Traffic Exchanges
A traffic exchange is a membership website where you make an exchange with other internet marketers. You look at their websites and they look at yours. Most are free to join with an optional paid upgrade that gets additional benefits.
How Traffic Exchanges Work
When you become a member you input your website details. Usually more than one website can be input, but different exchanges have different limitation. Some allow you to advertise ten of your sites; others only one. Most have other forms of advertising you can also input, such as banner ads or text ads.
Then you have to go to work by surfing the other members’ sites. For each site you look at for the required amount of time, you get credits which mean your sites get visited by other members. The amount of time you need to spend at each site you surf to varies depending on the traffic exchange, usually in a range from 6 to 20 seconds. Once you’ve surfed for a while and have built up some credits, look at your visitation statistics. You’ll see a jump due to the other members visiting your sites.
Advantages of Traffic Exchanges
The best advantage is that they’re free. If you’re on a limited budget and don’t have much to spend on advertising, this is one way to go. You’ll spend time instead of money to get your site seen.
Disadvantages of Traffic Exchanges
People who are surfing for credits don’t stop a lot to really peruse your site. They wait the required amount of seconds, then move on to the next. In other word, you probably won’t get a lot of actual sales from traffic exchange visitors.
Another problem is that niche sites don’t do that well in traffic exchanges. It’s mostly Internet marketers who use them, and they won’t be targeted traffic for your site unless it’s something they can use in their marketing efforts. If your site is in a narrower niche, something like “orchid gardening,” you’re probably not going to get a lot of hits from other people interested in this topic, as they won’t be the ones surfing in large numbers on your traffic exchange.
Never use a page from your website that contains Adsense advertising, as it is against Google’s rules to display such pages on a traffic exchange. You could lose your Adsense account.
How to Use Traffic Exchanges
If you decide to use them, there are certain procedures that you should follow. First of all, use a disposable free email address when you register with the traffic exchange. Some send a lot of garbage email. Second, sign up with multiple traffic exchanges, and make sure they are popular ones. One way to do this is to join and organization like Traffic Hoopla or Affiliate Funnel. Both have a large membership which regularly votes on which is their favorite traffic exchange. If you join the exchanges on that list, you’ll have a lot of regular visitors to your site.
You’ll need to set up a regular time to surf as often as possible; at least several times per week. Sign in to all your traffic exchanges at once, surfing each in a different browser window or tab. That way you can move from one to the other, pressing the surf button and gaining credits on all at once.
Finally, it’s best to have a special page set up to which you’ll direct your traffic exchange traffic. Remember, most of these visitors are only spending a few seconds at your site. You need something short and sweet that will really grab them. These are called “splash pages.” Giving something away free, and getting their email address in the process, usually gets some results and helps to build your own list at the same time.
So, Should I Use Traffic Exchanges?
Actually, it’s hard for me to recommend them. There is usually very little to gain from them considering the amount of time you need to put in surfing. These days there are far better ways to get free advertising. However, if you decide to give them a try, be sure and find the best ones through Traffic Hoopla and Affiliate Funnel. Both are free to join, and also contain lists of the best safelists based on member votes.
