What is your experience with Traffic Exchanges?

Traffic Taxis is one of the many different traffic exchanges out there that one can join and earn page views by "surfing" (or viewing other peoples' sites).  By the way, while most traffic exchanges are free to join, they usually come with upgrade options, usually offering extra benefits (such as better surf ratios, free referrals, etc).  Also, people can also buy credits if they choose (which can be a bit useful for people who don't have time to "surf"). 

Hey guys.   Here is another hot topic for you all: traffic exchanges.  If you've been in the Internet Marketing business or web promotion business for a while, you have probably heard about them and there are many different traffic exchanges out there (if you are looking for a good sized list of traffic exchanges out there you can join, just go to a downline builder such as Traffic Tornado, and you will find that there are tons of traffic exchanges you can join and those are not the only traffic exchanges out there).  Anyways, traffic exchanges are those programs out there where (and serve as alternatives to the traditional PPC methods) you basically surf other peoples' ads and websites in exchange for them visiting yours.  Some exchanges have a 1:1 surf ratio (where you get page views for every fellow member's site you visit), while others may have say a 1/3 surf ratio, where every 3 sites you surf counts as 1 credit (or page view).  Anyways, in this post, I am hoping ot get your take on the traffic exchanges.  For me, I find promoting on traffic exchanges to be challenging.  I usually promote some of the downline systems I use, such as GDI (using downline builders like GDI Coop) as well as splash pages I have set up for some of my sites, though I rarely get sign ups on my links, and that is even when using splash pages.  How are traffic exchanges going for you all?  Are you able to generate income with them?  Feel free to share your thoughts.

Looking for some tips on using traffic exchanges?  Here is some advice of mine based on experience:

• be careful about joining too many of them as they can become very time consuming (as you do have to spend at least an hour or two per sitting to get extra credits).  I recommend you limit 5 at the most initially and work with those.  Once your conversion rate builds and your income goes up, you could join more over time.  By the way, some traffic exchanges will suspend or terminate your account if you are inactive for too long (which can be easy to do if you have too many of them)
• Never promote a website if you have adsense ads on them (per google's TOS).  If you must do so, I recommend you get some splash pages and promote them that way.  This way, the only people that visit your site are the people who are actually interested in it and not just some random surfers.  One good resource I recommend for making splash pages is Instant Splash.  It is cheap to join and is pretty easy to use and you can make some pretty quick and easy to make splash pages.  More advanced users could probably opt for sites like TE Toolbox and/or Instant Squeeze page generator.  Also, Easy Hits4u comes with a built in splash page maker that you can use as well.
• While traffic exchanges are usually free to join, most do offer paid memberships as well for more features.  You can do so if you want, but be aware that most of them will offer paid memberships too.  My advice to you is to choose one or 2 traffic exchanges to upgrade at (those can be your primary traffic exchanges) and stay with a free membership at the others until your conversion rate climbs.  Upgrading at too many of them can get expensive of course.  Plus as a free member you can get a feel for the ones you use and see which ones give you best results.  BTW, you can refer new members to them as well and earn both credits when they surf as well as generous commissions whenever they upgrade their membership (in my experience, most people will probably remain free members, but there is always a chance that some fo them will upgrade).
• Expect a low conversion rate with traffic exchanges, even at the manual ones (there are automatic exchanges too, but most veteran marketers will say that manual exchanges yield better results than the other ones).  I tend to find myself surfing for hours on end and get little or no response for my programs, so you will 1) want to get as many credits as you can in a given session and 2) diversify the ads you post).  By the way, there are rotator services out there you can join (such as Instant Splash and TE Toolbox) where you can list multiple ads and post them on participating traffic exchanges (not all of them allow rotators, but most do).
• Always try to use a catchy splash page when using traffic exchanges.  I find that replicated websites don't work too well (especially when promoting opportunities).  Also they say that you are supposed to create an email sign up feature so that you can build your email list if you have one.

Got rid of my squidoo account today

I don't know if you ever get this problem here at blogspot or not, but don't you just hate it when you join an article submission diretory, blog host, or similar service where you can post articles, share articles, rant about, create minisites/blog, and then  create a fabulous site, article, or whatever it is on your mind only to have have it rejected for some odd reason, such as "spam" or some other violation?  For example, maybe you have taken up network marketing and decide to offer detailed information about the network marketing firm you are a part of (such as Global Domains International) and post it say on your blog, and then several months later, some jerk decides to flag your post as spam.  Well, I've been having that problem at Squidoo lately.  Squidoo is a article submission/blog host directory similar to hub pages, where you can create your own minisites called Squidoo Lenses (which functions almost like a websit within a website).  Anyways, I created several lenses myself, including several lenses reviewing some of the Xbox 360 games I've played, one lens offering information about my internet marketing stuff (such as a lens offering a detailed review about GDI, one of the network marketing firms I use), as well as an "about me page".  Well, today, the moderators at squidoo decided to get rid of my lens and claimed I violated their terms of service.  That was really frustrating.   Ironically, that lens was up for over two years now and it never reieved any complaints or anything (by the way, some of the information on the lens is out of date as I've been so busy with other stuff, such as adding more content to this blog and several other blogs i have) and yet 2 years later, they send me this message about the lens:

"Dear Squidoo Lensmaster: This is a notification that the following Squidoo lenses are in violation of our Terms of Service and have been unpublished. http://www.squidoo.com/ryansintroduction ==WHY WERE THESE LENSES UNPUBLISHED?== We run regular and periodic reviews of lenses to enforce our policies, including (but not limited to) acting against spam content, locking lenses on topics we can't support, lenses that exist solely to promote an affiliate program, and most recently we have also increased our systematic intolerance of aggressively duplicated (unoriginal) content and plagiarism. Here are 4 resources you should read about our content policies on Squidoo. These links go into detail about several reasons that lenses get unpublished. 1. The Squidoo Originality Pact: http://www.squidoo.com/originalitypact2. What Is Unoriginal, Duplicated Content? http://www.squidoo.com/original-vs-duplicate-content3. SquidDon't topics we don't allow on Squidoo: http://www.squidoo.com/squiddont4. Overly promotional lenses: http://www.squidoo.com/outboundlinklimit ==NOW WHAT?== The above lenses have been unpublished in order to give you a chance to review the content and save it to take elsewhere. An unpublished lens is no longer live or viewable on the web, and will be removed from search engine indexes. The lens Workshop is still available to you for 30 days so that you can login and access the content and export it to your own computer. Any unpaid royalties the lenses might have earned before today will be donated to charity. You can read more about your unpublished lenses here: http://www.squidoo.com/locked We'd love to help you avoid the frustration of publishing a lens that gets unpublished, and hope the above guidelines help you make decisions about what kinds of lenses are worth your time in the future. Here are examples of good, original lenses that satisfy our content guidelines:å http://blogs.squidoo.com/lensoftheday Please note that repeated violations going forward will result in the suspension of your entire Squidoo account. We encourage you to refamiliarize yourself with the policies posted above before creating a new lens. Thanks for reading. The Squidoo Content TeamSquidoo.com This email was sent from a notification-only, official Squidoo email address that does not accept reply emails. Please do not reply to this message."



That message had me scratching my head.  By the way, you can view a cached version of the lens that was unpublished at http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MXsgVVqOXHgJ:www.squidoo.com/ryansintroduction+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=encrypted.google.com (though that might update after a while) and tell me what you think about the lens and why they might have unpublished it (though I suppose it might have something to do with the part where I was ranting about marketing related stuff).  By the way, some of the info on the lens are out of date.  First off, the website I talked about (http://www.ryansjones.com/) is no more and in its place, I have an ebook store website at http://www.snohomish-ebook-store.net/ as well as an Xbox 360 fan site at http://www.xboxfreak.ws/.  Also I am actually 28 years old now (not 25).  Anyways, the lens was locked and unpublished (the version above is a cached version on google).  By the way, this was not the first time that happened to me.  First it happened to a lens I made that offered a detailed review about GDI (a network marketing firm / web hosting service I use) and about a year later, apparently they did not like it and took it down (I tried to appeal it too unsuccessfully), and later on I had another lens that offered a general profile about my online stuff. 

Anyways, after today, it became obvious to me that squidoo is not going to be compatible with my internet marketing efforts (especially if they are just going to delete my lenses without any warning or anything about a year or so down the road), and so I terminated my account there.  In Squidoo's place, most articles I write will go either on my blogs or I will post them on Hub Pages.  A nice thing about hub pages is that they are much more straight forward about their policies and I've haven't had any problems with the articles I have posted there as I have with Squidoo.  I am sorry if I am sounding harsh towards Squidoo, but you know, it's their loss and I rather post articles at sites that are going to help my cause instead of hindering it. 

Here are some advice for Squiddo if you don't want other people deleting their accounts:

1) Make your policies more straight forward.  For example in the Squid Don't folder, make detailed list on topics you are not supposed to write about.  For example, if you don't want lenses about internet marketing related stuff, you should make that clear.

2) Warn lensmasters if their lenses are violating your policies (especially ones that have been around for a while).  You realise that one can violate a rule or policy unknowingly (especially if there are lot of rules to follow and whenever there are grey areas).  For example, if my lens was deleted because of a link you don't like (such as a referral link), you could have asked me to get rid of it and I would have.  If you just take down one's lens or suspend one's account with no explanation, they will just go to another service (such as Instant Blog Subscribers).

3) Making high quality articles and lenses can be tricky, especially for newbies like myself, so helping people to improve their suff can help.

4) Where people can flag articles, there should be a way for one to challenge the flags (especially in an age where there are internet trolls and other types of flaggers lurking around looking for things to flag).  Craigslist is an example of this, where you try to post a catchy ad about your business or services and a few hours later, some jerks decide to flag your ad (last time it happened to me, I posted an ad asking for video submissions for my husky videos blog). 

Anyways, that is the update and I will start looking for a new article submission directory to submit my articles too, but I think I am going to take a break from Squidoo for now.

By the way, have any of you had problems with Squidoo?  If so, feel free to share them here.

Short video about Viral Networks

Here is a unique social networking opportunity I thought that I would present to you all: viral networks.  Here is a short video I found that talks about the opportunity in detail:


Commentary about Viral networks:

Viral Networks is basically a social networking site for webmasters, network marketers, ebay sellers, affiliate marketers, and other business minded people alike. It is similar to sites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter, with some obvious differences, such as the fact it is geared more towards business minded feature.  Personally, I think it is a good place to get to know other people in the internet marketing business (going at it alone can be extremely difficult by the way, especially if you are new to the industry as there are plenty of veteran people at Viral networks that would be happy to help you to succeed in the business).  BTW, like many business social networks, they do offer an ad revenue sharing program, and currently there are at least 3 ways you can earn from viral networks alone: 1) building up your downline (note: downline members need to upgrade to "contributing" or "gold" for the sign up to credit, though you do earn some of the credits they earn from their activities on the network), 2) racking up credits from logging in, reading emails from other members, as well as being active (ideally you will want to be in the top 25 credit earners for best results), and 3) posting google adsense ads on your profile page (you will have to upgrade to either "contributing" or "gold" for that feature to work, but can be useful if you are struggling to get extra credits and building up your downline, as well as if your profile is getting extra hits each month).  Also, they do offer downline builders for Sokule member (similar to twitter).

My stats so far at viral networks:
- 16 downline members
- at least 3 of them are upgrade (btw, most referrals will likely be free members at first, so you would have to offer them incentives to upgrade for best results).
- I've made $92 so far in commissions
- I am a contributing member by the way.

By the way, you can check out my profile at Viral Networks at http://viralnetworks.com/profile/uid/5787/Ryan_Jones.html

That is all for now, and feel free to share your thoughts about Viral Networks.

Official niches of mine



The Xbox 360 is one of my official niches, and this is a picture of my Xbox 360 fan site.  BTW, this website is hosted at Global Domains International.  One perk with GDI is that you can actually build websites similar to this one for a mere $10/month, which is cheap in comparison to many other web hosting firms out there, (such as $19/month you would pay if you had a similar website hosted at Intuit, based on personal experience, just fyi).

 Here is an update from one of my previous posts on deciding on what niches to follow, and I have picked a few out and they are based on my interests.:

1.  The Xbox 360.  I have been a gamer for almost all my life and I do happen to have an Xbox 360, and so I decided to make a fan site about the Xbox 360, which you can see at http://www.xboxfreak.ws/.  While there are more elements to add to the site, it does come with a detailed review about the Xbox 360, a custom store I have through Amazon.com, called the Seattle Gamer's Pimp Store and has a collection of video games related stuff, such as Xbox 360 games and hardware, as well as stuff fo the Nintendo Wii, PS 3, as well as even other game systems.  Affiliates of mine for that site includes: amazon.com, ebay, walmart, compusa, shockwave, as well as some of the ebooks on the Xbox 360.  By the way, if you happen to be an Xbox 360 fan, I am looking for people to help support it (such as linking to it from your webiste, facebook page, etc).

2. Ebooks.  I do have an ebook store website (http://www.snohomish-ebook-store.net/), which is devoted to ebooks, and has a huge collection of them, with my storefront hosted by cbproads, which is a site that offers custom storefronts for people selling Clickbank products.  It is pretty useful to have if you are promoting multiple ebooks.  The only downside to this niche is that it is more of a broad niche, and plus I have been neglecting the site lately as I have some new websites and blogs to promote and are more up my alley, and so I am thinking about leasing it out somebody (they can have full control over the website, though I would have it so that I keep some of the profits it makes, say up to 30% of the commissions earned at clickbank).  Note: this move is not official yet, but if any of you are interested in taking over the site, I'd be happy to lease it out to you (I would have to set up some terms of course).  PM me if you are interested.

3. Animal Videos - I now have a blog about animal-related videos at http://rjanimalvideos.blogspot.com/.  It is a relatively new blog I have and features a variety of viral videos featuring dogs, cats and other animals.  BTW, if you have any animal-related videos you want to share, I'd be happy to host them.  PM me if interested.

4. Husky Videos. Over the last year or so, I have become a sucker for siberian huskies and alaskan malamutes (probably after seeing some videos of them), and am hoping to get one some day.  Of course, I thought that it would be cool to make a blog all about them, with videos and commentaries about the dogs, news articles about them, and other cool content.  Originally, I have posted a bunch of videos about the two breeds in my animal videos blog, but have since decided to create a seperate blog about huskies and malamutes to avoid oversaturating my other animal videos blog (which is more general).  You can see my new blog at http://instantblogsubscribers.com/?w=huskies.  BTW, I am trying out a new blog host (namely instant blog subscribers), which is a blog host that aims to help you to get extra blog traffic and ad revenue.  My only criticism about the blog host so far is that monetizing the blog is not as easy as they claim (they say you can start earning revenue within a day or two, but it is not as easy as it looks of course). 

That is all of now, and feel free to comment.  Also, if you like any of the niches described above, feel free to support me and share my new websites and blogs with others.  Also, if any of you feel like you are up to owning an ebook store website, feel free to let me know and I would be willing to lease it out to you.  BTW, the ebook website is recommended for experienced affiliate marketers, and here are some requirements for owning the site:

• I will charge $30/month for the website (covers hosting fees, the ebook storefront, as well as my aweber account, though if you have aweber, you can wave that part of the fees).
• You will need to be experienced with affiliate programs and have a good conversion rate
• must have a high traffic website to promote with (say a PR 5 or more for best results), with at least 1000 hits per day minimum.
• Must have a good size of subscribers
• Must be good at branding yourself as well as SEO.
• I have joined the newsletters of some of the authors, and I would be willing to forward their emails to you.
• I keep 30% of the commissions at clickbank, since it is under my account (of course, you can wave that by getting your own storefront at cbproads at http://www.cbproads.com/refer.asp?id=46107, and note that you will need to get a "pro" account for the links to work properly, otherwise you only get 50% of the commissions the site generates).
• Must be experienced with affiliate and/or network marketing programs

That is all for now

GDI Training System - Explode Your GDI Downline

here is a video i found about GDI training. Btw, you are welcome to join my network at GDI at www.website.ws/ryansjones

One nice thing about Global Domains International

Despite the fact that Global Domains International is a MLM company (where you earn commissions by referring new people to them who purchase one or more web hosting plans through them), there is one thing you might like about GDI: the $10/month web hosting plans.

If you are looking to take up the affiliate marketing business (like I did such as the new xbox360 fan site I am making at www.xboxfreak.ws) the $10/month web hosting plans (which includes a domain name, Site builder 4.1 and other cool tools) can be a pretty invualable resource for any of you looking to build a website for less. Even if you don't take advantage of the 5 level affiliate program that GDI has to offer, you can always monetize your website with say google adsense ads and build a content rich website. Then as people visit your site, and people start clicking on those ads, you can earn extra income (besides that at GDI). Also, you can alo take advantage of affiliate networks like Commission Junction and Linkshare, and promote various affiliates from there (such as the Microsoft Store or Yahoo) and earn commissions whenever people either become leads or buyers for those companies. Of course, you still have to be able to sell the stuff and give people reason to click on the links and buy, but it does give you a few extra streams of income if utilized properly. I have started building a new niche based website (see link above), and I am already getting quite a bit of hits and occasional clicks with my google adsense ads. Of course, you don't want to over do it as people may get turned off by that. Thought htat I would point that out.

Paid to Click Sites

Clixsense is just one of several popular paid to click sites out there.

If you are looking for an easy way to make some income online, for little or no risk or costs, you might consider checking out some of the paid to click or paid to read programs. Paid to click programs are similar to traffic exchanges where you can view other peoples' ads and sites and earn credits so that the same members can view your sites. With paid to click programs, other webmasters are usually offering you some cash simply to view their ads (usually not much, but if you surf ads often, refer others to the sites, etc, earning could add up after a while). In addition, many paid to click programs also have upgrade options for more features (such as earning more from each ad you click on, free referrals, along with free credits if you want to advertise your own programs). They also have referral systems, where you can refer people to those site and earn additional cash whenever your referrals view ads as well, upgrade their membership, or buy advertising credits.

Pros about Paid to Click programs:

- no experience needed for these
- you are not required to have a website with these as you can simply advertise your ptc programs either on traffic exchanges that allow them, other paid to click sites, referral builder sites like simple refs, getor program refs, as well as special trader forums like Earn money Space (which specializes in trading referral links to the different ptc programs)
- while the earnings rates are low, highly active members can reap extra cash with these programs (more if they refer others).
- the main task is to view other peoples' ads for credits and you can either keep the cash you earn for your self of use to fund your own programs
- can be an easy way to suppliment your income if you do other forms of web marketing.
- If you happen to be an advertiser, "bribing" people to visit your site can be an easy way to get hits.
- One can join multiple PTC programs for 2x or more the earnings potiential. For example if you joined 10 of them and earn $10 a week with each of them, you would be making up to $100 a week total. Also, some sites do pay more than others.

Negative aspects about PTC programs
- don't expect to get rich with these programs. Typically ads are worth anywhere between $.005 and $1.00 each (varies by site). Also some sites have more ads you can view than others. In addition, free members will usually earn less than paid members. For example, at freebirdbux, typically, there are up to 5 ads that free members can click on, whereas paid mambers can click on up to 13 ads per day on average.
- Referrals are the key to success with these programs. If you click on ads alone, it will take a while to break $1 or more each month (let alone the minimum pay out threshold). So, naturally some people will earn more with these than others (depending on how many referrals they have and how active they are).
- you will be expected to be active at most of them. If you go too long without logging on and surfing, some times you can find that your account will get suspended and you can lose your earnings as a result.
- Joining too many programs can get overwhelming after a while too. For example, I've joined at least 10 of them since doing web marketing and it takes up to 4 hours a day to get through them all.
- If you are an advertisers, the conversion rate may be a little low with these as most people will likely visit your site for the money (after all, it is advertised that people can make money by viewing ads). Of course, there are ways to get more for your money, such as gettign as many clicks as possible for each dollar you spend, taking advenatage of the guaranteed sign up offers (where you can "bribe" people to sign up for your programs). I did that with Global Domains International and got some easy leads that way. Also, with the guaranteed sign up offers programs you can actually set your own terms for crediting peoples' accounts to weed out posers (people pretending to be interested in what you have to offer) from people actually interested in signing up (I did that with GDI, expecting people to sign up for the 7 day free trial before crediting their account and denying credit to people who fell short of that). With traffic exchanges and ptc sites, you could also expect them to be somewhat active for credit, such as requiring them to surf at least once day a week, or the like).

- While most ptc sites are legit, there are going to be some scam ones out there, and so you will have to be on your guard (if you join earn money space, the admins have compiled a list of sites that are considered scammy).

Partial List of ptc programs I use (subscribe to my newsletter at www.snohomish-ebook-store.net for a full list of ptc sites I use):
- Free Bird Bux
- Neobux
- Bux-Matrix , note that if you plan to take advantage of their matrix program (with spillover referrals and all, you will need to get an upgraded membership there, otherwise it will be more like a traditional ptc site).
- matrix mails - they actually have a 6 tier affiliate program for up to 6x the earnings potiential just for your info
- Click or Sign Up this site has 3 programs: paid to click, guaranteed sign up offers, and paid to sign up. They also have a forum where you can interact with other members.
- Bux Wiz - getting referrals can be easy
-
It's worth the boast. One cool thing about Rich PTC is that they actually pay you $1 for each ad you view, $10 for each paid to sign up offer you take advantage of, $10 per referral (plus commission if they upgrade), along with a percentage on what they click. The only downside is that the minimum payout ammount is $1000, which means that you will need to view at least 1000 ads to get paid (less if you get referrals, upgrade, etc).

There are plenty of other ones I use, but I will only give out a full list of the ones I use per request (pm me at ryansjones@hotmail.com for more info).

Resources you can use for ptc sites:

Traffic Tornado - this is a very useful downline builder site that lists most of the well known traffic exchanges out there, along with classified ads directories and other advertising venues.

Classified ads sites. You can use craigslist at http://www.craigslist.org/, but you will find that affiliates are frowned upon there (see tos), and so you would have to mask your promotional efforts there. You can also use Us Free ads , which is more affiliate friendly, though for best results, you will probably want to upgrade your membership. More advanced webmasters can also host their own classified ads directory at Business Free Ads if they want .

Global Domains International - GDI is a one of a kind multilevel marketing firmsthat sells affordable web hosting packages to its members. This can be handy for 2 reasons: 1) if you want to build your own website to host the ptc programs and other programs, you can do so for as low as $10 per month with GDI (which is cheap when compared to many other web hosting firms), and it comes with basic hosting, site builder 4.1 (unless if you have your own sitebuilding tool), up to 10 email boxes you can use, etc. Also 2) they actually pay you to promote their services on a 5 tiered affiliate program (you can get more details about that by clicking on the link above) for at least 2 potiential streams of income (I've actually built a review page about GDI at http://instantsqueezepagegenerator.com/displaysp.php?m=48334&s=39468 along with a squidoo lens that talks about the opporunity at http://www.squidoo.com/gdicommentary and so, there really is no point to going into all of the details about GDI. Of course, if you don't like GDI, I also happen to be an affiliate at Yahoo, Site Build It (which is geared almost exclusively towards novice affiliate marketers(, Go Daddy and Lunar Pages, and so feel free to shoot me an email at ryansjones@hotmail.com. If you need help putting together a niche specific website, two sites I recommend are daily niche idea (which gives you ideas on niches to build your site around) at http://www.dailynicheidea.com/?rid=7081 and http://www.hypervre.com/?affiliate=158202 (which aims to help you to build a nifty website around a profitable niche) .

Earn money space at http://www.earnmoneyspace.com/forum/index.php?referredby=2558

Earn Money space is a unique trader forum that specializes in paid to click and related sites.

Benefits of Earn Money space:

- referral links are allowed in your signature (gives you easy hits for your affiliates if you are active), unlike many other forums.

- there is a downline builder thread you can take advantage of

- you can also exchange referral links with others for easy sign ups for your program. The only downside is that you will be expected to be active at the programs you join and so you will probably not want to overwhelm yourself with PTC programs (unless if you plan to earn solely on those).

Well that is all for now, and hope you found this post useful.