Traffic

[Jonathan VanSchaack]

anyone ever buy visitors? .. or traffic? .. is it useful or just one of those scams?

if not, what are some good ways?, I've seen traffic to some ofmy sites drop off recently, need to kick it some, hehe

[George Ahrens]

I suppose you mean "buy visitors - buy traffic" as in products
that offer exactly that in the product description? No way.
That would be the last thing I would ever want, even if they
offer it for free with a $30 cash rebate.

Why ask for traffic that's not only completely untargeted
but also non-human? To print out the traffic stats and pin it on your
wall as a mind trigger to confirm you are on the road to success?
(just kidding, couldn't control my tongue for a split second)

How about linking strategies instead? Buy advertising, barter
ads, write articles, or why not simply contact other sites
and work out a mutual beneficial arrangement? I think everyone
is looking for the totally automated way to traffic, what is fine
in concept, I personally usually get better results with direct
contacts. Had an affiliate program once where all the affiliates
sort of auto-signed up. And produced traffic (::hint: but no sales.

It wasn't before I personally picked a few sites out of search engines
and basically send a proposal to them before I've found partners that
understood how to generate income for themselves and for me
in the process.

This works - get involved - get personal.

[kiwidesigner]

I use traffic exchanges and purchase from them - it works very very well for me. Usually people surf to get traffic back to their site i.e. "so the traffic is free" but if you don't have time, you can purchase traffic. At least they are real people viewing your site. Here's the URL with more about it.

http://www.kiwisgraphics.com/traffic.html

Karen

[LovellTechnology]

I agree Kiwi, the traffic exchanges have been a good way to advertise my sites and products. I don't have time to surf the exchanges that much, so i purchase traffic packages, (credits, banner impressions, text links, etc.) and seem to do well. I think one of the keys is to use the bigger traffic exchanges, use alot of traffic exchanges, and do some research on the exchange before you invest any advertising money.

I have been looking into some alternative ways as TE's are not the only way to advertise and shouldn't be used as the only advertising resource.

Question: What are some different ways you members use to drive traffic to your site?

[Dark_Matter]

I'm not sure I understand this correctly.

You join programs which pay people a small amount for looking at your website. These people have no actual interest in your site or in buying your product, they are just there to put a few nickels in their pockets.

Forgive my ignorance, but this sounds ridiculous. Seems to me that this woulld only serve to muddy the waters when you're trying to guage the popularity of your site. When you look at the webstats, how can you tell a real customer from a paid surfer?


What is the value of this traffic other than making your webstats look good?

[LovellTechnology]

Originally Posted by Dark_Matter

I'm not sure I understand this correctly.

You join programs which pay people a small amount for looking at your website. These people have no actual interest in your site or in buying your product, they are just there to put a few nickels in their pockets.

What is the value of this traffic other than making your webstats look good?

No, that isn't the way most of the exchanges work, members look at other members sites and earn credits. Most good traffic exchanges are categorized and you can target your advertising as well. I think you are thinking about the "get paid genre" of sites, which most TE's are not.

Forgive my ignorance, but this sounds ridiculous. Seems to me that this woulld only serve to muddy the waters when you're trying to guage the popularity of your site. When you look at the webstats, how can you tell a real customer from a paid surfer?

Any good stat program will track the referring url so it is very easy to tell who is and isn't an "exchange surfer". Anyone that visits my sites is a potential real customer. As stated before TE's are not in the same genre as paid surfers.

I don't use TE's as an exclusive form of advertising but I do make sales using them.

[Sanzbar]

I think it's a bad idea....a really bad idea

[Silke247]

I don't really have anything to add to this except to confirm that is you use the TEs properly you will indeed get good traffic - real people - to your site, and you will get people to sign up to your programs. If you have money and not time you can buy visitor credits.

There is a whole side of the industry dedicated to Traffic Exchanges - Pat, Knotwork and myself, to name a few, have been involved for years. Some of the top people make a lot of money from the TE industry.

Check the NMF forum sometime for where a lot of the big TE players hang out.

The people who say TEs don't work are the people who either have no knowledge of them, or who have just tried them briefly and had no results. The people who "fully exploit" them, know they are a great tool.


Silke

[Pinyo]

For those who thinks TE works great, what network do you use?

[Silke247]

If you mean which Trafic Exchanges we use, most of us use several.

The Doug Williams programs - of which Viral Visitors is the flagship

Jeff Trumbles exchanges - led by WebMaster Quest

Stephen Ayers' Traffic Roundup.

Jon Olsen's I Love Hits.

All these are great programs, run by great webmasters, and they all deliver good targetted traffic.


Silke

[hitexchangenews]

Hi, my name is Jon Olson and I would love to answer any questions about the hit exchange industry. When used properly, hit exchange advertising can be a very effective form of online promotion.

I hope any of you that have doubts, drop Silke, or Pat, or myself a line. We'd love to welcome you to the industry.

It's not how much you click, but where you click =)

[Silke247]

Hi Jon,

Glad to see you made it.

People who want to know about TEs and which programs to use could do no better than subscribe to Hit Exchange News of course.


Silke

[hitexchangenews]

Thanks Silke! Yeah, I know Hit Exchanges get a rough billing online...That is because of the old attitude of the industry. There's quite a few of us that are trying to change people's view on the exchanges and build a viable industry for advertisers across the net

[megaman]

While using Traffic Exchanges (TE's) is not that popular of a concept with the more hardcore of Internet marketers I've found them to be rewarding. As Jon mentioned above, it isn't the quantity of hits it is the quality of hits one must try to keep track of when using TE's.

There are many tools available for tracking and it is these tools we set up in conjunction with our program, referral, etc.. URLs that make life using a TE a little bit easier.

The truly hardcore Internet marketer will say using TE's and their ilk (Hi Mark!) are nothing more than a hit or miss type of traffic generation. This is actually a very true statement and I agree with it. I guess though it takes a unique personality to be driven to the point of a almost "Rain-Man" like fever in the quest of finding the most unique traffic available.

The key to success with TE's is finding that unique traffic IMHO. When the unique traffic is found then it is all down hill. There are people surfing TE's that do spend money and they do it willingly and without a complaint. This is what makes TE's a great way to test and tune specific advertising concepts. Look at it this way; if you can capture someone’s attention and make a sale in the few seconds available to you for showing your ad in a TE then you can consider that ad a winner and it is ready for mainstream advertising.

Well, that is my two cents. I'm sure this debate will continue and we will all come to understand one another.

Phil

[JoeShmo200]

Traffic Exchanges definatly work, the thing is that the type of pages that most internet marketers create dont work very well on traffic exchanges. In most traffic exchanges you have 30 sec or less to make a sale or get a sign up, thats not long and definatly not long enough to read a 20 page sales letter or go through several pages of info to a sign up screen. If you want to use traffic exchanges to there highest potential you need splash pages. By splash pages I mean a page which fits on the screen in its entirety, short sweet and to the point, with a link to your actual site that opens in a new window. Since most traffic exchange surfers want to get as many hits back as possible they wont stop surfing to continue to read your page, by getting their attention and then having your site opened in a new window you will do much better.

Numbers dont lie here are some stats from the past couple of days.
The page has been running on TS 25
The page has recieved 1165 hits
The page has recieved 103 click throughs
Of that 9 people signed up for the program
That is a 8.84% click through rate
and a sign up rate of 1 in 129 views

In the past I have even had sites run with click through rates as high as 20% and sign up rates of 1 in 50 views

The bottom line though is that I get signups every day and that is what I want.

[Silke247]

The most effective method we've found to "fully exploit" the TEs is lead capture pages.

If Jon and Jazzee have no objections, I'd like to offer two of mine as an example. These are for illustration purposes.

This one catches the surfer's attention and gets them to clickthru to the lead capture page:
http://www.mylsnclub.com/team/silke247/splash1.shtml

the capture page itself, where the prospect can enter their details and be emailed the full info:
http://www.mylsnclub.com/team/silke247/lsn3.shtml

and a different version of the splash page:
http://www.mylsnclub.com/team/silke247/lmi.shtml

My team and I literally get leads EVERY DAY from using these pages. The majority are people surfing to get hits to their affiliate programs having the "lots of hits but no signups" syndrome. These are the people open to find out how to use TEs properly.

There are many similar programs for lead capture and many ways to do it, this is just one example of what works for us.


Silke

[Robert Puddy]

Originally Posted by Silke247

If you mean which Trafic Exchanges we use, most of us use several.

The Doug Williams programs - of which Viral Visitors is the flagship

Jeff Trumbles exchanges - led by WebMaster Quest

Stephen Ayers' Traffic Roundup.

Jon Olsen's I Love Hits.

All these are great programs, run by great webmasters, and they all deliver good targetted traffic.


Silke

COUGH didnt you forget someone in that list Silke

Robert

[Silke247]

Originally Posted by Robert Puddy

COUGH didnt you forget someone in that list Silke

Robert

Ahem - I was typing quick and just ran off a few names.

Of course I'm pleased to add to that list:

Mr Robert Puddy of the aptly named Advertising Know How.


Silke

[gbuckley54]

Ts are much like the bill-boards you see along the highway.
Like in the Hank williams JR.song you can take a trip and never leave the farm.
Seriously.
Can you imagain how much money the advertising industry would loose if bil-boards were outlawed.
ei
You travel the same highway for years on your way to work and never really notice that bil-board advertising "the best steaks in town". Then one day your new boss comes over and says I have some people from corporate headquarters coming in and I want to take them out for the best steak in town
(the trigger "the best steaks in town)

Suddenly that bil-board you have never noticed flashes before your eyes .
Now the point here is not if you refer your boss to that particular restruant but that you brain has been sub-consciously storing the image of this bil-boards (pages) for years ,until the trigger ( the best steak in town ) is brought up

Just as in the real world it takes all types of advertising to get your message across. If you are not using or have not tried them all your business is suffering.

Traffic Exchanges "The bil-board of the information highway"(That ones mine)

Of cource as always this is just my opion, but it should really be concidered the standard.