Author Archives: Nancy Radlinger

Judging a Traffic Exchange

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judgingcatAround the TE world, I know that you have heard many, many reasons why a person joins a site and thought I’d share some of the things that I have heard on how people are judging a traffic exchange.  Why did you click that join button?

Design

This is one that I hear from most that you have to have a fancy expensive design or people are not going to join – a fancy design will get them to join.

Owner/Admin

Well this is one that personally I feel that will make or break a site.  If the owner is never around to keep the site running smoothly, approving sites, and answering support tickets – that makes me wonder why the site exists.

qualityTraffic/Exposure

This one I have heard a lot about – quality vs quantity and I find this interesting as there are so many different points of view on this one.  Personally, if you track what you are doing you will see where your results are coming from.

Referrals

Do you get any signups from this site – and do you if you are – you have to be tracking to know for sure.  Some sites have a mod that will tell you where your referrals came from, do you know?  When you win referrals, are you getting active referrals or just some number in the system just so they can say they gave you a free referral.

Cash/earning potential

This one of the most talked about and where you like it or not, personally I feel cash is here to stay.  Now the key is how do you get that cash and what is the earning potential of the site.  Does the site pay free members, do you have to be upgraded, is there a certain amount to reach to be paid AND does the owner pay

Activity of the Site

Thought this one was interesting when listening in some of the chat rooms – this could include timers. promos, team surfing, chat – sometimes you learn alot from just lurking and listen to what others are saying.  What do you consider an active site.

711a9ba4f608404a8216d90Promotion/Advertising

Does the site give you plenty of options for promoting your referral url or just have the basics – main url, 1 splash, 1 banner?  Do you see the site you just joined being promoted by others?  Can you brand yourself with this site?  What is this site doing to help me?

Themes/Ad Copy

Personally, I feel that your advertising on each site should be geared toward the viewers of a particular site and with a little imagination a great page that will convert could be made.  AND how about the same generic ad copy on the main page – this is one of the most over-looked areas – with all the sites out there tell me WHY I need to click that join button.

Well I can see that I could go on and on here and please as you leave comments I’d like to hear from you on your thoughts on judging a traffic exchange.

Maintenance Checklist

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maintenance2When a person is on their computer as much as I am there are sometimes that you can tell when something just isn’t doing what it’s suppose to be doing or you catch yourself saying to yourself wonder why it did that – well I drop what I’m doing and get out my maintenance checklist.

In answering support tickets, I hear so many people having issues with a variety of things and there don’t seems to be any logical reason – well when that happens to me the first thing I do is stop everything that I’m doing and do what I call my maintenance.  Now I know you don’t expect your vehicle to keep running smooth without after a certain amount of miles – you stop and do maintenance.

You computer is your vehicle and even tho you have an anti-virus system on board – it’s like the vehicle you drive – things happen.  After all the miles you put on your vehicle, when you are using that vehicle everyday – you can just tell when something just isn’t right – well that is how I feel about my online vehicle – go by your gut – if it’s doing things that are just not normal and you are thinking why did it do that – do your maintenance.

Maintenance Checklist

1.  Clean all your cookies
2.  Clean your history, all temp files, caches
3.  Run your anti-virus (I know you are thinking I have it on auto to run – well run it again)
4.  Run Malewarebytes
5.  Run Spybot
6. Reboot,  test your computer again still not acting right
7. Do all of the above in the safe mode (when booting up hit F8 and that will get you to the safe mode)
8. Reboot,  and test your computer again

maintenanceNow when I get to this point and it still doesn’t seem to be right then I go and bring out the big guns lololol  Run ESET online scanner.  The last time I ran this after all the other security that I have this program found 2 Trojans and 6 other things that I had no clue what they were – after that cleaning – knock on wood – my computer has been lot faster, has been working great and don’t see those strange things happening.

So hope this helps you to at least know some things to try when things just don’t seem right with your computer.  To keep this handy, I just opened notepad and copied all these things to do so this forgetful mind don’t miss a step and named it Maintenance Checklist.

 

Are you suffering from surfing boredom

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boredomIt’s interesting when you lurk in the chat rooms at what you can listen to and all of a sudden a blog post idea pops up.  While surfing some promos today, I heard people talking about needing more coffee to wake up and that they were having a hard time staying awake so the question popped in my head – are you suffering from surfing boredom?????

If you answered this with a yes – well there could be many reasons why and going to list a few of them here.

Same ole, same ole ads

This can be boring on many sites if the members are seeing the same home page after another – you have heard me preach time and time again – make your page stand out do something different that will wake up that surfer.  Now I know you are thinking well I don’t know how to design pages and not creative – well have you tried?  If you think you CAN or you think you CANT…. you are probably right…….Henry Ford.

One ad after another

Have you ever been on a site and it’s just one ad after another – there is nothing to break up the routine – you are thankful to get to a bonus page as it woke you up.   Personally, when I’m surfing, I need something that is going to make me do something beside click, click, click.

Alot of people don’t agree with having games on sites  but personally I feel they break up the boredom.  On my site I have been testing things and have found that members are paying attention as weekly they have a new Treasured Site to find from clues in the emails and they have a chance to win an upgrade.  Also, I pick a text ad from the site and have them look for it and they have to click on it and send in the name of the site for a chance to get a free referral.

When this first started, I got maybe 5 – 6 support tickets but I’m so proud of my members as those support tickets are up to 50 – 60 a week now.  Now I know some owners are going OMG on that many tickets – but you know what is great to me – that has opened up the line of communication with me and my members and to my surprise I have some really smart “cats” out there (hehe)

So the next time you are surfing, think about it – does playing hangman wake up you up and are you more alert on the next pages that you view.  How about clicking on those frown faces – didn’t they wake you up and surfing didn’t seem so boring afterwards.

Same sales copy

“If you’re not using Manual Traffic exchanges you’re leaving 100’s and 1000’s of subscribers and Referrals on the table.”

How many of you have seen this and think oh no another same ole, same ole site well when I see this I’m am surfing boredom before I even get inside.  To me it tells me that the owner don’t care about making his/her site unique to them and I really don’t care how great your traffic is, what you offer on the inside – having this on your main page sends out a message to others – this is your place to add some excitement – make them want to join and come in and see what you offer on the inside.  JMO

So I ask again “Are you suffering from surfing boredom” think about how you can get some excitement in the exchange that you are surfing or the site that you own.

“You don’t have to be great to get started but you have to get started to be great.” – Les Brown

So You Want Your Own Traffic Exchange

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Well after reading blogs this week, attending the Friday wrap meeting, I thought this would be a great blog post.  So You Want Your Own Traffic Exchange.

questions3There are certain things that should be considered before you jump into owning your own site and this speaking for a TE Owner that learned alot the hard way.

First of all – the name of your site – it needs to be unique – you need to do some research on a theme, will your domain name be different from the zillion that are already out there, will it be easy to brand you or your theme.  Why would someone join your site vs all the other sites that are already out there?  What are you going to do different so that people will want to join your site? Why are you starting your site?  Do you have a business plan?  Do you have money to invest? These are questions that a person should answer before you even get a domain name.

Next in my book – is how long have you used traffic exchanges, how long have you been surfing.  Do you know the TE language?  What is a framebreaker?  Do you know how to get around in a cpanel? Can you explain to someone what your surf ratio is?  Have you compared memberships on other sites?  Do you know the difference in credits earned and hits delivered?  How well do you write ad copy, know HTML, any designing skills, good public relations person, etc.  I could keep going as when I started I sure did not know the many hats that a person had to wear.

Before you think that traffic exchange owners have it made and are just rolling in money – think again.  It’s very hard work – and something that I didn’t keep in mind is that that the internet is open 365 days a year 24/7.

Yea I know most of you think that things run smoothly because your favorites sites are always there for you BUT believe me things do not happen at a convenient time – they are going to happen on your spouse bday, on your kid’s graduation, your kid’s or grandkid’s wedding day – these are things that you need to consider before you tie yourself down.

The other thing is how techie are you?  Are you going to be able to fix things when your site has problems or will have to hire someone?  I know this is lot of questions but you need to think about all this and more.

I personally have been thru all the above and more and really don’t want to see anyone else go thru all this and not know.   Being a surfer for many years, researching, reading everything I could find  and even doing admin work on TE’s before buying,  I really thought, I was ready and then made one mistake after another – the major one buying an existing TE with the name Zaney Clicks – sure didn’t think that one out – where is the freaking theme for a name like that.

Oh I can laugh about it now but believe me there were many tears shed before I got to this point and alot of “what were you thinking”  BUT by accident a friend of mine found some cats one day flipping up in the air and said he thought of me as they were Zaney looking and now you know the rest of story on why cats rule on Zaney.

zcheader

The bottom line here is buying a domain, adding hosting and throwing up a script is not the way to launch a traffic exchange.  So you want your own traffic exchange – do your homework, research and planning that it takes and be prepared to put in some very long, long hours OR if you don’t want to do that have a nice bank roll for outsourcing – you are going to need it.

If you are wanting to open your own and would like to get the script that I have then you can just click this LFMTE and be on your way

 

Branding – is it worth the time

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brand It’s interesting when I first came online and started learning, I had a friend of mine tell me that to make it online you have to learn to sell yourself, brand yourself and at the time I thought right – who is going to want to know about me.  Well I learned fast that he was right and I have some examples today that I’d like to share and then you tell me – Branding – is it worth the time

You know it’s funny as actor/actress have been doing this for many years when you think about it and it don’t necessarily have to be your name – example when you hear these lines does an actor/actress come to mind

I’ll Be Back – right away you picture Arnold in the Terminator
May the Force Be With You – didn’t Star Wars pop in your mind
There’s No Place Like Home –  didn’t Dorothy pop in your head from the Wizzard of Oz
Go Ahead, Make My Day – Can’t forget Clint Eastwood
Beam Me Up Scotty – can’t forget Star Trek

Well you can do the same thing online and I have been watching many people in the traffic exchange industry to the same

Flash – didn’t you think about Jo right away and no name was not used
Splash – bet the dolphin popped in your head right away
Tezak – and bet you are a tezzer now

Now I could go on and on with examples – you don’t necessarily have to use your name to brand yourself – but you do need to have something that will make people think of your of your site right away.

 

So think about it some and then leave me a comment – Branding – is it worth the time?

brand3

Promote, Promote, Promote – Does It Pay?

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promote2So often I get asked how do I earn money online and what is it that I do that causes me to get so many referrals, earn commissions and grow my sites.  The bottom answer is promote, promote, promote – Does It Pay?

Well I have some examples that I would like to share with you and some of the mistakes that I have made and what I have learned over the years.  First of all I hear so many talk about not having their own program so don’t know what to do and that was my first excuse that I used.  Well the first thing I suggest doing is find a program and become an affiliate for the program.

Now I’m not just saying join a bunch of sites and throw out your referral links – I’m saying find a program and yes it can be a traffic exchange, a product someone has created or a program that is something that will benefit others.  It took me many years to get this thru my head but finally that light bulb went on.

I know most of you have seen the page that I created and plastered it all over – and this is why I tell you all the time do something that is going to be different, something that will pause the member when they are surfing, and yes I also use mailers but everyone got to see this page Hot Flash Hits .

Now for all of you that grab a referral link and pop it in here and there and add say 1000 credits to it and then think wow well this site didn’t work – well after watching the hits that this page and anything that I promote gets 1000 is NOT enough these days to get you the results you are looking for.  The problem that I see so many doing is giving up before doing all they can to make it work.

You see when I believe in a program, I keep at it – promote, promote, promote – does it pay?  Yes it does and all I can say is find something that you really believe in, learn that program, and then get out there a do everything you can think to do to tell people about that program.  It can be a splash page, a blog post, a video, sending out solos on the mailers and safelist, etc – try it all – track what you are doing and your will soon find what works for you.

resultsYes I said YOU, I can sit here all day and tell you what I am doing but what is working for you may not work for you and what you find that will work for you might not work me me or anyone else.  BUT if you don’t do something – take action – you will NOT get results.  So stop making excuses, stop blaming everyone that you are not earning money – get out there and take some action.

 

Spamming for Referrals

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spammingWell most of you know me and that I am a traffic exchange owner but also a mega surfer and I can only go for so long on things that I see is wrong and have to bring attention to what I see happening and thus this post Spamming for Referrals.

Is this post going to be well liked – probably not –  as this is  going to really piss some people off. The first situation that I want to bring out in the open is what I see happening in public CHAT Rooms.  Because I surf so much, I lurk in alot of rooms and it’s amazing how much wheeling and dealing I see going on.  EVERY DAY I watch people swapping links in the chat rooms and it’s I will join any site you want if you join my site so that they can get a referral.

Now I understand that getting referrals are important and pressure is put on lot of people trying to win a referral contest BUT just my opinion this is spamming.  You are adding a link to your profile page and swapping with someone else for their link.  I maybe old school but I feel that the people that are doing this is devaluing the traffic exchange industry.

The idea behind traffic exchanges is that you add your site, surf and view others site in exchange for them viewing yours.  When you are swapping links in public chat rooms you are not setting a good example at all – you are only teaching others to spam.  My personal opinion is that you are putting the message out that traffic exchanges don’t work and you have to resort to this method of getting referrals.  If I am thinking this all wrong, please someone tell me your logic.

One more thing to say on this one is let me ask you a question – if you are getting referrals by spamming in chat rooms – what type of referral are they – to me they are just a number and I don’t know about you but I want more than just a number – I want someone that will be ACTIVE and not just a number.  I want someone that wants to learn, wants to be an active surfer and get results, wants to give the traffic exchange an chance to prove that they work.

So, If you want me to join your program or site then add it to Zaney Clicks. I join new sites all the time BUT I join them from members that are getting referrals the way traffic exchanges are meant to work – adding their site, adding credits and letting me view them inside the traffic exchange..

It’s just that simple everyone – and unless you are willing to do it this way – then don’t you spread rumors that traffic exchanges don’t work because I know they do.  Thanks for listening and will love to hear your opinion now that you have listened to mine.

What is the difference in 50, 100, 125, 150, 200

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thinkingToday while I was surfing some of the promos that were out there, it was interesting how many different amounts were out there the amount of pages that were required to be eligible for the prizes so was got to thinking what is the difference in 50, 100, 125, 150 200.

Now I know many owners role is to get as many views to their sites that they can and I understand that most have their own preference.  From an owners point of view I know it is important to get as many eyeballs on a members site as you can but I have been watching my promos and the amount of people that surf at these different amounts.

No I’m not going to bore you will all my stats but what I am going to tell you that when I do a promo where members have to surf 50 pages at each site – I see two things – I see MORE member surfing and most of the time they surf more than the 50 pages.

Now I have been trying to figure this out and think that the reason that this happens is that members don’t feel the pressure to surf that they do with the larger amounts.  Also, I feel that when surfing at a more relaxed pace they view what they are seeing more.

With my stats, I have been seeing good results with surfing 100 as for the same reasons but see a drop in the amount of people that surf when the numbers go to 125, 150 and 200.  I have also been watching the amounts with the promo codes and also am seeing the same results.

With all the promos that I have, I have also had a few surfers thank me for not having so many pages as their feelings are they belong to many exchanges and like when they don’t have the pressure of too many pages – that way they can surf at more sites in the long run.

So I thought I’d do a post and would love to hear from other owners and surfers on what your opinion is on the difference in 50, 100, 125, 150, 200.

Are you just a number?

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anothernumberIt’s interesting as I was surfing this weekend of the things that I noticed and  one of the things that I saw was people in the chat rooms swapping their links to be a referral for each other and that got me to thinking are you just a number.

When you join a site do you know the person you joined under, do they contact you, do they try to help you if you have questions or are you just a number.  Personally, I want some attention from my upline (person I joined under) not that I want to bug them but want to know that they are there if I have questions.

There are so many times that I have joined different programs and it’s not long I feel I get lost in the numbers and I can understand that as a person’s list get bigger – BUT there are many ways to keep the doors of communication open and one way is doing what I’m doing here – blogging – give your upline a place to go where they can hear from you, teach them something, answer some questions so it helps everyone in your downline 004I054YQm2

The other thing would be your emails – do you send out emails that just keep wanting people to buy or do you try and help the people that are on the other end.  This is one of the ways that I think people don’t do enough and then they wonder why they are not earning money or getting more referrals.  Stop chasing the quick easy money – reset your mind and the money will come.

If you have let your downline become just another number – then maybe you should take a look at your downline again – ask yourself why are they there – did they join because of what you were offering and then afterwards just become another number on your list.

Did they join under you because they wanted someone to teach them, they wanted to be your referral because you presented yourself as a teacher or mentor – well do you?

Or did you join with the intention of just being just a number – you joined just to get a referral to another program or to win a contest and have no intention in giving the program you joined a chance to show you it works.  This happens so often – you join then your upline drops the ball because you were just a number to them – you were not taught how to use the program, you had questions that you couldn’t find the answers, etc. – and what happens after that – you get disgusted and quit – so I’m just saying think about it the next time that you join a new program or someone is bugging you to be a referral for them – are you just a number OR will it benefit you the way it needs to,

That is why it’s important that you back up and remember your “why” and if you don’t know your “why” then stop everything that you are doing until you have your “why”   This will help you understand if you fall into the rut of “are you just a number” OR if you are going to treat this like a business so that you can learn and teach – because if you can do that then the earn follows – just that simple.

Drop It and Forget It

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Today I have been going thru my sites and cleaning and it’s amazing how it seems that so many members (me included sometimes) just put a link, banner etc in a site and do what I call drop it and forget it.

guiltyIt was amazing how many banners that I deleted today because the image was not showing and it’s not all your fault as if you are like me you jump in and jump out of sites and see if you need to add credits, banner and text impressions.

Well don’t waste you credits, banner and text impressions on nothing being there – so many times the site might change things – delete splash pages and add new ones and all of a sudden your favorite one is not being seen and unless you checking on them once in awhile – in your mind you might blame the site when it’s not the site’s fault.

Grant you, it’s gotten better over the years and there are scripts that will kick out a bad URL and thank to some members they will report them so that site owner can take them out of rotation.  But let me ask you – how many of you are so busy to get to the next site that you don’t take the time to hit that report button? hmmmmmmm

Well I use to do that when I first started because the word report was like I’m telling on someone and didn’t want to cause problems.  BUT you are actually helping a fellow member and the site owner and that is a good thing.  So the next time you see a page that it says that the site is not available, can’t find site, etc – take a few seconds to hit that report button.

Now I know you are thinking I don’t have time to do that as some sites don’t seem to care what is showing and why should I help them out.  Well there are a couple reasons that I report them – as that is less competition and my site will come up faster in rotation getting the bad sites out.

The other reason is I’m from the old school and if that was my site – I would WANT someone to report it for me so I can make the change.  So I try to do what I would want someone to do for me.

So the next time you are in adding credits, banner and text impressions and have not viewed your sites, banner and text ads – take a few minutes and view them – don’t be one of those members that just goes from site to site and drop it and forget it.

Don’t feel bad either and where I see this the most is in the mailers, text ad sites and even paid to click sites – and that is even worse as the site owner is paying someone to view your site, banner, text and it’s messed up – that does not set an example that I want others to see – how about you?