The pulse of the traffic exchange industry and the random ramblings of Jon Olson (that's me!)
I've been writing Hit Exchange News since 2003 and have been involved in the traffic exchanges for over a decade. Enjoy the 'news', and thank you so much for making this THE must-read traffic exchange blog on the internet!
So it’s official! I’m no longer a resident of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and I am finally moved into my new home in Edmonton, Alberta. It feels good to start a new life in a new province and hey it makes it all better when the city is home to your second favorite hockey team…
Let’s just put it this way though, moving SUCKS and I’m so glad to be done with it.
I didn’t get a chance to be as active as I usually am this past week but still there was plenty of news and trends happening in the traffic exchange industry. Here’s what I noticed during the past week or so…
- Sweeva hit 20,000 members! Boy oh boy was I pumped when I saw it click over. I’ve been a part of a lot of programs during my decade plus in this business but nothing has excited me more than seeing the growth of Sweeva and the massive potential it has. Special thanks to EVERYONE who has made this such an amazing experience…We are just getting started!
- We hit 20% of our goal at Traffic Exchanges Care. Over $1000 has been raised so far to fight water shortage around the world but we still need your help. Special thanks to Winter Perkins for creating that amazing new splash page. Please feel free to use it or download the image and use it wherever you can! We need your help, so please donate if you can spare a dollar or two =)
- T.E. Profits got a major overhaul and was relaunched this week. I’m upset that I didn’t get to give this the attention it deserved with my moving obligations. And Scott Douglas, in my opinion, is the perfect example of someone who ‘gets it’ when it comes to making money WITH traffic exchanges. He doesn’t own one but still manages to be one of the most popular and effective traffic exchange advertisers in history. T.E. Profits is a must join for any serious traffic exchange marketer.
- I was pretty upset this weekend too for getting a Pay Pal dispute filed against me from a FELLOW traffic exchange owner. This pretty much left me ranting away in NMF and caused me to potentially lose some business but to be honest, when someone files a false dispute against you, doesn’t attempt at all to call you and work the issue out and it’s from another traffic exchange owner…Well…Good riddance. Filing unwarranted Pay Pal disputes is BAD for our entire industry!
- And finally, I’m thrilled to see all the changes taking place at IM Faceplate. The guys at Logiscape are really trying to build something special here and slowly this is becoming a wonderful place to grow your network. Remember, all this internet marketing stuff is useless without a solid network of contacts. Get out there and meet your fellow surfers!
That’s it for this week. We’re also back every day at T.E. Live, so do stop by for some water cooler chit chat and maybe a Tim Linden ‘blend or two’…
We’re a little bit early this week for the new issue of Hit Exchange News, mainly because I’m trying to buy a home 500 kilometers from where I presently live. This means lots of travel, road trips and headaches abound. So I thought I better write this week’s issue early instead of trying to get it done in the hotel room…
Anyways, enough about my offline life, let’s get down to business…
I’m going to be sending a special email tomorrow about a very cool new program being launched by Darren Olander. For those that don’t recognize the name, Darren launched one of the most unique and fascinating traffic exchanges of the year, List Surfing.
This program not only combined everything good about a traffic exchange, he incorporated a ‘safelist’ model into the program that essentially let you earn traffic without any effort at all. Seems crazy but it worked and is still working extremely well.
What Darren (and his new program) will focus on is something very near and dear to my heart….List building. Heck, one of his first programs is called List Surfing so you know this guy is all about the power of building solid lists.
Look for a special update tomorrow and I know you are going to love what Darren has in store, I’ve been playing with the program all day today and I was hooked from the first minute….It’s going to rock =)
Thank you very much for being a reader of Hit Exchange News and have a wonderful week!
- We’ve added Farm Traffic to the Super Surf traffic exchanges. Every 2 weeks we add a featured program to the ‘Core Four’ and this time around we’re honored to have Dee Dee Medcoff’s Farm Traffic. Surf now and earn up to 60% bonus on every page viewed…
- Traffic Taxis has a bunch of cool new features. From REAL marketing surveys, to a brand new slot machine (spin the wheel for bonus credits) to a very cool little blog directory / ranking service, Taxis has done a ton in the past few weeks. Great to see new features like this being added.
- If you need a daily dose of traffic exchange news and happenings in the fun filled world of T.E.’s look no further than this very cool blog called Traffic Exchange News. This cool reporting site lets you know of surf specials, bonus surfing, cash for surfing and other promotions going on DAILY in the T.E. industry.
- Notice: Cast your vote today for your favorite traffic exchanges at Affiliate Funnel’s Surfer’s Choice ranker. This is YOUR voice and YOUR opinion on what traffic exchanges you feel are the best in the business. Be sure to vote every day and get your opinion heard!
- Splash Page Hall of Fame – This is a featured product from CBPirate but just goes to show the quality of squeeze and splash pages this program produces! Note: Why do I focus on splash pages every week? Simple, you MUST be using them in the traffic exchanges to get results. Get a custom made splash page by clicking here!
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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.)
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 and SWAT Traffic 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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Flip Your Downline, Fill Your Funnel!
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Deep Thoughts – Jon’s Weekly Rambling
Are We Destroying The Traffic Exchange Industry?
I’ve been talking about this topic for quite some time now, but today I wanted to speak directly to the owners of these programs that are training their members not to surf. Obviously, I’m not naive enough to think that surfing the traffic exchanges for hours on end is ‘sexy’. In fact some days it can be down right boring, but how much harm are we doing when we create an entire culture of people against surfing?
Here’s what will happen owners, if you continue to tell people not to surf. You will hurt the same business (the traffic exchanges) that has CREATED and feed your programs. These things need a healthy mix of paying members and free members. If you have too much of either, your traffic exchange cannot survive.
So by running around, creating splash and squeeze pages that train people not to surf you are in fact, biting the hand that feeds you.
I know, I know…It’s all about marketing, and getting your message across. That’s cool, I know a lot of T.E. owners appreciate very much the business you have brought them. But perhaps you should attack this from another angle. How about instead of saying ‘Stop Surfing’, how about something like ‘Learn to surf 30 minutes a day and finally see the results you want…” or something along those lines.
Folks, if the traffic exchanges are to survive, we need a healthy community of surfers. I’m still in these things daily, surfing as much as I can and I’ve been doing this for a decade. Surfing can be very informative and very beneficial to your business…If you do it properly.
So I say, keep surfing! Enjoy it, learn from it and prosper. Maximize your results by surfing smarter!
- I know Alert Pay is a revolving door of questions but DANG it’s such a cool payment processor. So easy to use and yes, they are starting to really get serious about how they operate…
- “How am I going to live today in order to create the tomorrow I’m committed to?” – Tony Robbins
