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.

Posted by Ray White on June 1, 2010 Comments Off

Many members of Soaring4Traffic, especially the ones who use the unique Surf Center for daily access to all their Traffic Exchange accounts, have asked why I would recommend TE Command Post ?

Honestly when Paul Kinder first showed me the program, took me back a bit, kinda made me think, should I promote it or not?  Would it affect and compete with the Soaring4Traffic Surf Center?  It was almost as if Paul & Scott had read my mind, though I had never shared my ideas with anyone. You see, I was in the process of sending my new ideas for the Surf Center to my programmer. Funny thing is most of what I had planned they had incorporated into TE Command Post.

No, I wasn’t upset with Paul or Scott, but rather kicking myself for not acting sooner.

Since I have always been searching for better ways for Traffic Exchange members to manage and control their accounts, hence the original reason for the S4T Surf Center, how could I possible not promote their new program. It is exactly what traffic exchange members need and want to better manage their time and efforts to keep traffic running to their sites daily. Plus they have possibly saved me thousands of dollars in programming and advertising costs. 

The Soaring4Traffic Surf Center will not disappear for the thousands who use it on a daily basis. In fact I have already realized that using the Surf Center in conjunction with TE Command Post is the thing to do, makes things so so easy and quick. I have an idea which will be disclosed later to maybe enhance the use of both. 

In closing, yes I highly recommend TE Command Post, as most of you know, any tool that will give you better control, save you time, and therefore increase your advertising needs, plus earn you commissions,  I will recommend whether it’s my program or not.

Would love to hear your comments.

Posted by Ray White on May 25, 2010 Comments (1)

One of the easiest and fastest way to make money online is through affiliate marketing. This is when you send visitors to someone else’s product sales page, they make the sale and deliver the product,  you get a percentage of the sale price as your commission.

The benefits of this are

You can get started almost immediately because you don’t have to create a product, write the sales page, design the website, develop marketing materials, or set up the ordering, billing & delivery system.

You have almost no investment of time because you don’t have to do the customer support or deal with billing or technical issues.

You have nearly zero risk because you already know the product sells. So if you send visitors you will get paid.

Looking at these benefits, it’s clear that affiliate marketing is the way to go!

The downside is…

After all your hard work of generating traffic to the sales page, you will never see any of those visitors again. Most of them will not buy on their first visit, which means you’re losing over 90% of the traffic right off the top. And of the 10% or less that do buy, the product owner will be able to sell to them again, but you will not.

What’s the solution?

Simply put, you need to capture the name and email of your visitors *before* sending them to the product sales page. This way you can follow up with them and keep sending them back to the sales page to increase your chances of making the sale. And if you’re really on top of your game, you’ll then send to a pre-sales page in between.

Here’s what these  affiliate marketing strategies will do for you:

You’ll be building your own list of potential customers that you can market to again and again.

You’ll be pre-selling them by providing valuable information and then casually linking to the product sales page in the context of this information.

In order to set a system like this up, you will need the following  affiliate marketing tools :

A  Video Squeeze Page (with video)
One or more content-rich Pre-Selling Pages
At least a 5-Part Email Followup Series

The video squeeze page is where you’ll direct your traffic instead of directly to the product sales page. It captures the name and email of your visitors and puts them into your autoresponder, which then begins sending out the 5-part email series. Then it redirects them to your pre-selling pages after they subscribe to your email series.

All of this together increases your chances of making the sale by up to 500% so it’s well worth the effort of setting it up. And once it’s set up, it runs automatically – you just keep sending visitors to the squeeze page.

If you don’t have the time or expertise to set it all up yourself, you can use something like  Affiliate Silver Bullet . Services like this design the enter system (the video, the video squeeze page, the email series, the content pages, etc). The benefit is that it’s much less expensive then you could do it yourself, and it’s instantly set up. The downside is that other people will be using the same  affiliate tools as you. But the internet is pretty big, so this isn’t much of a concern.

The other route you can take is to hire people on Elance to create and implement the various aspects for you. Either way, it’s an important step that you need to take if you’re serious about your business.

Hopefully that will explain in more detail one of the main reasons for using traffic exchanges. Use the traffic to build your list and or basically your customer base.  Building unique lead capture pages that attract attention has gotten so easy. We use and highly recommend AdKreator.com

Posted by Ray White on May 10, 2010 Comments Off

A while back, I sent one of my regular program update messages to the Soaring4Traffic membership. As I do in all of my messages for Soaring4Traffic, I encouraged the members to login to their accounts. Well imagine my surprise when I got a message back from one of the members asking me to include the login url. Whoops.

At the end of every email message that I send out, I include my email signature. My email signature contains my name and the url of each of my programs. Why? It’s part of my branding strategy. I want my name associated with each of my programs. It also gives people alternate ways of reaching me. My email signature is like a business card for me. It’s a snapshot of my online presence.

Every internet marketer who uses list marketing has more than one list. For each list that is started, at least one autoresponder series is written. A lot of thought is put into the writing of those messages, but sometimes people miss a real opportunity with the signature. The email signature is important real estate. It is where you let people know who you are. Not just with your name, but with your urls.

If you have written the messages correctly, you have provided important, useful information for your list members. You have gained the readers’ trust. They might even like you. Your readers will be interested in knowing what else you have to offer. Their curiosity could lead them to click links in your email signature. Including your other urls in the email signature is an unobtrusive way to introduce people to your other offerings. It makes you look impressive. It improves your brand.

So anyways, back to what I started with, the member that complained about me not including the login url needed only to look at my signature to get to the main program page, which of course has the login link on it. But she was right: she shouldn’t have to work that hard to do something that I wanted her to do. Feedback from your list members is important. I include the login url in my messages as well now.

Posted by Ray White on May 3, 2010 Comments (4)

Not all web pages are suitable for rotation in traffic exchanges. I’m not talking about the content meeting terms of service. I’m talking about pages that are designed to work well in traffic exchanges and convert to sales or sign ups. If you want to use a page that has any chance of getting results from traffic exchanges, I have a few things for you to consider.

It must be a fast-loading page.

Surf timers are getting shorter and shorter. With very few exceptions, surf timers are 10 seconds or less in duration. Your page must load and be read within that time.

What can slow down loading time?

• too many redirects (cloaking your rotator url, for example)
• video clips (especially when hosted on another domain)
• audio clips (especially when hosted on another domain)
• too many widgets on a blog

Also remember this: Most surfers don’t surf only one exchange at a time. Your page must be truly exceptional to catch someone’s attention between tab changes.

It should be a short page, literally.

No one who is surfing a traffic exchange is in the mood to read a long sales letter. Get your point across within the size of the surf frame. With many traffic exchanges now offering the option to “chat” while surfing, that means you have a space of about 500 pixels wide and 400 pixels tall to work with. Don’t make people have to scroll down to find your call to action. Chances are, they won’t bother.

The page should be direct and to the point.

Too many choices can get confusing. Don’t give the viewer any choice but to take up your offer or move on. Join, or don’t. Buy, or don’t. Put only one very prominent text link on the web page. Or better yet, make the entire page a single graphic that is linked to your opt-in form or sales page.

If you are not making your own splash or squeeze pages, then test your affiliate pages periodically.

Just like you can tweak the web pages that you create yourself, affiliate programs can do the same thing with their referral pages. Because you have no control over what goes on a program-generated affiliate page, you need to keep up with what’s on it. Programs may choose to add exit pop ups, or Live Chat agents, which may increase conversion rates, but might also get your affiliate page reported at your favorite traffic exchanges. Then the page gets paused by the admin, and no one will see it. Pages that don’t get seen, don’t convert.

Simply visit your affiliate links periodically. Take a look at them for any changes. Check for new exit pop ups. See if it sets off any false positive alerts on your anti-virus software. Then decide if you want to keep using that web page for promotional purposes, in traffic exchanges or anywhere.

Posted by Ray White on April 23, 2010 Comments Off

The other day I was scanning my Twitter stream and saw an interesting tweet about a blog post. I clicked the url link in the tweet to go read the blog post. A new browser tab opened for the blog. I caught a glimpse of the blog post title just as everything went black. No, I didn’t pass out. The tab window darkened. Then a big white box popped up to fill the screen. It was an opt-in form to get blog updates and other information. Now I had a choice to make in order to read the blog post: enter my best email address and hit the submit button, or click the close button at the top right corner of the opt-in form.

Nifty little lead capture system, eh? Drive traffic to the blog with a titillating tweet, then show an impossible-to-miss opt-in form that must be dealt with in order to read the blog post. That’s how a squeeze page works. Grab the viewer’s attention with the page and give the viewer two options, opt-in or move on. Squeeze pages convert well in traffic exchanges. But this wasn’t a squeeze page, and I wasn’t in a traffic exchange.

I clicked a link with an expectation. I expected to get some information on a specific topic. That expectation was foiled when an opt-in form was shoved in my face before I could read anything else. Made me a little cranky.

I was given two choices to read the blog post. I decided that I didn’t really need to read that post after all. And in case you are wondering, I didn’t opt-in either.

Posted by Ray White on April 21, 2010 Comments Off

Good, quality articles about your niche product and services serve several purposes. They attract information seekers to your website. They provide customer service by answering questions that potential customers may have. They enhance your website’s reputation. They develop trust with your website visitors. Most importantly, they can get you people on your opt-in list.

Your website visitors subscribe to your newsletters and other promotional materials such as catalogs and free promotions. Opt-in marketing uses your list of subscribers to send e-mail to. It is essential that you present your promotional items in a manner that will catch the interest of your subscribers and keep them wanting more. Well written articles full of useful information will do the trick.

Articles also aid in search engine optimization. As more people are heading towards the internet for their information needs, serving the right information to them via articles in your site will increase the flow of your website traffic. With more traffic, the percentage of your sales will grow. More sales turn into more profit.

Well written articles will also boost your site’s reputation and brand you as an expert in your niche. Your articles must be well researched so that the people will trust you. When you have gained their trust, they will always come for you for their needs on that subject.

The articles need to tackle subjects that are closely connected with your type of business. If you have a site for a medicine to treat a certain disease, your articles should be about that disease. Or if you sell materials for home improvements, provide articles along those lines. Most articles searched for are tips, guidelines, methods, manuals and such. If you provide good quality articles to your customers, they will always go to your site for help and advice as well as for your products.

Don’t post all the good stuff on your site though. Save some articles for your newsletter. You want to get people to join your list for more information. When you provide good information, your emails will always be opened. Your readers will be happy to be receiving your newsletters as well as other promotional materials to keep them well informed. Others may even forward your newsletters to other people when they find a certain article interesting. Provide links in your newsletter to your site.

Make sure to keep your subscribers happy and interested in your newsletters and promotional materials. Keep on posting and writing good articles for your site and newsletter. If you are not interested in writing them yourself, or if you just don’t have the time, hire a writer to help you out. The investment will pay for itself in time.

Posted by Ray White on April 16, 2010 Comments Off

#11

At least 3 ways to win bonus credits every day … just by surfing

#10

Don’t need an eagle eye to surf this exchange: everything on the surf bar is very easy to see

#9

No empty nesters here: even free members can earn commissions

#8

Power customization: not only can you put your picture on your personalized splash referral pages, but you get to put a banner of your choosing, too

#7

Soaring4Traffic has its own fan club

#6

Just 3 words: Power Surf Central

#5

Seize control of your surfing schedule with the Surf Center Console

#4

Admin/owner lives in Texas, ’nuff said.

#3

Know exactly how much time you have left to reach your surfing goal — Server Time and Pages Surfed are displayed prominently on the surf bar

#2

Sister sites Pro Click Exchange and AdKreator

#1

Ray White, admin/owner extraordinaire, does all his own support work

Posted by Ray White on April 8, 2010 Comments Off

In a previous post about handling email, I tossed out a few ideas on how to organize your email inbox. This post will cover my take on how to handle one aspect of your incoming email: answering support issues.

Here are a few ideas on how to make answering support questions easier.

Make cheat sheets.

Using Notepad or your favorite text editor, write the answers to your most often asked questions and save it in a file on your computer. That way, when you get the question, all you have to do is copy and paste the correct answer. Takes all of maybe 5 seconds.

Write an autoresponder series for more involved answers.

Part of being an internet marketer is being a mentor. For more involved issues, like say, how to build a downline, or how to make the best use of traffic exchanges, it might be best to break it down into smaller pieces. You can write an autoresponder series and direct your downline to it when they ask for help.

Add an FAQ page to your web site.

Head off the incoming questions by posting the answers on your website. Write a page with the most asked questions and their answers. You can do that with very basic HTML coding knowledge. If you want something a little fancier, you can install a blog platform to your domain and make a special page on the blog. You can make individual “posts” for each question with its corresponding answer.

Install a support desk

You can find free support desk scripts to install on your web site if you want to go that route. It will keep support questions separate from your other email. You can also archive your answers for easy follow up. Plus, having a support desk makes it easier to have someone else handle your support for you. You can give your support person their own login for the support desk and let them have at it!