Although search engines are a crucial part in
the successful visibility of your site, they are by
no means the only means. Try to promote your
website every day, in one form or another.
With hundreds, if not thousands of companies making wonderful claims about their advertising services
it can be almost impossible to know which are worth a chunk of your advertising budget. One way to reduce
the risk is to find out what has worked for others. Whilst no guarantee of course, it does give a good indication
of which methods have an independently tested successful track record.
Membership gets you at least 10 NEW sources each and every month as well as access to the archives. In addition, as
membership grows they are able to use their bulk purchasing power to pass savings on traffic and advertising
sources to you. Full details available from TrafficTesters.com
With what must now be hundreds of different traffic exchanges around, it can be hard to know
which ones to choose. Hit Exchange Report
operates a database of millions of
hits delivered by hit exchanges since 2002 and the quality of the traffic
delivered. They present that information in a convenient and easy-to-understand
report. On average, each report analyzes 400,000 hits delivered over the last
six weeks by nearly 100 hit exchanges in order to present you with the Top
40 Hit Exchanges. The report is updated weekly and sold by single issue or
monthly subscription. You can get a copy/subscription yourself from TestHoopla.com
or if you just want to know which are the top performing exchanges according
to their findings, then you'll find the answers below. I can't promise to update
this section every week but I will update it on a regular basis. You can however find the latest listing
here.
If you're looking to boost the traffic to your site, but can't yet afford
to spend any money on advertising, but have plenty of time on your hands,there are
now several sites springing up that will bring visitors to your site, not just show a banner,
in exchange for you visiting the sites of others. Many of these also
operate a referral program whereby you also get extra visits in exchange
for the visits made by your referrals. This form of promotion is particularly useful if you have a replica
site which cannot be promoted using search engines, although even in these cases you should still try to personalise
the page you promote by using splash pages or a blog.
These sites also make it really easy to keep up to date with all the latest business opportunities, and other interesting sites
With each of the following sites, you earn page views on
your site, based on the number of pages you view from other sites.
If you don't have the time or inclination to spend all day building up your account
you can usually purchase upgrade packages which give you credits and referrals.
Alternatively, take advantage of the bulk buying power of an advertising co-op
and get thousands of page views for a few dollars a month. Quality Page Views for example offer
you at least 4,500 page views per page on 37 different traffic exchanges for just $15 a
month for 1 link or $22 for 2.
Top 5 Traffic Exchanges
February 05 2008 report
Overall Top Performing Hit Exchanges by statistical testing data only from
Hit Exchange Report
- EasyHits4U #1 overall performance
- TrafficSyndicate25 #2 overall performance - one of my personal favourites - loads of random bonus credits and a syndicate
system that rewards active participants with a huge downline without needing to recruit a single person.
- Traffic Splash - #3 overall performance
- HitSafari #4 overall performance
- WebBizInsider #5 overall performance
Others worth considering are:
Linkcrews- Tokens earned per view increases as you move up the league table of points earned in the week.
Bonus points as you surf plus weekly tokens from your final crew position.
RoyalSurf is a new traffic exchange that has burst into the Hit Exchange Top
40. In addition to earning credits from your own surfing you're also a citizen
of a kingdom jointly surfing to slay dragons, rescue princesses etc. with bonus
weekly credits for the top kingdoms.
WebCentreSurf
Whilst almost all exchanges offer you the chance to generate visitors at no cost,
most offer an upgrade which offers considerable advantages in the way of increased
visitor ratios (you need to visit fewer sites to get the same number of visitors)
and often includes other benefits.
Of course, just viewing sites can get a little bit boring so the best sites add
extra twists to keep you alert and interested. WebCentreSurf has
always been one of my favourites as they throw in bonus credits at random intervals (but only if you're paying attention)
and after every 50 sites you get a general knowledge quiz with the chance to earn 1000 credits, along the lines
of "Who wants to be a millionaire?". For once the questions have a strong British theme but I tend to chicken out
at the 125 credit mark so I don't know how tough the later questions are.
Up until recently I hadn't upgraded with this site but that changed when
they announced a major improvement to their membership options. Every upgraded
member not only gets free credits, free referrals and other surfing perks but
you now get the chance to send a solo ad every month to every member of the
program, currently around 21,500. Every member who reads the ad and visits your
site earns 10 bonus credits and they are reminded that your message is waiting
every time they surf. With upgrades starting at just $5 a month, this has to
be the best offer you'll see all year.
Magic Highway
Traffic Exchanges can be a great way for getting people to visit a website, either
your own or a link provided by a site you're promoting, but the way they really
come into their own is by getting referrals so that you also earn credits when
others surf. Unfortunately most of us have little success in getting more than
1 or 2 sign-ups, even for free. Magic Highway could end that problem without having to do any recruiting, upgrading or purchasing a downline.
Magichighway.com operates a treasure hunt every week whereby anybody who finds 18 or more of the 20
treasures (each with their own individual bonus awards) can get added to the Admin-Sponsored-Member
rotator for new unassigned members. Alternatively you can choose a prize of traffic
credits or setting one of the treasure questions to link to your site for the answer.
However even if you don't find all the treasure you're
still guaranteed to be added to the rotator providing you meet their surfing
requirements. As these simply require you to surf every day of that particular
week, and visit an average of 100 sites per day over the week this isn't too difficult
to achieve. For more details
visit
http://www.magichighway.com
ClickCrazey is another site
with random bonus credits and Focus points as you surf. Find letters as you surf to spell words and get
further bonus credits. 50 free credits when you join. Monthly upgrade subscription available.
One site I've been particularly impressed with, is Linkreferral. You list the site you wish to promote - either your own or an
affiliate link - and for just a small amount of work, you can get a good number of visitors to your site. It works
a little like a traffic exchange in that your ranking in the directory is improved by visiting other sites in the
directory, but there are two major advantages. With most traffic exchanges, people are surfing as many sites
as possible to generate as many return hits and therefore often tend to pay little attention to what is
being shown to them. Linkreferral only gives you any benefit from the first 30 sites you visit each day,
and to further ensure you take time to look at the sites properly, you get an extra boost to the ranking of
your site by providing a review on up to 5 of the sites you visit. The reviews I've received have clearly been from
people who've really looked at the content provided. Details available from Linkreferral
OPT IN E-MAILS
Not to be confused with spam, which often claims
to come from opt-in only mailing lists, there are
many reputable companies that send out newsletters
only to people who have specifically requested a
subscription. Often you also have to respond to a
confirmation e-mail to ensure you really want to
subscribe.
A fairly recent innovation are companies that
pay you to receive e-mail. This gives a large
database of readers who are being paid to receive
the e-mail and are therefore more likely to take
notice to read the instructions for payment. This
may include visiting the site, and even making
comments about it to get paid, ensuring that your
site will at least be visited, and by the correct
demographic group.
Some worth considering are:
If you're looking to attract UK residents, one of the cheapest yet most responsive sites I've found is Archerfish.
You can choose from a range of advertising options including paid e-mails to members, incentivised banners,
guaranteed sign-ups and banners or text ads throughout the site. Advertising starts at little over £1 which
gets you a boxed ad at the top of the site for 30 days. Despite these ads not being incentivised, I had
90 click throughs in the first couple of days alone to the first ad I placed here. You don't have to be a member
to advertise, but as a member you can use your earn to purchase advertising.
Another incentive site from which I've always received exceptionally results is
ClixSense. With ClixSense you can very precisely
target your ads through a large range of categories including country, age, income, interests etc. Prices start at just $6 for 500 visitors
to your site and once again, as a member you can use any income earned towards your advertising costs. Unlike most sites you don't need to have earned enough to pay for the whole campaign.
If you've earned just 50 cents, for example, then you can use that 50 cents and just make up the difference in cash.
HtMail.com - Their
opt-in lists start at just just $19.95 per 100
names (plus $7.50 surcharge for orders under 500
names), reducing to $9.95 per 100 on order of 1500
or more, and as they provide incentives, a large
proportion (on average 27%) of the recipients of
these e-mails will not only visit your site but
provide feedback in the form of a short
questionnaire on their opinion of the site. Wide
range of demographic options available.
Rent-a-list
offer a range of opt-in e-mail listing services with guaranteed visitor levels and real time campaign tracking.
Targeted advertising starts from just $12.99 or lotto sponsorship with
FreeWeeklyLotto.com for just $39.99 a week, or less for bulk orders. They also have frequent special offers
eg today's offers are 2000 targeted e-mails for $59.99 reduced from £190 and
50,000 HTML e-mails to business opportunity seekers for $99.99 down from $149.
Adtactics - One of the most innovative sites around, you earn credits from reading messages, viewing sites and displaying
banners for other members and use these credits to buy advertising. Free and premium memberships available.
Web 2.0
Web 2.0, a phrase coined by O'Reilly Media in 2004, refers to a perceived second generation of web-based
services, in particular social networking sites (eg MySpace), social bookmarks (eg del.icio.us), wikis (eg wikipedia)
and blog networks (eg squidoo) that depend on online collaboration and sharing among users.
Often ignored as simply a place for young people to socialise online, they can be an incredibly cheap, quick and
effective way of driving traffic to a website. Too big a topic to cover in a page or two, I'd recommend taking a
look at a new publication, Web 2.0 Traffic System
, which reveals 7 new Web 2.0 techniques which are
proven To flood your website with thousands of targeted visitors in as little as 3 days.
General topics covered include:
- What Web 2.0 is... And why every Internet Marketer must know how to leverage it correctly
- The Underground Web 2.0 site the gurus want to keep hidden from you
- How to turn free traffic into a huge profit
- The fast blogging system that is working now!
- 6 No-Brainer techniques to get on the home page of a Web 2.0 mega power
- The #1 resource any blogger must use to get more exposure and traffic
- The growing underground social networking site that 72% of users are between 30-60 years of age and have plenty of disposable income
- VSEO... What is it and the 5 must know rules guru's aren't telling you
- The #1 thing to do right now to drive traffic to your website
- How a simple Podcast can be your secret weapon
- The 4 genres you need to making videos for to maximise profit on web video
- The only 7 Blog directories you need to submit your Blog to
In addition, the guide offers site specific advice on the following:
Myspace
Information you must include in your MySpace blog
How to drive loads of targeted traffic from MySpace without getting your account shut down
How to quickly boost your credibility on MySpace
6 techniques to drive traffic to your website through your MySpace profile
How to use MySpace to strike JV deals
How selecting your MySpace username can multiply your traffic by over 200%
How to attract viral traffic to your MySpace page using a tiny piece of code
Youtube
A step-by-step system to driving traffic from Youtube and Google Video
Squidoo
8 step system to get up and running with Squidoo today
How to unleash the power of Squidoo to generate a fast and furious stream of traffic to your website
The 3 easiest ways to make money with Squidoo
4 advanced strategies to make your Squidoo lens a super power and generate thousands of targeted visitors
Digg
How to combine the power of Netscape with Digg to send your stats counter into overdrive
How to use Digg to generate an avalanche of traffic to your site
3 quick tips you should implement to get your stories on the front page of Digg
The 4 quick steps you need to take to start getting traffic from Digg
Get further details on this guide, visit Web 2.0 Traffic System