Online Marketing for the beginner!
Traffic Exchanges for the beginner!
Online Marketing for the beginner 1st Edition 2009 Š My Cash Empire – All rights reserved www.my-cash-empire.com Exclusion of Liability and Disclaimer While every effort has been made to ensure that this publication provides accurate guidance, it is impossible to predict all the circumstances in which it may be used. Accordingly, neither the publisher, author, retailer nor any other suppliers shall be liable to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused by the information contained or omitted from this publication. This publication is protected under international copyright law. Any reproduction or translation of this work by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, other than that permitted by copyright law, without the express permission of the publisher is unlawful. 1
Getting traffic to your website is the most important thing you can do if you are involved in online business of any description. It doesn’t matter if you are a webmaster or you’re promoting an affiliate program……your main goal should be to get visitors to your site. Unfortunately this can be a real problem for most people, especially if they have little or no previous experience with regards attracting visitors to a site. Many internet beginners are under the illusion that simply having a website and submitting it to the search engines is all they need to do in order to get people to see them. This is a total misconception. In order to get visitors to a website, you have to go out there and find them, and then invite them in. The responsibility is all yours when it comes to getting traffic to your website. There are two main problems when it comes to generating this traffic for most people: 1. They don’t know how to get traffic in the first place. 2. They don’t have the budget that is often required to generate the traffic. Having the knowledge to be able to effectively attract visitors to a site is no easy process, and it takes most people many months or even years before they can really call themselves experts in the subject. The real experts who do this sort of thing for a living have taken a long, long time to gain the knowledge and experience that now gives them the ability to draw in visitors with the relative ease that they do. It is also worth noting that these experts will generally have a very large budget to contribute to their advertising campaigns, which goes a long way to actually making their marketing methods work. There is no escaping the fact that to truly attract visitors effectively, you need knowledge and money. Fortunately you have taken the initiative and downloaded this new e-course, Online Marketing for the beginner, which is going to show you some simple strategies that will build your knowledge and help you become a better marketer. Your own knowledge and understanding is the most important thing you can have for a successful marketing campaign, so you are well on your way to becoming qualified at generating web traffic. What you most likely do not have at the moment is the big advertising budget. Well fortunately there are ways to get visitors to your site without spending a lot of money, and one of the easiest ways is the traffic exchange. Let us first explain what a traffic exchange is. In simple terms, a traffic exchange is a website program that you can join and view other member’s web pages in exchange for having your own web page viewed. Every time you view another member’s web page for a period of time (e.g. 20 seconds) your balance of credits increases. Your credits are then linked to the number of times your website is displayed and viewed by other people; if you have 100 credits, your site can be viewed 100 times by other people. The traffic exchange has many hundreds or even thousands of websites on it that are submitted by other people. If you decide to use the exchange, you sign up with them, (almost always for free), and you submit your website to the system. 2
Now, for your website to be displayed across the network for other people to be able to visit, you have to have credits in your account. The more credits you have, the more times your site will be visited. Each time someone visits your site, you will use up some credits, so if you had 100 credits 100 people can visit your site before you run out and the site is not displayed any more. The way you build up your credits to ensure you keep getting visitors to your site, is to visit other peoples web pages. For every website that you visit on the network, you will be given a certain number of credits……the more sites you go to, the more credits you are awarded. There are two main types of traffic exchanges – manual exchanges and auto exchanges. A manual exchange requires a real human being to view the web page and click on a link to proceed to the next web page, (as we have described above), whereas an auto exchange can be left running in your web browser and will automatically refresh to a new web page. Although both of these methods will bring hits to your website, only the use of a manual exchange is going to bring a visitor who will actually read what is on your web page. The auto exchange user who leaves their computer on all night, surfing web pages while they sleep is unlikely to buy your product! It is for this reason that we do not suggest using auto exchanges as a means to get genuine visitors. They should only really be used if you are interested in getting your web hits up rather than actually getting people to your site that are going to make a purchase. For the remainder of this quick guide we will concentrate on the manual exchanges rather than the auto surf. When you are looking at joining a traffic exchange in order to attract visitors to your site, you need to be aware of a number of things. Firstly, there are literally hundreds of different programs for you to choose from. If you do a search on Google for “traffic exchange”, you will be presented with about 10 million results…..so you can see that there are more than enough different options for you to choose between. We have listed a few things that you will want to take into consideration when you are deciding which exchange program to join…. (You will probably want to join more than just one). Credits allocation! Every exchange has a different policy when it comes to the way they award credits to its members. They normally work on a ratio of for example 2:1. This means for every 2 sites that you visit you will be awarded 1 credit. The lower the ratio, the better it will be for you, so you should take a bit of time to look into this aspect carefully. Some programs have a ratio as high as 4:1, while others even offer ratios as low as 1:1, so you will need to look around before you decide which ones to get involved with. You can also get extra credits from certain bonuses that the exchanges occasionally run. You may be issued a set amount of credits each month as a bonus for being a member, or you can earn bonuses when you have visited a certain number of sites. Some even run lotteries where the prize is credits, or some sites are randomly assigned a bonus number whereby if you visit the site you are given a gift of credits. The number of ways to earn extra credits is as varied as the number of actual exchanges that are available out there, so you need to do a bit of research as to which is the most appealing to you.
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Site view time limit! To earn credits viewing other people’s websites involves a few conditions, to make sure that the member’s site is actually being viewed properly by a real person. One of the conditions is that you stay on the person’s website for a certain period of time. Most traffic exchanges will have a time limit set on the site from between 20 and 60 seconds. What this means is, if you want to earn credits when you go to someone else’s site, you have to stay on it for that given period of time. If you click off the page before the time limit, you will not earn any credits. The obvious repercussions of this rule, is if you are going to earn credits for visiting a certain number of sites, it will take you far longer to earn them on a program with a high time limit as opposed to one with a low limit. But, you have to then consider that a program with a higher time limit will mean that the visitors to your site are going to have to stay on it for a whole lot longer, and the longer they are on it, the more chance there is of them reading it properly and then actually making a purchase from it. As with all aspects of the different programs out there, you will have to weigh up the pros and cons. Anti cheat mechanisms! To ensure that a real person is viewing your web site most traffic exchanges employ anti cheating mechanisms. This usually means that instead of clicking a “Next Site” button you have to click on a specific graphic such as a number, letter, picture or coloured icon from a selection of a few, to proceed to the next site. Repeated failure to do this correctly means suspension or termination of your account. The reason the programs employ these tactics is because they want to ensure that you are actually getting real traffic and real people looking at your site. There are some software packages available that allow you to auto-surf a manual exchange. This obviously means that you could be wasting hard earned credits by having a machine visit your site, which is clearly a waste of time for you. The advantage to the person using the software is they are building lots of credits and therefore getting lots of people on their site, without having to return the favour and visit other people’s sites. To make this sort of cheating impossible, the anti cheat mechanisms have been introduced which now means cheats are quickly shut down. This means you can be confident that you are only getting real people who may actually make a purchase on your site. Referral program! One of the best ways to get credits in your account is to get others to earn them for you. Most traffic exchanges will offer some sort of referral program whereby you can earn credits for the surfing your down line does. Basically, you direct people to the traffic exchange via banners or affiliate links provided to you by the exchange creators, in much the same way you would with any affiliate program. Now, when people join the program, they are placed in your down line, and you are awarded credits for bringing them in. You may be given a bonus credit amount as soon as the new person joins up, or you may be given credits for every time they surf the network, (i.e. for every 10 sites they visit, you get a credit etc.), or you may get a combination of both. Either way, using a referral program is an excellent way to earn more credits without having to do any extra manual surfing yourself. 4
Paid memberships! With most exchanges you can opt to upgrade to a paid membership. This option normally brings with it some privileges such as being allocated a set number of credits that are awarded each month whether you surf or not. You can also get a better surf ratio than the free members who may have a 4:1 ratio, while a paid member gets a 1:1 ratio. Or you are given more credits for the surfing done by your down line. As a paid member you are also allowed to add more URLs for advertising, so you can promote more than one site at a time, and you are also given the ability to purchase credits instead of having to earn them. All in all the paid memberships are obviously going to be better, but we would not recommend joining on this option until you have tried the free version to see how the whole thing works.
Now there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to what you should use as a means of decision making for which traffic exchanges to join. The choice is hugely varied and each one will present its own unique benefits that are slightly different from the next. You will just have to review the selection that you find, and decide which is the most attractive to you. You will need to find out what the membership numbers are like within the exchange. Obviously exchanges that are more popular are going to have a bigger membership which means there are more people who are potentially going to see your site. If you are joining the smaller exchanges, you should really consider joining more of them. Also consider the way credits are awarded. The more credits you have, the more visitors to your site you will have, so you want to be able to earn credits quickly and easily. A low ratio is going to be better than a high one: if one site view earns you 1 credit, you will be able to build your total quite quickly, whereas if you have to visit 4 sites before you earn a credit, it will obviously be a slow process to build them up. The other important thing to consider is the time you have to stay on a site before you are awarded the credit. If the timer is set to low, i.e. about 20 seconds, then you are going to be able to visit more sites in a shorter time and therefore build up credits more quickly. However, it is a well established fact that in order to get someone to pay any real attention to your website, you have to keep them on it for as long as possible so that they have more time to read more of your copy. The longer a person is on your site, the more likely they are to actually be convinced of what you are saying and make a purchase from you. To that end you have to weigh up the benefits and disadvantages of the timer set for each page view. A short timer means you get more credits more quickly, but a long timer means people are looking at your site for longer, and are going to be more likely to buy from you. You have to decide what you are after from your traffic. Are you simply after visitors to get your traffic stats higher, or are you after more sales? This is just something you have to decide depending what it is your website is promoting. This leads us to one of the most important things you need to be aware of when it comes to traffic exchanges. The very thing that you are doing to get traffic is exactly the same thing that everyone else in that exchange is doing. If you are just after lots of credits in a short time, so is everyone else.
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Now you have to realise that traffic exchanges are just that……an exchange of traffic between website owners. Everyone goes onto them with the agreement that you will each look at each others sites. What this means is two fold. Firstly, you will get a lot of traffic to your website in a reasonably short period of time, and you will get it all either for free or for a very low cost. So traffic exchanges are an excellent way to get people to your website! However, everyone on the exchange is just the same as you….they are trying to get visitors and promote their own site. Some people will say that this makes the exchanges an ineffective way to advertise, but that actually isn’t the case. It’s true that you will not make hundreds of sales from exchange traffic, so you shouldn’t be relying on this as your main effort, but you will almost certainly make some sales. And when you consider that they are free to use, then a small number of sales of your product definitely make it worth while. What you will find with traffic exchanges is you get very targeted traffic to your site. You decide which category your website is listed under so that it only gets displayed in sections that relate to your product. Each member of the exchange (including you), will have to specify which topics they are interested in, and are then only shown websites to view that relate to that topic. This all adds up to meaning that your website will only be viewed by people who are interested in what you are promoting. Okay, you have to appreciate that the majority of people are not going to stay on your site for any longer than the minimum time required for them to earn a credit and then move on to the next site. This is just the nature of the exchange, and it is what you are going to be doing when you surf for credits. However, the fact is that because the people viewing your site are interested in your subject, they are going to be naturally inclined to take a bit more notice than someone who is not at all interested. This means that every now and again, one of these visitors is going to stay on your site for a little longer and actually read more of what you are saying. They are already interested in the topic your website relates to, and now they are spending time on your site reading all about your product or service. Inevitably some of these people are going to buy from you, and this is a sale from totally free advertising. Now we are not in the habit of putting people down or rubbishing other people’s comments…everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but be very wary of people who tell you that traffic exchanges do not work. Likewise be just as cautious of people who tell you exchanges are the best advertising you can do. You have to keep a realistic perspective of what a traffic exchange is, and what results you will get from them. This is the unbiased truth: If you want to get traffic to your site just for the sake of having visitors to your web page, then a traffic exchange is excellent at delivering just that. Many people are only interested in numbers for the sake of increasing page views of their blog, or to try and help with search engine ranking etc, and a traffic exchange will unquestionably deliver traffic. If you want to advertise your site, and attract visitors who are likely to buy from you, then a traffic exchange is not going to be your best option, for the simple fact that most people are in the exchange to sell….not to buy. But that does not mean you will not make any sales because you are virtually 6
guaranteed to make some sales at least by the very nature that people who are interested in your website category, are actively visiting your site and staying on it for a set period of time. So, are traffic exchanges going to set your bank account overflowing? The answer is no, but they will certainly contribute to your sales to some degree, and each sale from the exchange is 100% profit because it costs nothing to advertise on them. So do we suggest you use traffic exchanges to promote your business? Absolutely!!!! They are an excellent form of increasing visitors and brand awareness for your website, and they are a reasonable way of bringing in low volume sales that will make a welcome contribution to your overall sales. Remember, all forms of advertising should be used and combined to create your complete marketing campaign. You should never rely on just one thing to grow your business, but rather look at each available method to be a key element in your strategy. Traffic exchanges are just one of those key elements, and should be seen as an essential component that all marketers should use to some degree to boost traffic volume and sales. Don’t expect dramatic results, but you should be able to expect noticeable results.
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