Web Traffic Content

Traffic Exchange

Traffic Exchanges – Quantity or Quality?

In today’s competitive world of internet marketing, website owners are becoming more and more desperate to bring traffic to their online presence. They’ve been told by internet marketing gurus that a beautifully crafted website design and the services of the most dependable hosting company are nothing without traffic. And while that is true, the question arises as to what is quality traffic. To be successful, a website owner needs targeted traffic that converts to sales. It’s nice to have visitors to your website, but a thriving website business can only be profitable if it has buying customers. With that in mind, let’s consider whether or not the growing trend of utilizing traffic exchange programs will assist you in reaching your marketing goals.

A traffic exchange program is a website business in itself. The main idea of their strategy in marketing is for website owners to exchange traffic with other website owners. Registration is free and simple to do which includes filling out a form for some personal information and entering the URL of the website or websites that you wish to receive traffic for. You can enter as many websites as you wish. The process for receiving traffic includes a credit system, whereby the registered member is offered the option to surf other websites for credits. Most traffic exchange programs have a system set up where you are required to stay on the website that you are viewing for a period of 15 or 20 seconds before you receive credit for that visit. Then you can click on the next website for viewing and accumulate credits as you surf. Each credit that you receive allocates a visit from another member to your website and so on.

Many of the traffic exchange programs have implemented anti-cheating programs in their applications that prevent a member from using their own software to “break” the traffic exchange frame that appears at the top of the screen to regulate the time spent and rotation of websites. In the past, software was used by some members to keep another member at their website by kicking them out of their surfing session. Other anti-cheating systems that traffic exchanges use prevent robotic surfing and spamming. However, there is always the possibility of a member opening up several windows on their computer and rotating between traffic exchange programs as they surf for credits and never spend any time actually viewing any website.

The problem that can exist with this concept is the human nature of most people. It has been the experience of many individuals that have utilized these programs that humans tend to want something for nothing. For example, I may want you to visit my site, but I don’t want to have to visit yours. This is where the traffic exchange programs make their money. Most of them will sell credits, and they sell them pretty cheap. EasyHits4U sells credits at the rate of 1000 hits for under $6 and TrafficG sells 1000 credits for $13. This is a very tempting offer as many website owners don’t have the time or patience to sit and surf for hours. And this is what it takes to build up enough credits for any amount of traffic. Consider the time it might take to receive 1000 credits. If you are required to stay at one site for 20 seconds, that’s a maximum of 3 sites per minute. So each minute you may gain 3 credits and each hour you may gain only 180 credits. It would take up to 5 hours of surfing to accumulate 1000 credits. Most people’s time is worth a lot more than $6 for 5 hours, so it seems cost effective to purchase credits rather than sit and surf for them.

Obviously someone has to be surfing for the program to work, so the question arises as to whether or not the traffic is good quality if you were to purchase credits. There are two sides to this story and the first version is that the traffic is good targeted traffic because some programs like TrafficSwarm allow you to select categories that interest you when you register for membership. And repeated exposure to the websites that interest an individual may result in conversions. On the other side of the coin are the obvious implications that were previously mentioned about members wishing to avoid the task of viewing websites? This has in turn required many of the traffic exchange websites to instigate incentive programs to receive commissions for clicks and down-line purchases bringing cash to the member. Many times this is simple pennies, but members have expressed the concern that there is a problem with their marketing strategy if they have to pay customers to view their website. Many of these types of viewers may not be real conversions to paying customers, simply paid viewers.

Another concern is that of picking up viruses, “adware” or “malware” from these types of programs that have difficulty weeding out unscrupulous members. One such traffic exchange website no longer exists because of the prevalence of this issue.

So finding successful internet marketing strategies for your website is challenging to say the least. Some website owners have reported good results from the use of traffic exchange programs and others have reported nightmares. It’s wise to research the pro’s and con’s and maybe enlist the professional services of a reputable website design and custom programming company for assistance with gaining targeted traffic to your website.

As of today, the most popular traffic exchange program we could find is the Bravenet Traffic Exchange Program. Please also note we have no affiliation with this, or any other traffic exchange programs mentioned in this article.

Thank you to Suzanne Leavitt for this "Traffic Exchange" article.

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