Winning The Hit Exchange Game
"How do I get more traffic to my web site?" That's the eternal question. Or to be more precise, "How do I get more targeted traffic to my pages, people who are going to be interested in what I have to offer?"
After all, there is no point, or rather little point in getting a steady stream of boxing fans over to your site, if its main theme is bread making. There are some boxing enthusiasts who are also avid bread makers, but what would be likelihood of getting that many over to your bread making site at any given time?
One method of getting targeted traffic to your site is through the hit exchanges. Now despite what you may have heard about them, we urge you to give us a chance to explain, why, if hit exchanges are used in a certain way, they can be a great source of targeted visitors. Warm responsive prospects who want to know more about your site and/or business.
Put simply, a hit exchange is a facility that you can use to get hits to your site in exchange for viewing other people's sites. Not all exchanges are created equal and two of the main things to look out for when picking which ones to join are:
- Anti cheat controls: the top hit exchanges have tight anti cheat security which prevents the use of auto surf software. While the use of such programs is very tempting and attractive, it kind of defeats the point of the hit exchanges. There will be more on this later on.
- The exchange ratio: just how many sites will you need to view in order to get one visitor to your site? The smaller the amount of pages you have to visit in order to get a hit back to your own site, the more productive your surfing time will be.
The traffic that comes from hit exchanges has been called a number of things, none of which are particularly savory - cheese burger traffic, a waste of bandwidth, a cheap gimmick.
The thing with hit exchanges is that you've got to know how to use them, otherwise your results will be disappointing. But if you apply these three tips you may be pleasantly surprised.
So let us go straight to....
No.1: Create a special page for the traffic exchanges.
The maximum amount of time that your site will be given to load is 30 seconds and the last thing you want is a slow loading page. It needs to:
- load quickly which will mean being very sparing with the graphics and animation.
- put across the greatest benefit for visiting your site very clearly
- have a quick and easy way for surfers to bookmark your page. This is very important. When surfing for hits, you get into a kind of flow, one you don't really want to interrupt. Having a favorites button will ensure that people who are pushed for time can always come back and view your page later.
If you have links to other sites on your special page, it is best if they open in new windows. That way your visitor doesn't have to leave the hit exchange.
It is also a good idea to have some form of email capture facility on your page. Offer surfers something free in exchange for their email address or use a subscription box to get sign ups for your newsletter.
here is a sample page: Unlimited Traffic
No.2: Choose hit exchanges that allow you to select which category your site falls into.
This way, it will be viewed by surfers who have also chosen this category or similar categories. So your search optimization site won't get shown to surfers interested in action/adventure games
Some exchanges also let you pick the type of sites you want to see
No.3: Use hit exchanges that don't allow cheating
Remember we touched on this earlier? It is so important. Put bluntly, hit exchanges that allow cheating aren't worth too much of your time.
Why? Because while you are faithfully clicking away, and viewing other people's sites, yours never gets seen because X number of surfers in that exchange aren't really surfing at all. In fact they're using some form of surf automation software that is busy doing the "clicking" for them
This really does defeat the point of traffic exchanges which is to give some of your time to view other people's sites to receive the time of fellow hit exchange members.
Anti cheating controls can take the form of having to click on a certain number or shape before you can proceed on to the next page and earn a hit to your site.
Other types include acknowledging receipt of bonus credits and some even offer cash prizes that you need to claim
You may have heard a lot of bad things about hit exchanges but don't be put off by them
As with most forms of advertising, starting off with free offers and then marketing your main product's and service's will always work better than trying to sell something straight away
This is especially true of hit exchanges where people's main focus is surfing for credits
Apply the three tips above for better results, and while surfing, take an interest in other people's pages. Learn from their mistakes and try and emulate their successes. And you never know, while looking through other people's sites, you might very well come across that elusive product, service or bit of information that you've been searching for.
Here are two samples of fair hit exchange programs:
