How To Use a Traffic Exchange Great, you've found a wonderful new traffic exchange. You have surfed it for hours on end, and generated at least a few hundred hits. You have sent all your hits to your site and now you are waiting to see some results... Chances are, many people are still waiting. The reason is simple, traffic exchanges need to be used properly in order to see results. Case in point, instead of trying to sell your program, product, service in the exchanges, why not try to create some interest. Here's an example: Take a look at this website. How long did it take to load? Did it grab your attention right away? Would you have noticed it after surfing for about 30 minutes? Now look at this website. How quick did it load? Did it grab your attention right away? The 'art' of advertising in a traffic exchange is to; 1. Make sure your website loads instantly! 2. Grab the attention of your viewer instantly! 3. Request action (either click here to open a new window, or fill out this form for more information) Remember, a traffic exchange uses a timer, that is no longer than 30 seconds. Your website has about 5 seconds to make an impression, and trust me, the viewer has already made up their mind after those first 5 seconds. So if you are scratching your head, wondering how to make the most from your hard earned traffic, the answer is... Splash pages! Splash pages are the key to your traffic exchange success. They must load quickly, get your message across instantly and request action of the viewer. I use this analogy all the time when trying to explain traffic exchange advertising. Do companies expect you to 'buy' a product from giant billboards that you see when driving around a city? Do they expect you to stop what you are doing, run to a store and buy that product / service? No, what they are doing is branding their name, image or business. Use a traffic exchange like a big company would use a billboard. Get their interest first, and then let your main site sell them. This is the beauty of splash pages and the power of effective hit exchange advertising. If you want more information or would even like a custom designed splash page, be sure to check out Hit Exchange Survival Kit. The next most important thing to remember when starting out with traffic exchanges is that some times of the day and days of the week are better to surf the exchanges than others. This is just my experience and opinion from years of surfing and owning hit exchanges, but the best days of the week are as follows. 1. Sundays 2. Mondays 3. Thursdays The most activity I have seen in my traffic exchanges, ILoveHits.com and SWATtraffic.com, are during the days of Sunday morning to late Monday evening. Reason? Sunday is usually a day of rest, so the majority of folks are at home, sitting back and enjoying their time off. And Monday seems to be a good day to stock up on credits to get you through the week. So while all days are good to surf, the most active days that I have seen are Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays. Best time of the day to surf? Now that is tricky question! The best thing about online business is that it is a global industry. So with that, different time zones comes into play. What is morning for folks in Australia, is the evening (the day before) for folks in North America. So it's a good idea to spread out surfing throughout your day. However, the most active times I have seen are 2-5pm (Eastern Time Zone), 8-11pm (Eastern Time Zone) and a steady amount through the entire day. The 2-5 pm time slow is prime time for surfers in Europe, while a 8-11pm slot is the beginning of the day for folks in Asia and Australia. Finding the perfect time to surf is difficult, but if you try surfing a little bit throughout the day, you will be able to reach the most people possible. The Tools of the Trade There is more than one traffic exchange online, there is actually thousands. And they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. There are manual traffic exchanges, where you have to click a button to view the next site. There are auto exchanges (stay away from these if you can) , which you can set on auto pilot and never look at the sites , there are new exchanges with a few hundred members. While there are others with tens of thousands of members. All of these programs are trying to do one thing, keep you as a loyal surfer / customer. With so many choices, how can one possibly surf all these exchanges at once. About 3-4 years ago, there was a new breed of web browser that popped onto the market. These new browsers where called 'multi-tabbed' because you could open many new windows for internet surfing, but all within one browser. It saved your computer's RAM so that it was possible to surf multiple exchanges at once, some say this has hurt the exchange industry, others may think it improved it. I have embraced it. Whether or not, these multi tabbed browsers will remain a factor, is not a concern of mine because I have been using them since day one. However, there is a catch. Here is a short list of some of the multi-tabbed browsers on the market. 1. Crazy Browser is one of the more popular multi-tabbed browsers because it uses an Internet Explorer shell. Meaning, if you use Internet Explorer, this browser will be very easy to use. It's free, it has a built in pop up killer that is first rate and by in large, is very reliable. 2. Maxthon used to be called MyIE2, but changed their name recently. Again, another easy to use IE shell and quite reliable. However their pop up blocker is not as effective as Crazy Browser's. 3. *** The BEST *** Mozilla's FireFox is the new kid on the block and becoming quite popular among the traffic exchange surfers. However this is not based around the Internet Explorer shell and while some may say this hinders it's progress, others love anything that does not have a 'Microsoft' logo next to it. It's a fun little browser, but takes a bit more to get used to compared to the previous two. First, what you will want to do is to arm yourself with one of the above browsers. And while you CAN open more than 10 windows at once (yes that means surf 10 exchanges at the same time) you should really limit it to 4 at once. Here is my reasons for doing so. I created a small campaign a few years ago entitled No More Than Four with an emphasis on really paying attention to the sites you surfed. The concept was simple, give the same respect you expect from your viewers as you would want them to show to your site. Remember, the entire traffic exchange concept is on co-operation. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. You look at my website, I'll check yours out. Now how effective would the basic concept of a traffic exchange be if someone loads up 10 exchanges at once and skims through them at break-neck speed, never looking at your site? That does not mean signing up with every program that asks you for 5 bucks, nor does it mean signing your life away on some foolish ponzi scheme. However if you see something that interests you, click on it. If something catches your eye, bookmark the site. Treat other sites like you want yours to be treated. Plus, surfing the hit exchanges can give you some great ideas for web site design, layouts, ad copy. So use the multi-tabbed browsers with respect, and try to incorporate No More Than Four in your exchange promotions. E-Mail - jon@hitexchangenews.com Phone - 306 - 955 - 8518
|
