Traffic Exchange Tips

Rule #1: Never join a program before thoroughly checking it out.

That should be Rule #1, anyway. But how many of us simply see or hear something when surfing traffic exchanges that interests us (usually an enormous amount of money that can be made), and blindly sign up?

Probably all newbies. But oldbies do it, too. How dopey is that?

Think about this: When you give even just your first name and email address, you’re automatically added to that page owner’s list. How much mail can your inbox hold? If you don’t know what company or individual you’re signing up with, your name and address may well be sold to others, which could produce a volume of email that you may not want.
If it’s a program you’re considering joining, what do you know about it? Does anyone you know belong? Is any initial investment involved?  Who’s behind it? Before signing up for anything, you need to find out what the site is all about.

Here are some things you may want to question:

*   Is it a newsletter run by one person, and do they provide privacy information on the sign-up page?

*  Who is that person and how long have they been marketing online?  I mean, is it long enough to be able to tell you how it’s done or is it somebody just starting out, professing to know something when they know less than you do?

*   Can you even tell who owns the membership site?

*   Is there contact information on the homepage or is it easily found by clicking one button?

*   Did you do a “WhoIs” check (www.whois.com) to find out who the site belongs to and where the business is located?

*   Is there any negative information floating around about the owner? (You can easily find that kind of stuff simply by Googling it up.)

*   Toddle on over to Alexa (www.alexa.com) to look at the site’s stats.

*   Is the program even legal?

Traffic exchanges show many address-gathering pages.  At least, be sure who wants the information, what you’re getting in return for giving it, and see if there’s some kind of privacy statement you can access easily. If all you see is, “Sign up for this and then I’ll tell you what it is,” be sure to check the offering out more thoroughly before joining.

What is it they say about free not really being free?

Pat Marcello authors OVMarketing One-Tip Newsletter and always provides a privacy statement on her sign-up form.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 8th, 2006 at 3:27 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.