Category Archives: ramblings

One is a lonely number

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Well I am going to date myself but do you remember the song by Three Dog Night – it was called “ONE” and the line One is a Lonely Number.

Now I know what you are wondering what in the world does that have to do with my blog post – well actually alot as I have been meaning to write this for awhile.  AND I want to gear this post to all the people who I hear that they don’t get any referrals, they are not earning any money online, and they don’t know where to turn.

Well now you will see where the “ONE” comes from – if you are a person that can relate with any of the above – maybe it’s time to back up and reevaluate what you are doing.  When I first started as an affiliate, I found myself joining many programs and then not knowing which one to promote first.

My advice to you is to step back, look at all your affiliate programs you are in no matter what they are and ask yourself some things.  Break down your list into sites that I am upgraded in vs you are a free member of.  Do you have a monthly upgrade or do you have a lifetime membership.  Now research and see what your commissions are in each of the upgraded programs you are in.  Got that info yet?

Ok do you know which if any of these programs you have gotten referrals in?  Have you been tracking to know what page got you the referrals.  Did you connect with your referrals that you did get – do they know you are their person to go to.  You would be surprised how many times I ask this and 80% of the time people have no clue who they joined under and have never heard from the person they joined under.

Once you have done this – what did you learn?  If you listen to your referral, you will find out why they joined under you and you can start developing a game plan.  Was it because you had a branded page, did you design your own page, which page did they join from and what kind of help do they need.

numberoneGetting a layout of your game plan now?  Well you should be – you should know by your tracking and talking with your referral what worked to get them to the site.  Now that you have that, then start with the ONE site with the most referrals and get out there and promote that ONE site for the next 30 days doing all the things that you have just found out – why your referrals signed up, what page worked, from tracking what sites worked.

If you found that it was a safelist, mailer, text ad site etc., then you may want to join a few more of these type of sites and get your ads out there.  Use your ONE ad and put it in everyone of these sites that you belong to and just repeat it for the next 30 days.

Now I know you all are thinking about what about all the other sites that I’m an affiliate of  – well they have to go on the back burner for right now.  You can NOT promote multiple sites and get results until you have some kind of game plan on what it working and get that game plan down – once you are getting signup from what you are doing – then you add a 2nd site – and do what they call a rinse & repeat,

Is this going to work for every site that you are an affiliate at – the answer is no – but at least you have an outline of what to do to get your game plan – and then tweak it for each site.  Just remember ONE is a lonely number but get a game plan on that ONE site and you will be able to move on after that.

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.

 

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

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.

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?

Bridging the Gap

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bridgingthegapThere were lot of traffic exchange owners that wrote blog posts today and one of the comments that I seen stuck in my head and thought I would expand on it and it was
from Carol when she said this “The line between traffic exchanges and ptc sites is blurring.” Just maybe we are bridging the gap

Being a owner and user of each, I would have to say that both traffic exchanges and paid to clicks have been around for years.  Both giving the members what they were looking for traffic – whether it was surfing for credits or clicking for cash.

As with lot of things online, I feel it’s good to see the walls being broken down.  I remember when I first started online – you had te people that loved te’s and that is the only place you seen them.  The PTC people stuck with PTC and never dreamed of entering TE land.

All over you will hear the pros and cons of cash being introduced into the TE’s but actually I think this has opened up more doors actually and it started bridging the gap.  It really don’t matter what source you use to get your traffic as long as you are getting results.

Think about it does it really matter to you if a person wants to click all day for pennies.  Over time I have heard how important the free members are as most will say they are the backbone of your business – as that is where your traffic is coming from because they view more ads vs an upgraded member.

So if it makes a free member happy to get a penny, nickel, dime, quarter and sometimes $1.00 for winning a grand prize. then I say that a happy member is going to be a loyal member.  The thing I see happening is that we are giving that person the opportunity to earn.  Now I don’t know about you but when that person get a payout you know they are going to go tell everyone as this is probably the first money they earned online.

Remembering the first money that I earned online, I was so excited about that payout and I still talk about it with people and am still in that same program.  What did that make me do?  It made me keep doing what I was doing so I could earn more and the more I earned the more I wanted to keep doing.

See I feel that if you can get people earning, they will stick with you – and that gives you the opportunity to teach them along the way to try other things that will earn them more.  If I am making money because of you showing me how – don’t you think I’m going to try the next thing you want to show me that is going to earn me more.  Now I also have some money in Paypal because despite when some thing that change adds up.

So the next time you see people clicking for pennies and are wondering why a person can do that – well get in there and start showing that person how they can earning nickels, dimes, quarters, dollars – it all adds up and sometimes faster than you think.

In conclusion, I do feel that we are bridging the gap between the PTC users and the TE users and I for one am glad.

Are YOU Teachable?

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It’s really interesting how much I hear people talking about working online but don’t know where to start, don’t know how to start, don’t know how to adapt to a schedule, don’t know where and what to do – so I have a little challenge for you to see if you are teachable.

Now I know you all are thinking that I have really gone Zaney and maybe I have but I got to thinking how it was for me when I first started online and there is so much going on and you want to be in so many things and scared you are going to miss out on something is you don’t join everything that everyone is talking about.  It’s hard to stay focused, it’s hard to make a plan and stick with it, it’s hard to get a routine going – well this helped me and still does.

So I would like you to backup and try this little exercise for me – this will show you many things – like if you are teachable, can you stick to a routine, are you serious about working online, and do I have what it takes to stay focused – because without these qualities – you might as well go back to Facebook and play Farmville and know that you are online only as a hobby and the fun of it.

BUT if you can do this exercise for 30 days, every day and not make any excuses why you can’t, set yourself up a routine (could be do these before I open Skype, do these before I read my emails etc) you get the idea – you need to set it up to do it the same time everyday.  After the 30 days you will have a better idea what working online is really like and if you also make it thru you are teachable and ready to add to your routine that you have already set up here.

Another reason I want you to try this exercise is that it will give you an idea how slow the money comes in, it will teach you patience, and it will also show you that IF and that is a BIG IF you stay focused you can earn online

Ok here it is – I have 5 sites that I use to earn extra money online and the main reason that I still do them today is that keep me focused, they keep me in a routine, and they have taught me that it does pay to do this.  So I would love you to join in this exercise for 30 days – join these 5 sites and test yourself and find out if you are teachable.



468x60 Hungry For Hits traffic exchange banner

There you go this is sites that I use every day, sites that I have been paid from and sites that helps me stay focused – and note I keep repeating that – not that there are more sites out there that you can join – the lesson here is to stay focused – so we are using the KISS (keep it simple sweetie) method here.  5 sites  join and click daily for 30 days and I will love to hear your results from this exercise.

Yesterday I was telling a friend of mine that you have to take action, repeat that action over and over again when you find something that is working and just keep doing it over and over and one of these days you wake up and realize that it’s working – you will see referrals coming in, you will see people coming to you with questions, you will see the money coming in and best of all you will get those emails that say – wow I learned something from you today or that Skype comment saying that they enjoy your emails or comment on your blog that says they tried what you said and it worked – that is “why” we do what we do.

“There’s a difference between interest and commitment. When you’re interested in doing something you only do it when it’s convenient, when you’re committed you take no excuses only results.” Author Unknown

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

Success lies not in being the best, but in doing your best. ~ Author Unknown