Issue 209 - Want A Free Copy of Hits, Clicks & Misses?
Author: The T.E. GuyI’m going to be giving away a copy of my book Hits, Clicks & Misses: The Traffic Exchange Experience every week to a reader of Hit Exchange News. It’s been a while since H.E.N. has had any kind of giveaway so I decided to do one every week from now on.
How do you win? Pretty simple really. Post a comment about the week’s issue. Agree, disagree, like something, hate something. I want to really get not only reader feedback from the newsletter but also get a feel for what people are thinking about traffic exchanges.
Already have a copy? No worries at all, we’ll be sure to get you something of similar value if you win. There is no science to this, as you know I’m very ‘opinionated’ and like to just do things at the drop of a dime. So get those comments posted and let’s talk traffic exchanges!
Have a great week and happy surfing!
Jon Olson
The Traffic Exchange Guy
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New Site Design? “But, |
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The News
- Robert Purcell has come on board to be the full time programmer at I Love Hits. You’d think that this would have happened earlier but being the tech savvy dude that I am, I didn’t get him on board when I should have. However, he’s on board now and we are going to do amazing things at our little traffic exchange that could! Welcome Mr. Purcell, your valuable input and skills are going to be a great asset.
- Magnify Traffic announced that they have some massive changes and a new design on the way. This should be a great bit of news for anyone that uses this program. It’s one of the best custom scripts out there and with the design and changes on the way, should help catapult this program into the traffic exchange elite.
- Get ready for the next massive traffic exchange launch in a few weeks. This is going to rival Traffic Era as the biggest launch of 2008 and I’ve already been test driving this for the past few weeks. It’s going to be a lot of fun and has the potential to become the biggest traffic exchange on the net. Two great guys are behind it, one that I owe a ton of credit to for helping me build my business and the other who has shared countless hours in a rental car with me, traveling from city to city on our way to various seminars. get ready to be IMPRESSED!
- Splash Page Hall of Fame - StartXchange has a new look and a very cool new splash page to go along with it…
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The Famous Hit Exchange News Top 10 (Disclaimer: These are my top performing exchanges for the past week. Alexa rankings and fancy numbers have nothing to do with how I rank my list. This is based on my results and my opinion, nothing more, nothing less.)
1. Traffic Splash
2. Traffic Swarm
3. Dragon Surf
4. Traffic Bunnies
5. Royal Surf
6. TS 25
7. StartXChange
8. Max Traffic Pro
9. Traffic At The Races
10. Traffic Era
Note: Analysis and Tracking by Hits Connect - The Official Link Tracking Service of Hit Exchange News! Sign up today and get your 30% Discount!
Question: Hey Jon, how come I Love Hits, SWAT Traffic and Click Crazey are never on the top 10 list? Since I own them, I feel it would be a conflict of interest to place it on any of my rankings. (But we all know how great they are anyways lol)
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Deep Thoughts - Jon’s Weekly Rambling
I Love Spending Money…
In the traffic exchange industry that is. You know, this may sound corny and just plain silly but I love to pay other traffic exchange owners when I buy credits / page views or upgrade in their program.
Why? What’s with the warm and fuzzy feelings?
Simple, when we are investing in each other’s business, this proves a healthy and growing industry. Everyone benefits when we buy traffic, upgrade in a program or purchase a site of the week or two. You see, the more money that is spent, the more money that goes around in the business.
I used to have a very specific budget that I followed for the first two years of my business. I spent ONLY 75 dollars a month, and this paid for my ad tracking, my hosting, my rotator and mailing list provider. I was left over with a few extra bucks to spend on traffic. And I used it wisely!
After time, it grew and grew and the more money that my businesses earned, the more I spent in other people’s business. It takes the entire ‘co-op advertising’ angle to a whole new level. I scratch your back, you scratch mine I guess. But one thing is for sure, it sure does feel good to see these programs grow and grow…
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Things That Make You Go Hmmm…
- I love the new look of Start Xchange. What a great new layout and color scheme.
- Why do I keep getting reminded that my Web Biz Insider upgrade expired…2 years ago? No matter, I get 100 credits every time I’m reminded…
- A quick reminder that I will be in Toronto next week. If anyone is around the G.T.A., drop me a line. Let’s try to hook up for a coffee and chit chat about…Yeah, traffic exchanges. =)
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I can’t wait to see what new big exchange is going to be launched. Should be interesting to see!
I like looking around for new exchanges to join every now and then and see how the owners are running things. I would say that 80% of the exchanges I run across are actually credit farms where your credits grow but your traffic does not. However, I run across a new exchange like Blue Surf that provides great quality traffic I am more than willing to pledge my money to advertise on their site.
I have tried to make my exchanges evolve from their baseline into something unique and different. I have had the great fortune to work with Robert Purcell with my exchanges and I can vouch that his work is really good. Great addition to your team Jon!
Great informative stuff Jon, I was about to give up on traffic exchanges until I discovered Hit Exchange, MaxTrafficPro and a few others and really started to read and pay attention to what they were trying to tell me on how to use a traffic exchange. Boy, was I going about out at the wrong way. Now I have a whole new prospective and better understanding on how to get the most benefit from them.
Thanks Again, Paul Barksdale
I am watching traffic bunnies. Cindy have been putting in a lot of work on this and just about every week, there something new on her website.
Same as traffic splash those two website seem to be raising the bar into making TE a real serious business.
Hey Jon - here’s hoping I’m the lucky winner. FWIW I have your book in my Amazon shopping cart -but, alas, I haven’t bought it yet. I love your list of best exchanges - always nice to see who’s up there. Keep it up!
Kent F.
A new massive traffic exchange? I am really looking forward to seeing some innovations in the industry and to be impressed. Im hoping I will be.
I am a relatively new TE owner although I too have been “doing them” for years, but I am VERY glad I found your blog here.!
I would like to offer your book for sale to my members! How about setting up some sort of Affiliate program for it???? Whaddya’ think about that????
Also, I have a niche exchange - do you ever write about those?
Thanx! for all your insights and humor.
Claudia Beck
WAHM-Trade Traffic Exchange
http://wahm-trade.com
HEN is always informative; it lets us know what to look for. I enjoy looking at your top ten list to see if it agrees with what mine is and I always get a chuckle out of reading “Things that make you go hmmm…”
I read everything I can that teaches me about IM and would love to have a copy of your book! However, I am on a budget at this time as you once were. Glad you know and understand the feeling
It’s nice having a monthly advertising budget. It’s amazing how much more traffic you can get on TEs with just a few upgraded memberships every month.
Great comments everyone, I’ll get the winner announced tomorrow.
Claudia - Yes, I’ll do features in any niche exchange. And yeah, I’d love to have an affiliate program, but the way it’s set up with Amazon, the only commission is from Amazon itself.
Tom - Yup, that budget worked though. main reason was the upgrades like Jerry mentioned. The upgrades really helped me because I surf a LOT lol
Way to go Jon - You are getting fancy with those FAB’s
Oh and I already have the book so don’t bother - it’s a great read though.
Gratz man on getting Robert. He will be a super addition to your team!
Perhaps we can have some discussion in the future on programs that steal your links…I’ve seen programs that give you an affiliate site and then embed all kinds of links that point away from the main site… some a mixture… i.e. some links have your affiliate url and some don’t. Since most folks delete cookies frequently or on exit of their browser, I think many of us feel we are losing business.
Also, perhaps a mention for those who can’t afford a professional site and are using redirect or framed redirect with meta tags, what the difference is and how it may affect their affiliate sales. I’ve noticed some sell custom domains and charge much higher that what can be purchased on the open market using a simple redirect.
Are frames in your traffic exchanges causing the loss of revenue?
Edward
Hey Jon
I have the book too.. very cool read!
Thanks Nathan for your trafficbunnies comment! It’s keeping me busy - and I am loving it… hehe. It really is fantastic, because now that so many people are surfing and supporting the bunnies I am able to develop it, and do more fun stuff with it - oh, and I am always welcome to any suggestions if you have a cool idea to make it even funner (If that’s even a word.. hey.. it should be!)
Cheers!
Cindy
There does seem to be a lot of the traffic exchanges revamping their websutes and main home pages which is great to see, as with the speed and might of the Internet these days every dollar spent on atracting new`members to their sites is well worth the effort in my opinion.
So keep it up guys and maybe some other exchanges will cotton on to whats happening and do something about the often boring and repetitive home pages seen in the past. So all systems are GO as the THUNDERBIRDS would say….
please note my new web address iis now achates2010c@gmail.com and can delete my name off the list for this site namely achates20101c@yahoo.com.au
Thanks for the great info, Jon. I’m a relative newbie to TE’s even tough I’ve marketed online for a while now. It’s great to have a news source to turn to in this “new for me” ad resource.
Keep up the great work…
Best,
Scott
I’ve been signing up to many TEs over the past month to get a feel for them. I have gone through the new ones and older ones to see how they stack up. I must say I tend to agree with the views of some on Traffic Bunnies and the way it is run by Cindy. At the present time I am thinning them out. Cindie’s penchant for always having something new going off makes it always interesting to keep returning to this TE. As it is in your top picks there, I see that others may have the same thoughts on it.
Malcolm
R. Tom Worthington - O.K. sir, you win this week’s contest and a copy of Hits, Clicks and Misses. If you can e-mail me your mailing address, I’ll ship you a copy of the book.
Thanks everyone, next week I’ll giveaway another copy too!
Darn, does that mean I’m too late Jon! LOL
Guess I’ll have to make do with the 9 copies I have here at home ready to post to some lucky Splashers when I run another surprise promo some day soon
Congrats again on nabbing Robert. I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens at I Love Hits!
cheers
Paul
John please remove that stupid floating box on left of page I can,t click the x its just runs away from me.
Regards
Steve
Jon,
I am a member of several of your exchanges, and I believe you have great promotional abilities however, what about those folks who aren’t owners of hit exchanges? How do they get the traffic they require to make sales? I’m currently signed up in over 45 different traffic exchanges and I try to surf a least a hundred credits on 2 or 3 each day but I don’t recall anyone every telling me that they signed up on my website from a traffic exchange. Is this really just a big waste of time? I’d like your honest opinion. NOTE: if I had to surf on every exchange that I’m signed up on every day, I’d have no life at all…
Signed
Frustrated Internet Marketer
Ken
Ken - Oh they work. The thing is that there has to be multiple things going on for them to work effectively. So branding, tracking and a constant exposure all need to be going at full speed for their to really be an effective promotion.
I’m on the road right now, but send me a line in about a week. Let’s see if we can figure a few things out =)