Sans Money Secret

Surfing traffic exchanges is something I used to spend a lot of time doing when I first started out online. And it was definitely a case of surfing for traffic - no fun at all!

The trouble with being a ‘newbie’ is that you don’t know what you don’t know. And traffic exchanges offer a really cheap way to get traffic to your site. You can’t get much cheaper than free! So it’s where we all start out, unless we hit lucky and someone teaches us right from the word ‘GO’.

So I would spend hours surfing from one to the other. Looking at all the very flashy websites, that promised instant riches for just a small amount of my cash upfront. And I signed up for a lot of them! Unfortunately, I always managed to miss out on those instant riches. I still haven’t figured out where they are hiding so if any of you know, please feel free to let me in on their whereabouts.

In return, nobody ever signed up to my websites. And boy, did I have a lot? Of course, none of them were really mine. They were just copies of whichever site had caught my eye and seduced me into signing up.

Thankfully, those days are behind me. I no longer need to surf for traffic. I guess we all learn and that’s the name of the game right? To learn as we go along, so that we get better at what we do, so we can help others to do the same, so we can make more money, so we can spend our time having fun instead of working?

Now let me just say that I am not knocking traffic exchanges. They provide a great way for newbies to learn the ropes when first starting out. And if you use them the right way, you can get a lot of traffic without actually having to go through the process of surfing. (hint: don’t send the traffic to your own site - send it to another traffic exchange. The more referrals you get, the more credits you earn from their efforts. Pretty soon, you can use those credits to send the traffic to your site, and you don’t have to bother surfing anymore. )

But, today I went back to my old traffic exchanges and surfed a good few sites. Why? I just wondered what was happening out there and whether websites had changed, what ‘new’ hype is being paraded, who is being hailed as the next ‘must follow’ guru.

And it was actually fun. Though I can’t believe how little anything has actually changed. There are still sites telling me I can make mountains of cash within a week!

Okay, if you must use them at least get something from them that is going to help you. Here’s my top tips.

1. Stick with the most reputable and well known exchanges. Traffic Swarm is by far the best.
2. Don’t get swayed by the hype. You’re there to get visitors to your site, so they will sign up to your opportunity, not for you to sign up to theirs.
3. Promote other traffic exchanges before your own business opportunity first. Get as many referrals as you can in each of the exchanges.
4. Be sure your ’splash/capture’ page loads within a couple of seconds. Timers aren’t very long on traffic exchanges and you don’t want them moved on to the next site before yours has even loaded.
5. While surfing, check out those sites that catch your eye. Notice the fonts used, the colours, the positioning of the ‘click here’ button, the compelling (or not) sales copy.
6. When you see an ‘instant riches’ offer - run for the hills!

And if you want to really learn how to get some cheap ‘quality’ traffic to your website, check out Mike Dillard’s “Building On A Budget“. This really is the best piece of information out there for showing you how to build your business without digging too deep into your pockets.

To Your Success
Susan Coils