Traffic Exchanges - Great for List Building

Traffic exchanges seem to be a flocking ground for every kind of online business imaginable. The concept of visiting other marketers' sites in exchange for free credits which will allow you to display your site to 'like' minded consumers/entrepreneurs is wonderful. Many online marketing enthusiasts are cash strapped when it comes to paid advertising. The ability to generate traffic to your website for no cost is attractive and popular. A traffic exchange offers any online business just that opportunity. Like many things however these sites are not without flaws. A common complaint is the amount of time you have to spend 'surfing' for the credits needed to generate a respectable amount of traffic to your website. Another is that this traffic is not very targeted.

Let's discuss here what it is we need to do to effectively use both our time and our results when attempting to increase traffic to our own websites using a traffic exchange.

Firstly the claim that 'surfing' for credits is time consuming is accurate. Now the question is how can we better use this time.

By enrolling at more then just one exchange you can align them on different tabs of your browser. When you open them simultaneously you can now skip from one exchange to the next when you're surfing for credits. This will allow for you to multiple the results of surfing efforts within the same amount of time.

Firefox and IE 7 both have this multiple tab feature so there's no need to purchase or add any additional software to accomplish this. Now we have to face the issue of the lack of targeted traffic you receive from these exchange sites. Actually we're going to alter our marketing strategy concerning what it is we're attempting to accomplish for our online business.

Targeted traffic is considered website traffic that is most likely interested in making a purchase of the product you offer, right? Well the pool of 'participants' found at most exchanges is very mixed. It would be unreasonable to expect to find potential customers that fit the profile you would need to buy your 'unique' product. Here's where we shift our marketing strategy to better fit the audience we're advertising to.

Instead of trying to sell our particular products to this audience our attention needs to be more focused on list building. By setting up a landing page and driving the traffic to that instead of our sales page you will have a better chance of collecting names.

Of course you'll want to offer a free gift
in exchange for their contact information so make it something they find useful.

Assuming most people at a traffic exchange are interested in either making money online or generating more traffic for their business we can now better target their needs.

Now you are marketing your landing page with a free giveaway more directly related to the wants or needs of the audience found at an exchange site. In return you're building a list in which you can direct your online marketing efforts towards in the future.

Traffic exchanges can be frustrating and time consuming unless you change your expectations and the way you work them. By better coordinating your efforts and focusing on list building, you will find that these exchanges are well worth the time invested.