Traffic Exchange Tips

There’s a good discussion going on over at NetMarketingForum regarding upgrading at traffic exchanges. Tony Tezak, the proclaimed king of surfers, says that folks should realize that traffic exchanges are expensive to run and that if people want to support their favorite exchanges, they should plunk down the $5 - $15 and buy an upgraded membership.

I agree with Tony, but only in part. I mean, how many exchanges can a person afford?

I surf 10 TEs on a regular basis. Of those, I have upgraded at 7, and it costs me $103 each month. Not a fortune, but when you consider that it’s all going to TEs, it’s a rather large chunk of my operating budget. Other expenses are hosting, autoresponder service, other memberships, etc. When you add them all up, I really can’t afford more than I’m paying out now.

So, at the TEs I love, if I haven’t upgraded, I buy credits whenever I can afford it. And I’ve been buying Ezine credits at AdvertisingKnowHow, which has really increased my list. It’s very worth it. I happen to be a paid member there, too, so add $16 - $46 to the traffic exchange chunk of outlay every month.

But upgrading is really very worthwhile. In those exchanges where I have upgraded, I get random referrals, extra credits, and other perks, PLUS in most of them, commissions from what my downline buys from 5% up to 50%. The problem is that nobody is spending!

When you join as a free member, though, I don’t agree that you should be coerced into paying. After all, isn’t it a case of quid pro quo, if you advertise the owner’s business for him or her? You’re spending credits elsewhere to do it, so I think it’s a fair exchange.

But are you promoting your favorite exchanges?

I am. But not as much as I promote squeeze pages for my newsletter, of course. And I won’t promote an exchange that doesn’t allow me to use my picture on the referral page or at least a link to my site. We all know that spalsh pages are better, but to be honest, I don’t waste my time making them for traffic exchanges. I concentrate on my primary goal, and that’s to build my list.

But I digress. The points I’m trying to make here are:

a) It’s worth it to upgrade in exchanges to the limit you can afford.

b) You shouldn’t be made to feel guilty, if you don’t upgrade and you’re advertising the exchange and bringing in new business.

Free members do most of the surfing in exchanges anyway, so traffic exchange owners really need free members. They appreciate them for the most part. Without free members to move the traffic, exchanges become stagnant and useless. Support your favorite exchanges by advertising or buying some credits now and then, but you shouldn’t feel obligated to upgrade. That decision is all yours.

Some new and exciting things are going on at a few great traffic exchanges lately. Of course, exchanges are always changing and evolving, but I thought I’d point out some of the new features that you might enjoy.

 Who’s surprised that Tim Linden has done it again? Hmm… not me! Tim comes up with some of the best things and it seems as though he comes up with them every week. This time, he’s developed a text link surfer at StartXchange. Yep. Add your text link, and surf other members’ links to earn credits, so that your own link will be seen. It’s much the same as a regular traffic exchange, but rather than the pages being presented to you at random, you can choose the text link that most interests you. The system will also show the viewer how popular the link is. Pretty cool.

TS25 has had a face lift. The new member’s area is streamlined, but I have to say that I’m still getting used to it.  I like the “briefcase” area much better because of one great change–it shows where you’ll end up in the syndicate line-up next week. Before, deciding where you’d be was a little hard to find. Now, it’s right there the minute you open the member’s area. Not only that, but you can get to other areas more easily due to a more extensive menu and you can transfer credits from your merchant account from there, too. Saves time, and that’s always a good thing.

Clickin’People has put in a new “review” system and has changed the surf bar. As you surf, the system tells you when a page is up for review and if you agree to review it by answering 5 short questions, you earn 20 review credits so that you can have your own sites reviewed. Having a page reviewed will cost you 200 review credits, but the price assures that 10 people will take a good look at your site.

I really like this trend. When MoreActualVisitors came up with the “full view” credits for staying on the page until the timer expires, it didn’t seem to be very popular. Now, you might get 4 or 5 full view sites in a row. It’s a great way to build up credits because you’ll often accrue even more “full view” credits than those earned for regular surfing. That is, if you fully view the pages at each opportunity.

TrafficSplash opened about a month ago, and I can’t help wondering how the site is doing. I swore that I wouldn’t join another traffic exchange unless God Himself opened it, and I haven’t, so anyone who’d like to comment on the “spalsh page only” format, I’d love to know what you think. I’ve been sooo tempted.

 And that’s about it for today. Happy surfing!

Pat Marcello can be found at OVMarketing, OVEditing, and OVBlogger, and for a good part of the day surfing at traffic exchanges!

If you have a web site, it’s very tempting to put every single opportunity you represent on the front page by way of links or banners. But when you’re advertising in Traffic Exchanges, is that a good idea? Hmm… I’d say an emphatic NO!

In some exchanges you get a longer viewing period, it’s true. However, some popular exchanges like 10KHitsForUNow, for instance, or Nexus Exchange have 10 second timers.  How much do you think viewers really see in that period of time? OK, so a majority of timers are 15 or 20 seconds, but think about it. Even 20 seconds isn’t long enough to take a lot into account.

So, how do you decide what goes on that page?

Think of it this way:

What do you want viewers to see? I mean, what’s your most important opportunity? Are you selling yourself by way of an information product or a newsletter? Or, are you an affiliate of a program that you’re building a downline in? Those should be front page news! Make them the focus and put other sites into backend pages on your site.

Another consideration is that linking to other sites on your front page take viewers away from your site and to another, and you really don’t want that to happen. We all have links on our sites, it’s true. But make them unobtrusive. Keep them to the side or the bottom of the page. Also be sure that when someone clicks on a link, that the link opens in a new window.

If you’re at least a little familiar with HTML, forcing a new window is a simple addition to any “a href=” link. You simple add in a space and then, target=”_blank” at the end of the URL in the HTML link and voila! The link opens in another window or tab and your homepage still stays on the clicker’s desktop or in their tabbed browser.

Of course, the best pages to advertise in a traffic exchange are splash pages, it’s true, but when advertising your own site, consider how much is on the page and where it’s positioned. That way, you’re putting your best foot forward, and not someone else’s.

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For an example of a dedicated page, see Pat’s OVEditing.com.

In our due diligence article, we discussed signing up at lead capture pages, but this time, I’d like to give you some ideas about how to make one.

First, you need to give people something to get the information you’d like to have. When using traffic exchanges, you have to remember that your page needs to load quickly. So, if you’re offering a free newsletter, the best thing to do is to give readers a sample of what they might find inside. For my newsletter, OVMarketing One-Tip News, I offer a tidbit of advice, such as using your picture to brand your business or a teaser about what people might find once they subscribe.

If you don’t have a newsletter to offer, you may be offering a short marketing course or a course on pet care. It really doesn’t matter what you offer, as long as you’re offering something of quality. A “please sign up,” and a fill-in form won’t get you many (if any) sign-ups.

You can find tons of stuff out there to give away. In fact, if you go to Easter Giveaway, you can find lots of great stuff, but there’s 117 Free Gifts, and various other programs where product owners allow their products to be downloaded in exchange for names and email addresses.

Of course, before you give an ebook or product away be sure you have permission from the author to do that. You’ll find that information within the ebook or product or in a separate file that accompanies your download. Using something without permission is plagiarism and could result in legal problems for you.

Once you have something of value to offer and permission to distribute, then you’ll need a good autoresponder. These services offer a system that will not only store your “list” of names, email addresses, and other information. They send a confirmation message to the person who signs up, which the enlistee must verify. This provides you with what’s known as a “double opt-in.” (The first opt-in is signing up, and the verification is the second.) Having this verification assures that you can never be accused of spamming, which is a truly obnoxious practice that can get you booted from your ISP. Just don’t do it. In the United States, it’s now against the law.

Your autoresponder will also provide the code you need to make the sign-up form. You give it some basic information, such as what fields you want to acquire and then, an HTML code will be provided, which you have to add to your splash page. Usually you’ll want to do this at the bottom of the page.

But directly before the code, you’ll need to type in a disclaimer. It will be your privacy statement and you can make it as simple as you like: “Your information will not be sold, rented, or given to anyone for any reason.” And then, live by it. This is very important. Your privacy statement could encourage potential clients to sign up by giving them a bit of added security.

So, you have the autoresponder, your client has double opted-in, and now you want to welcome them. You need to set up your autoresponder’s first message. In it, thank your potential customer and welcome them to the newsletter or thank them and give them a link through which they can download your book, software, etc. For a newsletter or e-course, you’ll need to set up subsequent messages, too, and let the autoresponder know at what interval you’d like the messages sent. You’re set! Now, you can forget about it and just continue to build your list on automatic.

Don’t expect your list to grow overnight. If you’re getting 25 names a week to add to it, you’re doing well. Just keep showing the page, brand it with your image or logo, and folks will get used to seeing your page. The more folks see your page, the better they come to trust you and the quicker they will sign up.

But once you have a list, don’t abuse it. If you do, you won’t have that list for long. Don’t spam them everyday with the newest, best product you’ve ever seen, or even every week. I tend to feel used when people do that, and you probably do, too. If you are offering a newsletter, perhaps you can put the item you’re pushing into your signature file or even better, a P.S.—folks usually read those. But never betray people’s trust by shoving stuff into your newsletter that doesn’t belong. If the service or product is not relevant to what you’re writing about, don’t even think about using it. Be kind to your list and your list will be kind to you.

Pat Marcello never abuses her list at OVMarketing One-Tip News, which gives one great marketing tip each month.