Are Traffic Exchanges Dead?

There has sure been alot of rumors around TEland and the buzzing in the Chat Rooms and have everyone asking are traffic exchanges dead – well here is my opinion.

No I don’t feel that traffic exchanges are dead but I do believe that the structure of TEs will need to be changed.  So in the next months you WILL be seeing changes in TEland.

The first change that you are seeing TE’s are changing the payment processors from Paypal to other payment processors.  There are many reasons why but the bottom line is that Paypal right now does not want to have anything to do with traffic exchanges.

The other change that you also will be seeing is that subscriptions are being canceled that you had set up and that is another thing that Paypal is limiting accounts – both site owners and members if they pay a subscription to a traffic exchange – so the plan B right now is finding other payment processors .

Some of the ones that I have seen recently are Wise, Coinbase, Skrill, Uphold, Square, and Zelle to name a few.  This takes owners time to set up as there is alot of behind the scene to get things so that they work  and most of the time things that are purchased has to be manually done

So wanted to get this out to everyone just to let you know that traffic exchanges as your know it will have to change.  I know lot of you do NOT like change but to keep this industry moving forward – it is necessary.

In the future, you will be getting updates on this blog as changes are made and I will have to tell you the first change that was made on Zaney was the surf button was changed to view ads.  What I found funny about this simple change was the support tickets that I got wanting to know how can I surf the sites the surf button is gone.

This is just one example of the type of changes that you are going to be seen – my answer back to these support tickets was giving them the definition of a traffic exchange and that is I view your ad in exchange for you viewing mine.

Stay tuned as I will be letting you know of changes as they happen – remember change is NOT a bad thing – even tho we don’t like it – sometimes change is for the better.

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My view on K.I.S.S (keep it simple stupid)

kiss2Well most of you know that somedays I can surf alot of pages and view a lot of ads that are out there and I want to tell you something that I learned the hard way.  Here is my view on K.I.S.S and for all that don’t know what that stands for – Keep It Simple Stupid and no I didn’t come up with this as I don’t like calling someone Stupid – my version would have been Keep It Simple Sweetheart – altho I look back on some of the mistakes that I did over the years and guess sometimes stupid just does fit.

Ten years ago when I first got online, I soon realized that there were some things that I was going to have to learn or have lot of money in my budget and that was designing splash pages.   Well since the latter was not there at the time, I started looking around learning how to make my own pages.

Am I a designer??? NOOOOOOOOOOOOO  Do I like to play around with making something different than the norm?  Yesssssssss   Because of the later, I started experimenting with different programs and ohhhhh it was like turning a kid loose with a new toy.

So let me tell you some of the BIG mistakes that I made and why I want you all to learn to K.I.S.S.  One of the first things is finding out there is a whole world of fonts out there and ahhhhhhhh so pretty – but guess what even tho they are fancy and cute – you only have a short amount of time for a person to read what you want them to read.

If they can’t read your fancy font – you might just lost a referral or even a sell.  K.I.S.S. Yea, I said the same thing but it’s soooooooo cute but I quickly learned that cute didn’t get me results.  So I found a plain, simple font and started using that and wow that sure made a difference in the clicks on my ads then.

Well I know you have seen pages with all the bells and whistles – flashing light, bright colors, and yea I did the same thing.  My thinking at the time was that the flashing was going to catch someone eye more that just K.I.S.S. – well I was wrong.  What wound up happening was that people were leaving the page faster because it hurt their eye and even had some told me it gave them headaches.

When I heard this I was shocked as I just thought I was making my page stand out  – keep this in mind on your banners and splash pages that blinking can give bother some people and they won’t even look at your page no matter how many hours you put into making it.

designNow I’m not saying that you should just design a plain black and white splash – what I am saying is that you don’t have to go overboard on the designing.   What I learned is that when you put too much into how fancy you can make your page sometimes your actual message you were trying to convey gets lost.

So the next time that you feel like being creative – go to Google and look up some of the well known businesses and click on images for that business.  Remember, it’s the message that you want people to know – not how fancy your page is.  One more thing to keep in mind is the loading time for your page – with faster timers these days – another reason to K.I.S.S.

Why Zaney Clicks Uses Mixed Character Codes

It’s funny when I get asked these questions and I chuckle to myself – the first thought that pops in my head is because it is me just being Zaney hehehehe

password2But there is a reason why Zaney Clicks uses mixed character codes.  For all of you that don’t know or don’t like to copy and paste them in for a code – let me tell you the rest of the story and my thinking.

Zaney Clicks is not just a traffic exchange and if you have read other post about the site then you will know that Zaney Clicks is a teaching site.  In my own Zaney way there are things that you are learning and most of the time don’t even realize it but by routinely seeing and doing things YOU LEARN

What are you learning by seeing and using mixed character codes – you are learning that it is easy to use them, you are learning the crazy combos that can be used, you are learning to use some characters on your keyboard that you forget is there.

password3Now why in the world would I want you to learn to see, learn, and use these mixed character codes.  It’s to get comfortable with them enough that you will NOT be so scared to make them up and use them as passwords like I was when I first started.

When I first started online, I wanted something that was easy to remember and so I used something that I was going to remember for me and it was just 7 character word.  Then I learned how easy it was for hackers to crack passwords.

So then I started using letters and numbers and you guess it – there is actually Cracking Password Hacker Tools – I know crazy huh?  So now you know why Zaney Clicks uses mixed character codes.  If you want to read more about this then go read about it here Password Cracking

So the next time that you use one of Zaney Clicks mixed character codes – you know the rest of the story.  Yea I know what is going thru your head how do I keep track of all these mixed character passwords – well I use RoboForm

RoboForm: Learn more...

Hide and Seek TE Style

Well I’m sure as a kid everyone remembers how you use to play hide and seek well I thought it would be fun to bring that to TEland and so on Wednesdays at Zaney Clicks we enjoy playing Hide and Seek TE Style.

For all that have never played – what happens is that I have a page that I have made and this is what it looks like this hideandseek2and all you have to do is surf and find the page take the word highlighted in yellow and add it as a promo code for an extra bonus.

Everyone that adds this new word will be in drawing for $1.00 – it’s just that simple BUT here is the best part you learned a new word that has been put in the dictionary – how cool is that.  I have so enjoyed this promo even for myself as I learn new words and somewhat keep up with the new lingo that is going on these days.

AND as you can see I also add the definition for your each week so that you can go out and impress your friends maybe even by just tell them how fantasmarific they are.

So when you are bored just clicking – come on over to Zaney Clicks every Wednesday for our version of Hide and Seek TE Style

Saturday Nite at the Movies

saturdayAfter the last post, I decided to start a series about one of my sites as I know you have seen all over Why Zaney Clicks.  One of the features that I have add as a weekly event on the site is Saturday Nite at the Movies.

The reason that these daily event started was that a few years back I realized that doing so many promos with other sites that I just couldn’t keep up with them anymore – another lesson learned – the word NO

That one is a hard one when you have your own business and you like helping others so when another owner approaches you and wants to do a promo you add them on and what happened is that there were so many that Zaney was doing 4 and 5 a day – not healthy for the site and NOT healthy for the owner lolololol

So couple years ago, I thought enough was enough that I just couldn’t keep up with them all anymore and if I couldn’t how could I expect members to – so I canceled them and decided then to start a series of events for the members instead.

saturday3AND Saturday Nite at the movies came about as I love watching movies and people love trivia so putting the two together was a win win and it actually has worked out really great.

This is how it works each week I pick a movie and in the daily mail I add a new clue each day – there are 6 clues so that by Saturday the members can guess the movie by adding the title in  as a promo and earn a bonus.

Now here is the rest of the story on this event, I also remember years ago when I first started online that I was scared to death to get out of my comfort zone on this computer and even Google Search scared the crap out of me until I started using it.

googlesearch2Well this was my Zaney way of getting people to learn to use Google Search and is it working – yes as I hear from members that they are using Google Search more than they ever had and are loving this event.

So now you know the rest of the story on Saturday Nite at the Movies – in future posts I will let you know the rest of the story on the other events at Zaney Clicks.  If you are a new member or have wanted to test out a new traffic exchange – come try out our weekly events and find out that surfing can be fun, entertaining and rewarding.

Reasons to Own and Operate Your Own Business

Years ago when my ex and I first got married we both lost our jobs and our of necessity started our own business.  Since the divorce, I have continued to have my own business and going to share reasons to own and operate your own business.

09pEvYqoSFreedom would be my first reason as being owner and operator you get to be that boss (the person everyone hates).  You get to wear many, many hats and if like me learned a lot the hard way but I would not change a thing.  You do have to find the balance in work/life and that can be hard sometimes when you are trying to build your business.

As I have gotten older, I have narrowed down my business plan to working with my traffic exchanges, mailers and doing affiliate marketing.  It’s funny how in this online world there are still people that think they know how you should run your business and like to make it public or let you know you are doing this wrong and that wrong.

Another reason that I enjoy having my own business, what most don’t realize is that this is “MY” business to run as I see fit – that is what I love about this country that gives us this privilege.  There are going to be times that people don’t agree with how I run things but it is still me that pays the bills, put in the hours, and does all the work behind the scenes and bend over backwards to make you all happy.

judgingcatWhen others like to give their opinions that is just what it is their opinion and should not be put out there as guidelines or “rules” as to how the business is run because they are not a partner nor do they pay any of the bills that go along with your business.

That is another reason that I love having and running my own business – I am proud of my online business, I work very hard in my online business and believe that I offer great services.  Over the years, I have developed many, many friends and customers and I do bend over backwards to help them and would not trade that for anything.

You know it’s funny as the more competition happens in all business these days it sure seems the more some like to try and dictate how things should be.  Having been around the small ma and pa businesses for over 30 years now, I have learned that you just can’t beat old-fashion service. You have to learn to keep your emotions under control no matter how pissed you get, how over the coals someone want to rake you, and think about what is best for the business. You are NEVER  going to make everyone happy, your are NEVER going to have everyone agree with decisions you make – but you do have that right to make them.

Does it get hard at times yes it does but I sure would not trade it as the rewards out weigh the bad – the satisfaction you get from helping others, the pride you get from seeing what you created work and people that love your business.  One of the best thank yous that a business owner can get is seeing someone else promote them and for all the pages that I have seen – I would like to say thank you, thank you, thank you.

best2And the most important reason would be YOU, I really do appreciate all of you putting up with me as I know I come up with some pretty Zaney ideas sometimes and I do love the feedback – good or bad – we keep growing the business together.  AND as always you can leave me a message in support – I do answer all my messages.

Why You Should Leave Comments on Blog Posts

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It’s interesting years ago when I started blogging cause I had no clue what I was doing and do not consider myself a writer but I was told to write as if I was talking to someone as that is really what you are doing.  Now let me tell you why you should leave comments on blog posts.

After visiting to lot of blogs and reading the content, I was always too shy to leave a comment – I thought people would think that I was stupid (which they probably do anyway, so who cares), I really didn’t know what to put as I was learning and the list of excuses goes on and on yea I had them all believe me.

I’ll go back and address the feeling stupid part – as that one is a hard one to get over but I was told by a mentor once and that has stuck with me “there is no stupid comment or question”.  If you have the question in your head and are thinking it then there is probably someone else thinking it too.  Don’t believe me type into Google Search your question or comment – you will be mighty surprised what comes up.

Now the best part about leaving a comment is the branding that you are doing and most don’t even realize that you are.  Just like anything else you do here online – you need to keep you, your services, your products in people’s face and this is great way to do this.

So you are thinking that I don’t know that much – I’m just learning well guess what you know more than the person that is joining right now or even in a month.  And yes people find these post months later and read them – in fact I have even gotten referrals from post that have been year or two old.  What better way to show others that you are out there and as far as learning – I’m still learning daily and another thing that I so enjoy about working online.

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AND what a great way to learn about others that already like the same things that you do – think about your blog as a neighborhood get together – the author has invited you and others – you all are a bunch of strangers till you start yaking with each other and find out that you have things in common.

Well this is all that you are doing when leaving comments on people blogs, you are yaking with people that you have things in common with – so don’t be shy – get out there and start yaking.

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You could be missing out on opportunities and not even know it – sometimes you meet your best friends, clients, paying customers in the strangest places – stop peaking over the fence – get out there and comment on blog post and unlock even the key to YOUR success

You Didn’t Get Your Mail

Just wanted to write a short blog post – stop laughing – I can write a short one.  Anyway just wanted to let you know about the changes that have and going to be taken place on Zaney Clicks and ……….

 Over the last week, we have been testing email delivery or should I say the lack of.  We thank all of you for your support tickets, skype messages letting us know that you didn’t get your mail and believe me it was just as frustrating for us as it was for you.

We would chase around in the back office trying to figure out what happened to it, why didn’t it get delivered, did it go to spam and they miss it, is it floating out in cyber space somewhere or was it fighting with the cron jobs and the list of reasons go on and on.

frustrated2Well guess what, you are NOT going to have to say that You Didn’t Get Your Mail anymore because all you have to do is sign into any of the above sites and click the button that says Daily Mail – how cool is that

No more skimming thru 100’s of emails looking for today’s codes, no more waiting for delivery to be disappointed that it didn’t show and no more getting multiple emails in the same nite because someone like me put in the wrong code – you just have to login to the site and click Daily Mail.

With that being said, I would like to thank all the members of the above sites that suggested that we do this as this week has just been running lot better on all the sites yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh to all of you – you have another winner – WTG – keep those suggestions flowing – we love you for it.

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Rotators – how to use them and why

Well, so many folks have asked me to explain rotators – how to use them and why – so thought I would come here and give you an easy to follow explanation. I’m sure there are those who have wondered also and just not asked yet!  I know rotators mystified me when I first started with Traffic Exchanges!

First of all, a rotator combines multiple sites urls into one “rotating url”, hence the name “Rotator”. Each time your rotator is viewed on a Traffic Exchange, or in a Mailer e-mail message, a different url that you have placed inside your rotator will be viewed. This is an amazing marketing tool as not only can you add multiple sites URLs inside the rotator, but using a rotator will save you time, credits, and makes it so much easier to track your results! In Zaney Clicks, we offer this terrific service for FREE! To get started, you just need to login and scroll down to the Menu button that says “Rotators”.

Adding a Rotator at Zaney ClickAdding a Rotator at Zaney Clicks: This is the page that you will see when you click on the button “Rotators”.

The first thing that you will want to do is click on “tracker” – now a tracker is simply a way to give you information (statistics) about where your URL is being seen, how many hits you are receiving daily and this info will help you to gradually see what is working and what is not – this is very important for you to know!

Here is an example of the rotator that I made to help me get referrals.  I especially like these two in this rotator and want to give a shout out for offering this on their sites.
Your Business “Success” Story! and what I call my “Money Page

Not that hard huh? Then, I would pick 5 – 7 URL’s and add them as your tracker urls then I will explain what you do next. After you have added your trackers – then you click on rotator at the top and that lets you set up your rotator.

The next step is to give your rotator a name– you can be as creative as you want as the name that you pick will be part of your rotator’s URL  Me, I don’t get that fancy as you can see from my final URL which I just named Referral Rotator and the my other one is Nancy Recommends

Now to view this rotator you can click on the link and then click your computer’s F5 button and you should be able to see how the pages change in the rotator. Because this was not my normal amount of urls for use in a rotator, I went back and added more trackers in this example.

NOW for the BIG reason for this blog post – Rotators – how to use them and why. Once you have plastered this ONE rotator URL all over and assigned credits to it – you have just saved yourself time and here is how.

One – you only have one link that will need credits so you don’t have to surf as much to keep one URL going but, you are keeping 5 – 7 sites in front of people, at all times! If you are a person that has an abundance of credits, then I would go back and create another rotator and add either the same sites or, you can add more trackers – and then add a second or third. I know what you are thinking – why should I make a new rotator and not just add this first URL 2 or 3 times – well some sites do not let you add the same URL more than once.

Another BIG reason this will save you time is that you don’t have to remember where you added a site, you don’t have to chase all over when a site “disappears” on you or changes their url, you don’t have to chase all over when your favorite site comes out with a new splash, new promo, etc. – you just go back to Zaney Clicks and add another tracker with your NEWEST url that you want to add. Click on Rotators and add/edit sites and click to add the newest url and unclick the one that you don’t want to use anymore.

This will also take the guess work out of trying to remember, “Now, where do I have to surf for credits?”, or “Which sites am I currently using to promote – drive traffic to – my sites?” as you can come back to your Rotators Page on Zaney Clicks where you will now be able to check your tracker statistics. On the page that lists your trackers, you will see where it says “daily stats” – click that and it will tell you the site where your url is being seen and how many hits (page views) your URL received for the day.

Now, if you want to see where you have your Rotator URL – then click on “rotators” – “daily stats” and that will show you all the places that your rotator was seen today. If your list looks like it should be bigger, then I go to the left of that screen and click the arrow buttons and go back to an earlier date and you will be able to tell which Traffic Exchange you need to surf next where your Rotator is most likely to be out of credits.

How can you tell how many hits (views) per day you are receiving – well on the left side, if you click on the graph of each day (that little dot on the graph) the date will pop up along with the number of hits for that day.

I hope all this will help give you a start if you have not been using rotators because you were unsure of how to use them and I hope you will give them a try! I think you will Love using them as much as I do! Remember, if you have any questions, comments, or need help – I’m here for you – just send in a support ticket

You know it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t give some type of incentive to everyone that takes action – so what I will do – for everyone that sends me their Zaney Clicks rotator url– I will add it as login spotlight and with a start of 100 credits – now get me those Zaney Clicks Rotator URLs!!!

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Help Me I can’t decide

thinkingThere are so many times that I hear from members that there are just so many pages at a site that it makes them hard to pick the one to use to promote and I hear Help Me I can’t decide.

While I can tell you which ones get the best results for me as I track – I have also found that what works for one does not work for others.  So I have a simple solution for you  and it really does not take that long to set up and this WILL save you time and credits in the long run.

In sites where there are so many wonderful pages to choose from and even I have hard time deciding which ones to pick – well here is what I do…………….I go to Zaney Clicks and then I pick out 5 of the ones that I want to use and I set them up as trackers – now if you want to save time down the road – you can add them all in there and then go and set up a rotator.

161777811584436570_IxPBd3u7_bFor this example, I will use Zaney Clicks as there are soooooooo many to promote – I simply set up zcsplash1, zcsplash2.  Believe me I started out that way and now I get a little more descriptive in my names zccatsrule, zcspring, zcwaitingcats – well you get the idea.

After you add your trackers, then you go and set up your Zaney Rotator and then you add five of them in that rotator – then take that rotator URL and put it all over.  That’s right this is a great way to save credits – as the 5 trackers that you have added will rotate each time your rotator is shown – pretty cool huh

Now here is the best part, test these and if you are not getting referrals, then go in and pick a couple more to change out.  This is where you learn to work smarter and not harder – because you have your rotator URL all over – you just go back to Zaney Clicks and take out a few and then add a few more and test them.

You know how much time you just saved yourself because you didn’t have to chase all over and change the URL – you make your changes and they are changing where ever you had that rotator URL

cat14That is how you save time and credits – because now instead of trying to assign credits to 5 of your favorite URL’s you only have to assign them to ONE URL .  Now I know you are thinking wow I could do that with 5 favorite sites, my 5 money makers, or my 5 sites that get me referrals – easy peasy huh???????

I don’t know about you but do you ever get to the point that you get CRS and you can’t remember where you even have your links – well I admit that I suffer from that occasionally – well until I started using the free tracker and rotator services that many sites offer – when you look at your stats – you will see exactly where everything is showing and how many times.

So the next time that you just can decide and want to say Help Me I can’t decide – try this and as always would love to hear how this works for you – I know it’s been a true blessing for me now that I have gone back to work.

shhhhhkittyTIP:  Some sites have a splash page rotator and that is even a gold mine – put that in YOUR rotator and that site is covered – then just find 4 more that offer that shhhhhhhh don’t tell anyone that I let that slip out