Copyright © Ron Hoover
http://www.affiliate-mentoring.comTraffic Exchanges, sometimes referred to as manual surfs or hit exchanges, have been popular for some time now. The problem with traffic exchanges is that most people just don’t know how to use them. Used properly, you can get some results from them. No, they are not knock ‘em out of the park and they are very time consuming as well. But with the right approach, and the right sites, you can make a few sales a month. Yeah, I know, it’s not much.
Okay, what exactly are traffic exchanges and how do they work?
A traffic exchange is a site where you sign up, tell them the URL of YOUR website and then after you’re activated, they give you a surf URL for you to use to “surf” on that exchange. This is no different from when you go to any other web site on your own to check it out. But there are advantages to this over simply going to sites on your own.
The main advantage is this. For every site you visit, you get 1 credit or a part of a credit towards YOUR site. This depends on how that particular exchange works. They are all different. Most traffic exchanges offer a 2:1 ratio to free members when distributing traffic credits. This simply means for every 2 sites you “surf” you get 1 traffic credit in exchange. Each traffic credit represents one “visitor” to your website.
Anyway, when you earn credits towards your site, those credits are then removed from your account every time another member of the exchange views YOUR site. That’s right. Those credits make it so that others get to see your site. Why is this important? Well, obviously, every time a person sees your site, in theory, there is a chance that they will like what they see and buy your product or sign up with your service. Yes, in theory this would be ideal.
In reality, unless you know how to use these sites, the results are much different.
The sad truth is, most people who use traffic exchanges are only interested in ONE thing and that’s to build up enough credits for YOU to see THEIR site. They couldn’t care less about your site so don’t even expect them to.
Plus, there is another problem with traffic exchanges.
All these sites have timers on them. In other words each site you see only has to be viewed for so many seconds. Some are 10, some 30, some maybe a little more. Sometimes, there is just not enough time for your site to even fully load before the timer runs out, especially if you have a lot graphics or a video on your website. There is very little chance that the person on the other end is going to stick around to even see what it is you’re selling.
Why?
Remember? They only care about getting credits, NOT viewing your site or buying something.
It would seem, from all I have mentioned so far, that traffic exchanges are a TOTAL waste of time. Well, there are certainly better ways to spend your day, but if you know a few tricks, you can make a few sales per month if you’re willing to put in some time surfing.
The first thing you have to know is which traffic exchanges are the best surfs. By best surfs, we mean the ones with the most traffic so at least a large number of people will see your site.
To find out what the most active traffic exchanges are I recommend checking out the top ranked sites at
Affiliate Funnel.
This will give you the 10 to 20 sites online. The sites are ranked by other surfers based on their own results. The rankings are updated weekly. I have to admit, I don’t really monitor it that closely because the lists don’t really change that much from week to week. The best sites pretty much stay the best sites. I recommend tracking your results to decide for yourself which sites work best for you. Then, if you don’t agree with the rankings at
Affiliate Funnel, you can always log on and cast you vote for the top 10.
After you have done this, the next step before you even sign up with any of the surfs, is create what is called a splash page.
A splash page is a very short page with a catchy headline that will get people to want to click through to your main site.
Here’s one of mine.
SPLASH PAGEShort and to the point. That’s it. That’s all people will be able to handle when they’re using traffic exchanges. It’s easily readable in about 5 seconds. If it catches their eye, they’ll click through to your site. I’ve had some good results with this page. Is it time consuming to set up a splash page? Yes… however, if done properly, you can get some excellent results.
Now, obviously, setting up a splash page means you have to have a webpage editor and your own web hosting to direct people to your main site from the splash page, especially if the site you’re promoting is not your own but an affiliate program. If you don’t already have a webpage editor, I recommend using a free webpage editor like Ewen Chia's
My Free Website Builder.Because this splash page doesn’t have to be anything fancy, there is no need to get paid hosting. Any free web hosting service will be fine because you’re not going to get enough traffic to cause any problems like exceeding bandwidth. And if it ever DOES get to that point, it means your splash page is doing a heck of a job and you’re making quite a few sales.
As you can see, traffic exchanges are a lot of work and produce little results. But if you have the time and are happy with a few sales a month from them, you might want to give this method of promotion a shot.
