two ways that your credits will be used to show your URL. Most programs will have you set the number of credits you want to use for each URL. It will then automatically start showing your URL as long as there are credits available. You can also set the max. number of credits you want to use in a 24 hour period. Now, some exchanges, will only show your URL to another surfer once each 24 hrs. With these types of exchanges it may seem that your website is not being displayed very fast. Most of the software for these exchanges is set up to show your URL based on how many overall credits you have. In other words, the more credits you have, the faster the software will show your URL, and the faster you will use your credits. With other exchanges, the program will simply show your URL to any surfer on line over and over. With this type of program you will use credits very quickly. With this type of exchange, it is very important to change the time frame that you run your campaigns. In other words, don't run your campaign at 8:00 AM every day. Chances are, you are showing your page to the same surfers every day, as most people have certain times they are able to surf each day. There are advantages to both of these types of exchanges. With the first example, more prospects are actually seeing your web page for the same amount of credits. With the second example, although not as many prospects are seeing your web page, many people do not buy into any thing the first time they see it. If they see your page a few times during one surfing session, something may catch their eye. Traffic Syndicate 25 and Top Surfer are a good example of each of the types of traffic exchanges mentioned above. As a free member, most exchanges will limit the number of URLs you may display to between one and three. This is where the information in the article "Value of Your Own Website" comes into play. The information in that article is something to think about down the road. The most important thing to remember about traffic exchanges Below is a list of some of the more popular free traffic exchanges on the Internet. The more you surf the traffic exchanges, the better understanding you will gain as to what works best for your program. You will find more exchanges that you may want to try. Always remember, that with Internet Marketing, what works well today, may not work at all next week. Always be ready to accept change and try new methods of advertising. Free Traffic Exchanges
Return to Member-Center Contents
|
