I woke up today and saw a link to Tony Tezak’s blog where he posted about why he dislike’s surfing contests in the traffic exchanges. You see, Tony and I have been doing this traffic exchange thing for over a decade and while we share the same passion for this business, our views tend to differ on many issues.

He made his point, you know I had to make mine =)

I love surfing the traffic exchanges first and foremost. Most owners that tell you how to surf and show you how to ‘properly’ promote yourself in this business rarely, if ever, surf the exchanges. So please remember, when I write about these programs…I actually use them.

Why do I love surfing contests?

Simple, it adds excitement. It gets people talking. It brings focus to my business. It creates a vibrant community like nothing else in the exchanges. Now I would see the argument if I was rewarding a ‘Blu Ray’ player every week, but I give away these kind of prizes once every 3 or 4 months. Yes, a constant barrage of ‘prizes’ would hurt. But again, this is only a few times a year I do these big giveaways.

But what’s the point?

Why should you get involved when you see these types of events? Take for example my site, I Love Hits. When there is a surfing contest taking place, the ‘in surf’ chat comes alive. So much networking. So many people getting to know each other and build strong relationships. It’s really quite remarkable. And it’s the most effective way people can build their businesses…Building their circle of influence.

So much so that I would argue, getting involved in the surfing contests and being active in the chat and system itself is so much more powerful than just surfing for credits. There is so much more to these events then just the surfing and if people SURFED and saw how active the chat is, I think then they would see how slamming my surf contests is really shooting themselves in the foot. I dunno but I think one must be active in the traffic exchanges and the contests to comment on them.

The community at I Love Hits is built by a SURFER for surfers! The networking is among some of the best you can do in this business so the next time I have a prize giveaway at I Love Hits, stop by and say hi. I can almost guarantee you that the relationships you build while these contests are taking place can be the most rewarding part of your traffic exchange advertising.

Give it a try…You will be surprised!

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A quick review of Hit Exchange News will show you that I’m not a fan of cash for surfing. I still believe to this day that when this became the ‘norm’ in this industry, results were lowered. A huge shift happened in the way people surf the traffic exchanges…And it was not for the best.

However, I’m not just going to have an opinion without explaining it more and offering a solution.

Cash for surfing comes in a lot of different forms. Now a program like Easy Hits 4 U was built on the cash for surfing model. This I don’t have issues with because it never tried to be anything else. I like Easy Hits 4 U, heck I’ve got a downline of over 27,000 in it but when I promote there I know the majority of people are surfing for their 30 cents. No problem, I’ll use it for branding purposes and I do get results there but I know it’s going to take a lot of credits to see some action.

Again, this is just my opinion and experience, some people get massive results from the program and that’s cool. I just know what I’m signing up for, it’s the same thing I expect when I advertise in the PTC’s.

Where I have issues with cash surfing is not only the enormous amount of garbage emails that these traffic exchanges are sending of late (I mean seriously, how many times a week do I have to hear about $1.50 or $2.50 cash links becoming active….) but from the mind set it creates with surfers.

When traffic exchanges started it was as simple as this…Surf and look at sites…In return, you get people looking at your site.
So simple and one of the reasons I think traffic exchanges are so effective. But now we have another reason people surf and that’s to earn their 25 cents for surfing two thousand pages…

So while these people may be taking an odd glance or two at your site, what they are really looking at is how many more clicks is it going to take them to earn their cash reward. Now some people will argue, there is nothing wrong with rewarding people with a cash prize or two for surfing all day but I disagree. Simply because the mind set of the surfer changes the moment you focus on the end reward of cash gifting which I’m sorry to say, isn’t getting traffic to their site, branding their name or heaven forbid…Building their list.

But Jon…You have Bracket Surfing at I Love Hits and you are giving away prizes like iPod’s and Flip HD cameras. Yes I am, but I have made a major change in Bracket Surfing to bring the focus back to USING the system for the right reasons. You can read more about that here.

But Jon…You dislike cash for surfing but what are you doing to change it….

Sweeva’s Widget Hunt

With our new feature at Sweeva, we are trying to not only get users and advertisers to work together and get rewarded together, we are trying to keep eye balls where we should have them…On the web sites. This new feature makes sure people are LOOKING at your site and poking around to find the Widgets. Yeah they may have an end goal of clicking the Widget for a potential prize but the main thing is this…To get that prize, they have to search and LOOK at your site.

A perfect solution? Naw, nothing is ever perfect but we’re working on making Sweeva THE most effective advertising exchange on the net. And I truly believe, the more we focus on the sites in rotation and less on the surf bar telling us we won a dime, we will see focus come back to the real reason traffic exchanges exist…

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