How to Drive Traffic to Your Web Site Using Traffic Exchanges

So you've made a killer website and you figure that you can just sit back and wait for the traffic to flow in right? This is a common misconception. Website traffic just doesn't work like that. It can take time for Google to crawl and index your site. What can you do in the meantime? Enter traffic exchanges.

Traffic exchanges have been in use for over ten years. In this article I will give you step by step instructions on how to select and get the most out of this tool.

1. Step 1
   

   Simply Googling "traffic exchange" will get you no where fast. You will get over one hundred seventy million search results for that. You will see traffic exchange sites on the first page but how do you know that these exchanges are worth your time and effort? Try Googling for "Traffic exchange forum" instead.
   
   Join one or more of the forums and open threads asking for information on which exchange is the best. Tally up the results and go with the one that is recommended the most.

2. Step 2
   
   Take advantage of forums

   In order to join a traffic exchange site you will have to give them your email. For this purpose I suggest using a disposable email address. If you do not know how to do this please look down to the resources section where I have linked to an article that shows how to do it. The process is free and easy and will protect your email account from spam.
   
   Once you've signed up for the traffic exchange site you will have to log in and click on the "surf now" button, or something similer. Their site will place you in a website feed that you move through by clicking on a button. You click through websites in order to gain credits.
   
   Even the best traffic exchange sites have a pretty bad ratio, usually 3:1. This means that for every three websites that you view one other user will view your website once.
   
   All of these sites offer a paid membership option that gives one a better ratio but I do not recommend this. You are only required to stay on a particular page for ten seconds or so. It does not take long to accumulate views.

3. Step 3
   
   Stand out!

   Before you put all of this effort into driving this traffic to your site you should be aware that unless your content stands out it will do you little good to get these views. The people viewing your content at the traffic exchange site are advertisers themselves and remember that they've been viewing ads for several minutes or hours before yours comes up.
   
   Because of this it is best that the page that you submit to the traffic exchange be as ad free as possible. The site that you use should be eye catching but not in a commercial way. For example, you may consider submitting a blog that is related to the subject of what you are selling. Link the blog to your commercial website and make sure that the blog is attractive and engaging.
   
   The traffic exchange site users will be relieved to get a break from those horrid squeeze-pages that make up ninety nine percent of the feed and are more likely to actually look at your content or even bookmark you. Never submit a squeeze-page to a traffic exchange site; this is a waste of time.

Warning!

• It's better to focus on using one traffic exchange site than trying to use two or more at once. Otherwise you will find it very difficult to get any work done.
• If you are thinking of promoting a site in hopes of increasing the number of clicks on ads on your page then be aware that Google frowns on this.