The Introduction To Traffic Exchanges
Author : Ryan Round
A traffic exchange is a membership website where the members can promote their own web pages by earning or buying “credits”. Credits can be earned by viewing other members’ web pages - otherwise known as “surfing for credits”.
To surf for credits all you need to do is to log in to the traffic exchange and hit the “Start Surfing” button. You will then be shown a member’s web page and a countdown timer. How long you will have to view the page varies from traffic exchange to traffic exchange and also depends on your membership status, but typically the timer takes 10 seconds to run down. When it hits zero you will have earned a credit and will be able to view a new web page. To do that you usually have to complete a simple “icon matching” task with a click of your mouse.
The more you surf, the more credits you will earn. And with some traffic exchanges you will also stand the chance of winning bonus credits and even cash prizes.
As your credits accumulate you can allocate them to your web pages, which will then be shown to other members of the traffic exchange.
Most traffic exchanges operate a “surf ratio” policy. This simply means that you need to surf more than one page in order to generate enough credit to have your page viewed in the system. Some traffic exchanges offer a 2:1 ratio, 3:1 or a 3:2 ratio, with a 1:1 ratio reserved for members who upgrade.
Another option for traffic exchange members is simply to buy credits. Traffic exchanges often hit you with “One Time Offers” where you can get a lot of credits at discounted rates if you buy straightaway.
As well as page viewing credits, traffic exchanges also offer “banner ad” and “text ad” impressions. Banners and text ads are shown above or below pages that you view when you surf for credits. You can get these impressions at a much cheaper rate than standard page-viewing credits. On the other hand, click-through rates are typically quite low.
Typically, a traffic exchange is free to join and has several “upgrade” options where you must pay a small monthly fee to secure the benefits.
So what are the benefits of upgrading?
It could be all or any of these benefits:
1. You get several hundred credits added to your account each month.
2. Your “surf ratio” improves.
3. The countdown time decreases.
4. You get new members randomly added to your “downline”.
5. You earn more in credits or commission whenever you recruit a new member for the traffic exchange.
Yes, traffic exchanges are also online affiliate businesses and when you join one you are allocated an affiliate number. If you check your member’s area you will see that there is a section devoted to promoting the traffic exchange. You can go there and get banners for your website or blog, and other promotional material such as email letters and so on.
Since you will be given free credits whenever you recruit someone to the traffic exchange, it makes sense to devote some space on your website or blog to promoting the traffic exchange.
You will also be encouraged to promote the traffic exchange on other traffic exchanges.
A lot of people join several traffic exchanges to gain extra exposure for their web pages, and also cross-promote their traffic exchanges in order to generate a lot of credits in the form of commission when people join traffic exchanges through their links.
When you use a traffic exchange to promote your website, here are a few common pitfalls that you will want to avoid:
1. Don’t promote pages that take a long time to download.
2. Don’t try to promote your main product with a long sales page. Keep your pages clean and simple with a basic message and either a sign up form for more info, or a “click here” button that will open up your main promotional page in a new browser window.
3. If you use a video promotion, don’t take more than ten seconds getting to your main message.
4. Make sure you do not run out of bandwidth - it is amazing how many times you see a “bandwidth limit expired” message instead of a member’s page when surfing traffic exchanges.
5. Do NOT promote XYZ traffic exchange on XYZ traffic exchange!! This sounds unbelievable, but a number of clueless people try to get traffic exchange members to join the traffic exchange that they are surfing on and are therefore already members of! Duh!
Traffic exchanges offer website owners a cheap and cheerful method of promoting their website pages and can be very effective if you know how to work them.
Ryan is a leading expert in revealing how to do amazing mentalism and magic tricks even if you have no experience in magic.
Earn 10 000 Per Year From Your Blog How to Make Money Blogging
Author : Anthony Wayne
You can easily make enough money from your blog to pay for your living expenses while at college. By living expenses, I mean beer and pizza, of course, plus an occasional cheap date with that cute girl you stare at in your economics class.
The easiest way to make money from your blog is to write articles for other sites. Sign up for services like Blogsvertise. Blogsvertise will pay you for writing articles that promote other sites. The fee is usually about $10 per article. If your site has a page rank (page rank is Google’s relative value of a site) of at least 3, you will get more opportunities to write articles for Blogsvertise.
Another way to make money from your site is to sign up to allow for advertising on your site. You don’t have to know any html programming to place advertising on your blog. Simply cut and paste the html provided by the site into your widgets on the blog and you’ll be off and running on making money.
I recommend using sites that will pay you on a CPM basis. CPM means cost per thousand if you have never taken a Latin class. Some of the best places to get CPM advertising is on sites such as AdBrite, Adify, Traffic Marketplace, and Find It Quick. With CPM, you’ll be guaranteed to make money for every thousand visitors to your site so it makes the most sense for a college student in search of his next dozen wings.
Some CPM ads are banners, but there are other advertising opportunities available as well. Other opportunities include pop-up ads, full page ads that cover your site temporarily, and in-text ads that will create links out of your already existing copy. Maybe it’s just me, but I think all of these kind of ads look spammy and are a net negative to your site and repeat visitors.
Other advertising sites fall in the category of affiliate networks, the most popular of which is Commission Junction. Other affiliate networks to consider are Share A Sale, Link Connector, and Primary Ads. With affiliate networks, you will usually get paid on a CPA basis, meaning a cost per acquisition. In this case, you’ll receive a commission when somebody clicks on the advertisement of your site and purchases something from the advertiser. In this equation, the blogger is known as an affiliate and the advertiser is known as a merchant. CPA deals work best when you have a real niche subject and appropriate niche advertiser.
Remember earlier when I said I’d tell you a little trick about getting a discount on your URL purchase and your web hosting? Here it is. Sign up for one of the affiliate networks first and agree to promote GoDaddy and BlueHost, or whomever you decide to use. Then, you will be your own first customer and your own first affiliate network commission.
Still another way to make money is to sell text links. Advertisers love text links within your copy, because it helps their search engine rankings when other sites link to them. Sites like Text Link Ads and Text Link Brokers are easy to use and will sell links on your site for you.
You should also take advantage of pay per click advertising. The most used pay per click advertising opportunities are provided by Google AdSense. With Google AdSense, you promote Google’s paid advertisers on your site. When somebody clicks on those Google links, you get paid. Google is certainly not the only place to obtain these kind of links, but it is the easiest to use and is perfect for beginners just getting started.
Finally, put a page on your blog that is about advertising. Make sure that it is linked to a paypal account so that potential advertisers can pay you directly as some won’t want to even contact you. Keep the cost of your advertising very reasonable, especially in the early days of the blog.
Click Fraud
Why can’t I just click on my own ads and make money?
The answer to this question is that you absolutely can click on your own advertisements. The problem, however, is that its short-term thinking. Advertisers on CPM deals are monitoring your site for its return on investment (ROI) more than anything else. Internet advertising is just like any other advertising that they do. If it doesn’t produce results in terms of e-commerce sales, then it simply isn’t going to last very long. They will pull the ads from your site.
Of course, the more important reason why not to click on your own ads is that it is illegal and frowned upon as a black hat internet technique. Is one click here and there going to kill you? No, but don’t ever click from your own IP address. The internet advertising systems do monitor this and they will take away your account if you click on your own advertisements too often.
Anthony Wayne works in the marketing department of Advanced Telecom Services which provides a do-it-yourself mobile marketing site and also is the leading vendor of 900 numbers in the USA and Canada.
Using Other Peoples Info To Increase Your Adsense Cash
Adsense is really making a huge impact on the affiliate marketing industry nowadays. Because of this, weak affiliate merchants have the tendency to die faster than ever and ad networks will be going to lose their customers quickly.
If you are in a losing rather than winning in the affiliate program you are currently into, maybe it is about time to consider going into the Adsense marketing and start earning some real cash.
Google is readily providing well written and highly relevant ads that are closely chosen to match the content on your pages. You do not have to look for them yourselves as the search engine will be the doing the searching for you from other peoples source.
You do not have to spend time in choosing different kind of ads for different pages. And no codes to mess around for different affiliate programs.
You will be able to concentrate on providing good and quality content, as the search engines will be the ones finding the best ads in which to put your pages on.
You are still allowed to add Adsense ads even if you already have affiliate links on your site. It is prohibited, however, to imitate the look and feel of the Google ads for your affiliate links.
You can filter up to 200 URLs. That gives you a chance to block ads for the sites that do not meet your guidelines. You can also block competitors. Though it is unavoidable that Adsense may be competing for some space on web sites that all other revenues are sharing.
Owners of small sites are allowed to plug a bit of a code into their sites and instantly have relevant text ads that appeal to your visitors appear instantly into your pages. If you own many sites, you only need to apply once. It makes up for having to apply to many affiliate programs.
The only way to know how much you are already earning is to try and see. If you want out, all you have to do is remove the code from your site.
The payment rates can vary extremely. The payment you will be receiving per click depends on how much advertisers are paying per click to advertise with the use of the AdWords. Advertisers can pay as little as 5 cents and as high as $10-12, sometimes even more than that too. You are earning a share of that money generated.
If your results remain stagnant, it can help if you try and build simple and uncluttered pages so that the ads can catch the visitors eyes more. It sometimes pay to differ from the usual things that people are doing already. It is also a refreshing sight for your visitor once they see something different for a change.
Publishers also have the option of choosing to have their ads displayed only on a certain site or sites. It is also allowed to have them displayed on a large network of sites. The choice would be depending on what you think will work best for your advantage.
To get an idea if some Adsense ads you see on the search engines has your pages, try to find web pages that have similar material to the content you are planning to create and look up their Adsense ads.
It is important to note that you cannot choose certain topics only. If you do this, search engines will not place Adsense ads on your site and you will be missing out a great opportunity in making hundreds and even thousands of dollars cash.
It is still wise to look at other peoples information and format your Adsense there. Just think about it as doing yourself a favor by not having to work too hard to know what content to have.
Topic to be avoided includes gambling, firearms, ammunition, tobacco or drugs. If you are being offered more cash in exchange of doing Adsense with these kinds, it is just like signing your own termination paper.
With all the information that people need in your hands already, all you have to do is turn them as your profits. It all boils down to a gain and gain situation both for the content site owners and the webmasters or publishers.
Make other peoples matter your own and starting earning some extra cash.
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