Developing Your Downline

To make Traffic Exchanges work in the beginning, it’s important that you surf on a regular basis. A good strategy is to set aside a couple of hours each day. Although it may seem like a lot of work at first, you will soon see reap the rewards of increased traffic to your site.

Since keeping up a schedule of surfing every day can be time consuming, the best long-term strategy for benefiting from Traffic Exchanges is to build your own downline. This is a group of people that you recruit to join a Traffic Exchange under you.

As the members you’ve referred surf – and recruit others – you will receive credits. The larger your downline becomes, the more you’ll be able to cut back on the amount of time you personally surf. Ideally you’ll eventually have a large enough downline that you won’t have to surf at all and you’ll still be getting lots of targeted traffic.

Since they are so important to your overall strategy, it’s critical that you create a relationship with each member of your downline. Start by sending all new recruits a personalized welcome email. Thank them for joining and encourage them to contact you if they have any questions. This is also a good time to share with them any tips that have helped you make the most of Traffic Exchanges.

Don’t forget to encourage them to recruit new members. Since Traffic Exchanges typically offer you credits and/or cash for referrals that your downline make, it’s in your best interest to have them recruit as many people as possible.

10 Tips For Using Traffic Exchanges

1. Track Everything - As with all online marketing efforts, it’s critical that you track all traffic generated by Traffic Exchanges.

Tracking can be done using a tracking service which you pay for monthly, or using tracking software which you purchase and install on your server. Whichever option you choose, be sure to look for a solution that will give you as much information as possible. Many will tell you how many clicks you get, how many are unique visitors versus return visitors and where they were referred from. Some even give you conversion information by telling you which visits resulted in sales.

2. Know Your Audience - It is important to remember that everyone using Traffic Exchanges is first and foremost interested in having their own pages seen. Just like you, they all want to drive traffic to their sites. This means that you have to develop creative, eye-catching pages to entice them to take action. Simply using the same affiliate materials everyone else is will not be effective.

3. Make Sure Your Page Loads Quickly - Your website design and the time it takes for the website to load are very critical when using Traffic Exchanges. Your page will never be seen if your site takes 15 seconds to load and the exchange rotates the websites every 15 seconds. You want to have at least a 10-second viewing window to give the surfing exchange member time to respond to your offer.

4. Use Simple Splash Pages – Rather than sending surfers to your home page, which provides too much information, use a splash page. This is a page that does not require any scrolling. It’s purpose is to be short, sweet and to the point. Typically it consists of a killer headline, a clear list of benefits and a simple call to action. You want your visitor to be able to make a quick decision whether to ask for more information or pass on your offering.

5. Include a Persuasive Call to Action - Make sure the page has a clear “call to action”. That is, that it clearly tells the customer whay they should do next. Whether that’s join your newsletter, request your free ebook or take some other action, it should be obvious to the surfer what they are to do.

6. Capture Their Contact Information – Offer surfers something in exchange for their email address. This gives you permission to contact them later and introduce them to your products and services.

7. Learn From Others - As you’re surfing, be sure to take note of the pages that catch your attention. Chances are that if they are enticing to you, they are enticing to others. What is it about the page that appeals to you? What made you want to take action? This is very valuable information that you can use to improve your own pages.

8. Make Your Offer Stand Out – If you have your own niche website, then you already differentiated yourself from the pack. If you are an affiliate marketer, then you need to find products/services that everyone else isn't already promoting, especially within your particular Traffic Exchange.

Your individual promotion is everything. If you're trying to promote something everyone else is your sales conversions are going to be very low, or nothing at all.

9. Only Choose Traffic Exchanges that Offer Manual Surfing - Most people do not even watch the window when an autosurf is running. If it is a manual surf exchange they have to physically watch the pages in order to go to the next site. This gives you the best opportunity for them to actually see your site and be drawn in by your offer.

10. Test. Test. Test. – If you’ve put in place a good tracking system you’ll be able to run tests to find out what effect they have on your results. Try different headlines, graphics and offers to see which ones get the best response.

The most effective way to test is using Split Run Testing. This involves creating two pages that are similar but have one thing different (for example different headlines). You show the two pages equally to your visitors and see which one converts best. There are several scripts available to help you do Split Run Testing very easily.