Posted by Ray White on August 18, 2010 Comments (3)

Below is an article just posted today by Justin Ledvina, my friend and partner in  AdKreator.  This coming from a person who really doesn’t get too involved in using traffic exchanges, but quite honestly, he said it very well. Something we have all tried to explain in our own words in the past and continue to stress to our membership. See his article below…

Here is my disclaimer before I start pulling out what little hair I have left on my head. I am not am not a professional surfer and I’ve never kreated the perfect traffic exchange advertisement. The only reason I ever surf is to see what people are advertising, how they are advertising and a few other minor things associated with the traffic exchange.

I do this so I can stay up to date on my design tactics for AdKreator splashpages. I find it far more efficient to purchase my traffic exchange credits and spend the time I would be surfing on improving my business. My suggestion to anyone who wants to make a full time living in this industry (for a lack of a better word) is to make room for a monthly advertising budget. I’ll take the time to explain my reasons for this in my next article as to not distract from the main topic of this post.

I woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed this morning so I figured it would be a good idea to do some surfing research. First site I decided to surf was Sweeva for a few reasons, they allow members to comment on specific ads and a few days ago Jon Olson said to me the best designs on Sweeva are from AdKreator. I was excited to get surfing and seeing all these kreative ads people are using to promote their products and even better what others are saying.

Right from the get go my head started to shake in disappointment, every page I surfed was never meant to be viewed in a traffic exchange and even worse the comments were generic “Great page”, “Awesome!!!”, “Keep it up!” and a ton of comments with just smiley faces. Not a single comment with any type of suggestions, no lies on this, it wasn’t until I surfed 37 pages that I came across an advertisement designed to be viewed in a traffic exchange. The design itself wasn’t very good, to be honest the design was horrible but at least this person had the basic concept of how to advertise in traffic exchanges.

First thing I wanted to do was help this person get better conversions on their design. This is why Sweeva is so cool because without even leaving the surfing page I could add my feedback. The comment I left went something like this “You’re on the right track with your design. I would recommend to add a big bold headline to the top and change the submit button to something bigger with color and change word Submit to something like – Give Me The Details”.

Notice my feedback starts by giving them positive encouragement, this allows the reader to know my comments have good intentions without sugar coating my opinion. It then goes on to suggest the changes I would make to their design, in this part I make sure my message is direct, easy to understand and as short as possible. This avoids creating any confusion or overwhelming the reader and allows others in the community to build from there.

Many Kudos to the Sweeva team for bringing a feedback system to a traffic exchange. I see a huge opportunity for advertisers properly using it to rapidly increase their incomes and stick with this industry for the long haul. The problem is I didn’t come across a single comment with any sort of suggestions or opinion, it was like a giant hug feast.  Can you see the potential damage this can have to a knew traffic exchange advertiser? When they fail to make any kind of profit and all the feedback tells them they’re doing it right the conclusion becomes traffic exchanges are worthless.

Some of them move their advertising budget to a different medium never to be heard from again by us. While others take it another step by blogging and writing about their negative experience. In reality who’s to blame them for telling others about how this advertising medium didn’t work for them. Yes some of the blame lays of them for not doing enough research but some of the blame comes to us for letting them think they were doing it right.

This not only hurts people new to traffic exchange advertising but even seasoned advertisers like myself. When I login to check feedback on my splashpage and everyone of them is a generic “Nice Page” I’m not getting the information I need to better my designs. This hurts my business by not maximizing the effectiveness of my designs, in turn this leads to lost income. The less income I make the less I have to spend on advertising and development of my product. That’s lost income to the traffic exchanges and now they’re in the same boat I was in, it becomes a vicious circle.

Eventually this trickles down to us the happy little surfer. We love the prizes we win and the scraps we are thrown to keep us happy and to keep us surfing. We’re the ones who benefit from the programs and tools that are developed using advertisers money. It’s in our best interest to help advertisers successfully use traffic exchanges because with a stronger traffic exchange economy leads to better prizes, better games, better tools and better profit potential for us.

Successful advertisers go out spreading the word about this hidden little gem of an advertising system. Leading to more advertisers wanting to get in before their competitors do. Imagine if advertisers were throwing wads of cash and fighting over views like they do on Google. Traffic Exchange owners would do almost anything to keep us surfing so they could meet the rising demand. Heck some owners do almost anything now to get us to surf never mind if this became reality.

I challenge you to become a leader and change the mindset. Start today by logging into to Sweeva and leaving feedback users can better their advertising from. Not only are you helping the advertiser you’ll also become an authority within the community. People will see how you’re making a difference and they will mimic you in hopes to be like you.

Don’t be afraid to say what you think about the page as long as it’s polite, honest and professional. Sweeva was built for this and people like me want as much feedback as we can get, especially the feedback that makes suggestions. I rather read 100 comments of what people think I’m doing wrong then 100 comments telling me great job. My ego has never been able to feed my kids so I still rely on the green paper.

I’m going to leave you with two questions.

Are you a take action leader or do you follow the crowd? and why?

Justin Ledvina

Posted by Ray White on August 13, 2010 Comments (1)

Surfing traffic exchanges forces me to plan and focus.

I know that sounds funny, but it’s true. I can get lost for hours on the exchanges if I don’t decide ahead of time what I want to get done. If there are contests I want to participate in, if I need to login to assign credits, or I want to do some quick and dirty research, I have to schedule the time. I have to decide what to do where. More on the research part below.

I can spy on my competition.

Just 15 minutes of surfing and I can see what everybody else is up to. Splash pages tell me the new promotions at other exchanges. I see some great opt-in pages made with AdKreator. I can see which program is “hot” with traffic exchange members by the sheer number of sites I see promoting them. That can tell me a lot about what traffic exchange members are interested in, and what they are willing to spend money on.

I can collect stuff for my swipe files.

Let me explain swipe files. It’s not for copying other people. That’s so wrong on so many levels. Swipe files are for storing ideas that I can adapt or make better. The file can be as simple as a Notepad file that you copy and paste stuff in. You would be amazed if you knew how many great programs were created by people who saw something and said, “I can do that better.”

I find all the up and coming marketers that I want to keep an eye on.

A lot of people get their start on the traffic exchanges. I want to know who is coming online and what they are doing. There may be people worth getting to know, or at least to keep an eye on.

You can learn a lot by surfing the traffic exchanges. I know I do.

Posted by Ray White on August 9, 2010 Comments (0)

Every time I see a “free download” link, I chuckle to myself, because I know it really isn’t free. I am going to click the link and be sent to an opt-in form. To get the free download, I have to fill out the form with my name and best email address. Cost in dollars, zero. Cost in time … well I guess I’ll find out after I get the free download and see how many new emails a day I get in my inbox for the trouble.

Once time is “spent,” it’s gone. You can’t get it back. You know the saying, “Time is money.” Time spent opening, sorting, and deleting email is time that could be spent on other things. Things that could make you money. Activities that you could be sharing with your family and friends. Or just plain old “me time” to watch a movie or take a well-deserved nap.

Let’s talk about free traffic exchange accounts. Free advertising is great. It is how most of us start out online. But after we join a few (hundred) exchanges, we get into a bit of a pickle. We find out that we can’t possibly surf all of our exchanges effectively. It’s too time consuming. So then we start picking and choosing, but that cuts down on our exposure. Less exposure could mean less income. Now what?

Just like you budget your money, you also need to budget your time. You want to use your time wisely. Think about how you want to spend your time. Personally, I love surfing traffic exchanges. I like discovering what people are doing with splash page design. But I have other things that I need to do. I have programs to run. I have blogs to write. I have new projects in the works. Then there are my personal obligations to family and friends. Oh yes, sleeping and eating are also on my daily to-do list.

I bet you are in a similar situation. Everyone needs to figure out how to schedule themselves. Here are my suggestions for quick and dirty time management.

• Figure out how much time you have to devote to your online business
• Break down the activities that you do to promote yourself (surfing traffic exchanges, writing to safelists, writing and distributing articles, blogging, forum posting, etc.)
• Don’t forget to figure in time spent on administrative stuff like email and Skype
• Then there’s the educational stuff like conferences and webinars
• Don’t forget time for networking. You never know where your next big opportunity might come from.

You will be shocked when you realize how much you really do for your business. Now comes the hard part. You need to take a hard look at what you do and decide if you are effectively using your time. Where can you cut the time costs of your business? Ask around for time-saving tips from more experienced people. And cut the “free fat”: Track your results and delete the free accounts that aren’t getting you sales or signups. That’s the kind of free that you can’t afford.

Posted by Ray White on August 2, 2010 Comments (0)

Several traffic exchange owners have been dealing with a particular person who refuses to follow the rules. He, as he goes by a male name, joins traffic exchanges multiple times a day with different email addresses and surfs and surfs and surfs. Sounds great so far, except for the multiple part, since we all know that every traffic exchange allows only one account per member. The problem is with the URLs that he submits. They are framebreakers, and they set off anti-virus software. We keep suspending him and his sites, and he just comes right back and does it again, and again, and again. He is a nuisance for owners. The real pain, however, is to the other members, who send hits to his URLs and get back heaven knows what on their computers. And all the surfing that he does just wastes other members’ credits, because he is not looking to buy or join anything.

So what do we do to solve the problem? He uses a new email address every time he joins, so banning his email address won’t work. His IP address changes, too, so we can’t ban that. He has made it very hard to keep only him out. And let’s face it, where there’s a will, there’s a way, and he seems very determined to keep up this silly behavior.

We can cast a wider net by banning whole blocks of IP addresses. But then that blocks out a lot of innocent people. Seems a bit drastic to keep out one bad apple.

Owners do what we can to keep our exchanges clean. Some of us are lucky enough to have good support people. Some of us are blessed with wacky sleep needs and are able to stay online for a majority of the day. For the rest of us, please help us out and send in those site reports so we can get rid of the garbage. We are always grateful to hear from our members.

Posted by Ray White on July 16, 2010 Comments (2)

Most of you may be aware that Paula (Hit Safari) and I have chosen to sponsor two children in need through the Children International organization. This is a commitment we undertook in January of ’09 and remain committed too. Children International, a well established and reputable organization allows anyone to get involved easily.

We felt that our two high traffic volume sites would bring more awareness to the millions of children around the world in need of basic day to day needs. Children in need hold a special place in our hearts for sure!

The mere $22 per month provides basic needs for our sponsored children that would otherwise not be available to them. Of course our commitment goes beyond the minimum. In the past we have run special promo days to allow members of both exchanges an opportunity to add more funds by surfing xxx number of pages. And we have sent extra funds on special occasions to help improve their lives even more.

Chester, the child I sponsor lives in the Philippines. You can read more about Chester Here! Chester will be 11 years old on August 12th, 2010 and we thought it would be a great time to do something extra to make his birthday more memorable. We have already sent some funds to ensure that, but we also wondered if members of our exchanges would like to contribute as well, to make this a SUPER special day.

Paula’s sponsored child, Joshua will be 11 on November 13th, 2010!

No, we are not asking you to send us money, however we did come up with a simple solution for you to contribute to these children. You can use the cash in your accounts to contribute… here’s how.

For Chester, our Soaring4Traffic sponsored child, send me a support ticket with your username or referral ID, how much of your account cash you wish to contribute (minimum $1). We will reduce your cash by whatever amount you wish to contribute and add it to the total amount to be sent when all are completed.

We will then list your name and amount contributed on Chester’s page, unless you want to remain anonymous, in which case we would certainly respect your wishes. Request to be anonymous in your support ticket if so desired.

For Joshua, Hit Safari’s sponsored child, go to this link for all the details of how to contribute. Joshua Contributions.

We will keep a running total of all contributions posted and send the total amount with a receipt posted to verify funds have been sent. Cut off time to send your request is Monday, midnight CDT, July 19th, 2010!

Please understand, no one, and I mean no one is obligated to contribute your hard earned commissions or cash in your account. Giving is a free will and only you can decide if you wish to do so. However, with that said, we would love to send Chester a nice Birthday wish!

Member’s have responded, to date we have $45.05 for Chester’s Birthday. Details posted on Chester’s Page!

Posted by Ray White on July 5, 2010 Comments (3)

Lately, I’ve been unsubscribing from rather than subscribing to lists. Like you, I have a lot of email to go through. And of course, I asked for (most of) it. If you’ve been reading my posts, you know that I am a big advocate of using the delete button when going through the inbox. Now I want to talk about using the unsubscribe link.

It used to be that signing up for a list meant that you could look forward to an email series with some good content, information that you could use. Nowadays, you can pick up a free ebook to give away to people for their best email address, which is great, but then what? It seems now that giving up your email address just opens yourself to someone who will send you ebook after ebook after ebook, and never takes the time to develop a relationship with the list members. Every email message is, “Check out this link.” To me, that’s just lazy marketing.

Now, I don’t need your complete life story. I don’t want to know what you had for lunch. I would, however, like some inclination of why I should listen to your recommendation. Give me a couple of crumbs to let me know that you know what you are talking about. You turned me on to one ebook, and I thank you for that. But when your next email, and the next one, and the next, say nothing more than go to this link and watch the money roll in, well I have to start wondering about you. And that unsubscribe link is starting to look mighty tempting.

I’ve written a previous post about affiliate marketing. It is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. Since that post, I’ve gone one step further. Justin Ledvina and I have put together an entire ebook on the subject. It’s called Affiliate Marketing Revealed. Among other things, it discusses list building and providing quality content for your list members.

If you look over to the right side menu bar, you will see a navy blue banner ad for Affiliate Marketing Revealed.  Yes, it’s another ebook. Yes, you can get a free copy. Yes, it has information that you need and may want to share with other marketers. What sets it apart? It’s from me. I hope that, by now, that means something to you.

Posted by Ray White on June 28, 2010 Comments (3)

When you are surfing the traffic exchanges, are you ever tempted to click on any of the hyperlinks on the sites that you see? Well, I most certainly hope you are! Here’s something to think about though. When you click the link, do you want the link to open in a new window, or within the surf frame? My personal vote is for a new window.

If the link opens in a new window, then surfing is not interrupted. The visitor can easily check out what you have to offer when she is finished surfing. Let’s face it, when we are surfing, we have a goal in mind, and we want to reach it as soon as possible. We also don’t want to miss any good opportunities. Opening hyperlinks in a new window lets busy surfers “save” the opportunities that they want to take a closer look at. They can continue surfing on their schedule, then go back to the pages that they want to spend some time on. No one wants to rush a business decision.

Another thing to consider, especially if you are using an affiliate page, is whether the hyperlink goes to a page that will break the surf frame. You aren’t breaking any terms of service if a link on your submitted URL goes to a frame breaker, but it really does mess up a surfer’s day when she clicks a link and loses an exchange. It ruins the rhythm of surfing. And it kind of sours a person on the offer that upset her surfing schedule.

A simple thing to do is test the links on any pages that you want to rotate in a traffic exchange. Click on every link that is on a page that you are considering to add to your traffic exchange account and see if the link opens in a new tab or page. If they do open in a new window, great! If not, and you don’t want that, then consider making your own splash page for the opportunity to use in the traffic exchanges.

By the way, did you know that in adKreator (that green box over on the right side of this page), when you create a splash page, that you can set your link to open in a new window? Simply check the box next to “Open URL in New Window,” then click the blue Apply button. No HTML coding on your part required.

Posted by Ray White on June 24, 2010 Comments (0)

The other day I was happily surfing away in my favorite manual traffic exchanges when I came across a cool-looking splash page. It was very simple. Just an eye-catching graphic image, no text. Not even hyperlinked text. I went to click on the image, and nothing. It wasn’t clickable. I opened the page in a new tab and saw what the problem was. The URL pointed not to a web page, but to an image. I could click a thousand times on that image, but since the image is not linked to anything, clicking will get me nowhere.

I’m writing this post for the very green newbies that are coming online everyday. Please, if you are an old hand at internet-speak and traffic exchanges, I mean you no disrespect.

Web pages and online images have web addresses so that people who know them can see them anytime by putting the address in the address bar of a web browser. The web address, or URL, ends with a “dot-something.” The URLs that end with a “dot-jpg” or a “dot-gif” or a “dot-png” point to images. When you submit URLs for rotation in a traffic exchange, make sure that the URL does NOT end in jpg, gif, or png. Those URLs will not get you any new signups, leads, or purchases if they rotate as is in a traffic exchange. Images need to be linked to your lead capture page, or your affiliate page, or your website, for you to get any results.

The place to put image URLs in a traffic exchange is in your banners. Most traffic exchanges allow members to submit banner ads that are shown on the surf bar and throughout the pages of the website. For banner ad submission, you use 2 URLs, one for the image (which should be 468 pixels wide and 60 pixels tall, because that is the size of the box that the image will be fitted into) and one for the web page that will be linked to the banner image. The traffic exchange script will take care of the linking for you.

What does linking the web page to the image do? See the green box on the right in the side menu bar that says “adKreator”? That box, or image, is linked to my program AdKreator. When you click on that image, you will be taken to the AdKreator site. If the image was not linked, then clicking on the box would do nothing.

Incidently, AdKreator is a great place to easily make web pages with kewl graphics that are linked to your web page of choice. Just sayin.

Posted by Ray White on June 18, 2010 Comments (2)

You ever get so excited about something that you feel like you will just simply burst if you don’t TWEET about it? Well, I feel like that about Soaring4Traffic (and all of my other programs, btw). And just in case you ever feel the same way, I’ve had something special added to the members area.

Soaring4Traffic now makes it easy for you to share your favorite splash link with your social media contacts on your Twitter and Facebook account. Let me tell you about it.

Login to your Soaring4Traffic account. On the left side menu, click on Promote Soaring4Traffic. You will go to the page that has all kinds of promotional tools for you to use to recruit your personal Soaring4Traffic downline members. Towards the top of the page, though, are your personalized URLs for the splash pages. Under each URL, you will see both a Tweet This icon and a Facebook icon. To share the URL with your Twitter followers or your Facebook friends, simply click the correct icon.

Let me walk you through it.

Let’s say you want to tweet about Soaring4Traffic, and want to direct your followers to your personalized URL for one of our spectacular splash pages. Login to your Soaring4Traffic account and go to the Promote Soaring4Traffic page in your members area. Pick the URL that you want to tweet, and click the Tweet This icon directly below it. Once you do that, you will get a pop up asking for your Twitter login info. This information is necessary to post the tweet to your Twitter account. Your Twitter login information is NOT saved anywhere. Once you enter the information and click the Submit button, you will get the message, “Tweet posted.” And you’re done! Don’t believe me? Check your Twitter feed. Go to your Twitter profile and at the top of your feed you will see the tweet, “Soar your traffic to a new level @ your.personalized.splash.url”

Simple as that. You have now told your twitter followers all about one of your best performing traffic exchanges. You don’t really want to keep that all to yourself now, do you? Share. It’s the social (media) thing to do.

Posted by Ray White on June 9, 2010 Comments (4)

I’ve been kinda quiet the past couple of weeks. I’ve been giving some thought to the recent controversy over the use of prizes to attract active surfers. Now that the hoopla has died down some, maybe I can have my say without getting anybody all riled up.

In order to have a thriving business, a traffic exchange owner needs to have active surfers. We love members who upgrade and buy credits because they pay the hosting bill. But those members are wasting their money if we don’t have other members, real people, surfing and looking at their sites. It is the owner’s job to get those real people surfing.

Personally, I like to surf. I like checking out other people’s sites. I learn a lot by seeing what other people are doing. But let’s face it. Clicking through a bunch of other people’s sites can get boring at times. Plus there are so many traffic exchanges online now. It’s fierce competition to get active surfers to join, let alone surf the exchange. What’s a traffic exchange owner to do?

Contests, games, competitions, chats, power surfs, bonus credits and impressions, free start page ads, random cash prizes, candy, iPads, cameras, restaurant coupons, you name it, owners have tried it. What works best? That depends on the individual member. Some people like to load up on bonus credits and impressions to save for a rainy day, or maybe for a sunny day when they would rather be outside and away from the computer for a bit. Some people would like a little cash to help pay for an upgrade or a credit package. And hey, who wouldn’t like to have a brand new iPad? As I see it, basically people want something that will make their life a little easier. With thousands of members in a traffic exchange, there is no one simple answer. Successful owners figure out what they can offer to their members that will get them to login and surf.

Owners do what they can to get members active. I think of such things as incentives. Some people might call them bribes. Whatever you want to call them, members are willing to surf to get them. But you want to know the best part? I know that members talk to each other. And when a member likes what a specific traffic exchange has to offer, the member isn’t shy about saying so. Our best advertisement is a satisfied member. Satisfied members login and use their accounts. Satisfied members refer new signups. The traffic exchange then grows with new active surfers. The owner has done his job right.