How Do I Get Traffic To My Site?

Maybe you've been asking yourself (or others), "How can I let people know about my new contest?" or "How do I get traffic to my site, period?" or for those who learn by example "How do YOU get traffic to YOUR sites?" I hope you've gotten some good responses, but you probably haven't, or you wouldn't still be reading. Well, there are some very good ways out there, and you know I'm all about the free, so here's my advice (also free). Traffic Exchanges. Very simple concept, but used with a twist (stay tuned below for that tidbit). Here are the sites I'm currently an active member of, illustrated with banners (for the visually-stimulated) and explained using Pros/Cons lists (for the logically-minded):


Pros: decent timer, lottery ticket for every 8 pages, chance to win real cash, additional bonuses, credits for reporting sites that break the rules, nice upgrade price
Cons: ratio is a little low without upgrading to pro so you wind up promoting banners more than sites



Pros: decent timer, nice visual surfing interface, addictive prizebar, chance to win real cash, nice upgrade offers if you catch them, additional ways to earn credits other than just surfing, great quotes and/or helpful advice at the bottom of every page
Cons: new front-page GUI makes site-navigation less user-friendly, text ad feature has yet to work in a manner that makes using text ads worthwhile (show too fast so that credits are quickly diminished)



Pros: earn real cash while surfing, poker game for chance at bonus credits, can choose target or exclusion countries for your ads, homepage text ads option gets great results and is a cheap bargain, super-cheap upgrade price ($10 for 3 months)
Cons: can be painfully slow, high timer, had trouble at first with the poker game not crediting correctly, limited audience



Pros: fantastic user base to advertise to (over 90,000!), earn real cash while surfing, attractive site overall, new bonus pages in rotation, ongoing competitions, good ratio
Cons: so-so timer, anti-cheat mechanism can be annoying (match the gibberish word or do a math problem), bonus pages can easily be missed if you're not paying attention



Pros: best real-cash ratio, large bag of free credits just for signing up, great banner/text credit conversion ratios
Cons: so-so timer, site navigation can be confusing, sidebar text ad monitor not working, site has been completely down a couple times



Pros: speedy fast timer, lots of blatant bonus pages (every 15th), decent upgrade offers if you catch them, easy sidebar site navigation, ongoing daily credit contests, part of super-surf network (addtl credits for surfing specific other TE's at the same time), great surfer base/lots of members to advertise to
Cons: *warning - side rant* They post your login/password in every email they send. I contacted them about this procedure and their only response is that it produces more logins/surfers daily, and it may in fact, however, I think it's unsafe to have your password posted in plain text so often (especially if you use computers in public places), so I changed mine to a random password that I don't use for anything else, and I don't have to worry about forgetting what it is because I see it every time I read an email from them (usually daily). *end rant* ratio is a little low lending to using banners more than sites


Well, there you have it, my traffic story. The order they are listed above is how I open them, and I surf them all simultaneously. In firefox, I have them each bookmarked in a single folder and just click "open all in tabs." I move down the line, using the faster timers (trafficsplash, freetrafficlotto, trafficbunnies) to fill in the gaps. In a couple hours on a weekend, I can build enough credits to have my sites and banners seen throughout the rest of the week while I work my day job (hopefully one day able to quit because my internet marketing has taken off so wildly!).

These are, however, in no way a Top 5 (or even 6), they are just the ones I use because they work well and provide me with the service I need. I've been very tempted lately to try a couple of the other larger networks out there, just to see something new - I'll keep you posted and let you know if/when I do.

Best of luck and hope you had a Happy Halloween (I went to bed early and slept like a baby - it was great!)