Traffic exchange is a popular concept on the Internet, referring to the exchange of web traffic on the Internet. A traffic exchange is a clever way to get hundreds or thousands of visitors to your website. The concept is very simple and the exchange process is easy to put into action. First, you join a traffic exchange program that includes individuals with websites to promote. Next, you set up the website you want to promote. Finally, you visit the websites of the other members and they visit your website in exchange.
There are both free and paid traffic exchanges. Almost all
traffic exchange programs are FREE, although many of them offer
special features to paid members and offer credits for purchase.
Some of the exchanges are good and some are not so good. They
come in two basic flavors: manual surf and automatic surf. In
the manual surf mode, you have to visit a website for a minimum
period of time and then click on a button to visit the next
website in the rotation. In the automatic surf mode, the
websites are visited automatically for a specific period of time
before the next website is displayed. The order of website
visitation in both the manual and automatic mode is controlled
by the traffic exchange webmaster.
The basic traffic
exchange program works on the "credit" principle. You earn a
full or partial "credit" every time you visit another member's
website. In turn, you lose a full credit whenever another member
visits your website. The typical exchange allows you to earn
from 0.5 to 1.0 credit for every visit you make to another
member's website.
You can usually obtain credits on the traffic exchange by:
* Viewing the websites of other members
* Referring other individuals to join the exchange
* Purchasing credits from the exchange's webmaster.
If you purchase credits, you generally have a higher rate of
conversion of credits earned and/or purchased versus credits
used when you receive visits from other members. You have
greater control over how you use your earned credits when you
pay to receive credits. It is possible to get a display rate of
your website that exceeds 1.0 for every 1.0 credits you earned
or purchased. As an example, in the basic free mode you might
have to use 2.0 earned credits to display your website 1.0 times
to other members. This is a 0.5 exchange rate. Depending on the
traffic exchange and the number of credits purchased, you can
increase the exchange rate up to about 2.0 displays of your
website to other members for every hit you receive.
Some exchanges offer a sign-up bonus (free earned credits) to
encourage you to join their traffic exchange. This enables you
to start getting visitors to your website immediately.
The traffic exchanges specify whether or not you can have
multiple websites for display. However, you can only display one
website at a time if you are permitted to have multiple
websites. You can specify how many of your earned and/or
purchased credits can be applied to each of your websites. Your
website design and the time it takes for the website to load are
very critical when using a traffic exchange. Your webpage will
never get viewed if your site takes 15 seconds to load and the
exchange rotates the websites every 15 seconds. You want to have
at least a 10-second viewing window to give the surfing exchange
member time to respond to your webpage presentation.
Keep your website clean of unnecessary clutter. You want your visitor to make a quick decision whether to ask for more information or pass on your offering. Make your displayed website short and simple. Do not send your visitors to the sales page on your main website. Provide a killer headline followed by supporting bullets and ask for their name and email address. Don't make it complicated. Put the lure on the fishing line and give your visitors a chance to say "yes" to your presentation. You need to get your message in front of your visitor quickly. Capture their name and e-mail address. You will have plenty of chances at a later time to market to your list.
Almost all traffic exchange programs encourage
users to build their own referral networks, which would in turn
help the referrers accumulate more credits. For example, when a
referred member receives credits through browsing, the referrer
would get a small portion of the credits earned. In practice,
traffic exchange programs are mostly used by small business
owners or marketers who either want free advertising or use the
exchange programs for low-budget advertisement campaigns.
Join a few "free"
traffic exchanges to get a feel for it and to get more visitors to
your website. This will help to increase your website "Alexa"
ranking.
Links (almost all free to join):
