All About Traffic Exchange Sites

OK people, for the next few posts I’m going to introduce you to some of the various Traffic Exchange sites, and why it is a good idea to join a few of them if you want a good, reliable and above all free way to drive traffic to your website, blog, or affiliate landing page.

For those of you not familiar with the concept, the basic idea behind traffic exchanges is this: You earn credits by viewing other people’s sites; these credits are then exchanged for hits to your websites. Simple eh?

There are many different traffic exchange sites around, with exchange rates varying from 1:1 (1 viewing of another member’s site = 1 hit to your site) to 1:3 (3 views on other members’ sites = 1 view of yours) and nearly all of them require you to view another member’s site for a set time, ranging from 5 seconds to up to 40 seconds or more.

They all have free to join ‘basic’ membership options, and all make money by selling advertising space (eg banner ads, text ads or guaranteed hits) and offering premium memberships (which give greater benefits such as guaranteed credits, random unsponsored free members added to your downlines, reduced surfing time etc).

You’ll find that many kinds of people use these sites – from ordinary bloggers and budding marketers like me, to professional marketers and even the ‘gurus’ whose splash pages you’ll see plenty of!

When using Traffic Exchanges, it’s important to remember that visitors will only view your site for a few seconds (unless they’re immediately impressed by the content or layout), so it is a good idea to use a simple splash page rather than a content-rich site. For example, you write a really good blog about fishing, with loads of long articles (and of course affiliate ads for fishing equipment/ fishing holidays/ boat hire etc) and want to drive visitors to your site. Now sure, if you put this page directly on to a traffic exchange you’ll get hits, but how many visitors are going to take the time or effort to take a really good look at your site (even if they like fishing)? Most of them will be just like you, surfing to earn credits, and when that timer runs down they’ll click off to the next site, perhaps never to return. Now suppose you make a simple splash page with a nice little graphic of a fisherman having a great time, with a short bit of text with a link to your blog. Make a strong ‘call to action’ – something like ‘like fishing? You must see this!’ and have a link that opens in a new page (using the target=”_blank” tag) and any fisherman idly clicking through endless biz-ops might be tempted to click… hey presto, your blog opens up in a new window, and perhaps you’ve just got yourself a new reader.

Another good reason to use splash pages is if you have adsense ads on your site. Google takes a dim view of excessive and repeated traffic coming from one source, and you may not be credited for clicks on your ads that come from a traffic exchange user. I’ve had a load of clicks from one exchange I use, none of which have been credited. I’ve heard that in some cases, where you receive thousands of hits from traffic exchanges, you may even have your adsense account suspended or closed.

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