John Dilbeck Musings

This morning, while going through my normal routine of surfing a few of the manual traffic exchanges, I went to WolfSurfer.com and noticed a big change.

It had been a few weeks since I was there. I’m not an upgraded member and I try to surf WolfSurfer at least once per month.

There is a completely new look to the exchange and when I logged in (using my old username and password), I found myself in the familiar LJ script that I like so much. Most of my favorite traffic exchanges use this script and it allows us to easily promote our sites using websites (preferably splash and squeeze pages), banners, and text links.

My sites had transferred over, but I took this opportunity to delete some sites I’m not currently promoting and to add one that has a higher priority for me now.

That done, I started surfing and enjoyed the smooth experience I have come to expect from the traffic exchanges that use the LJ script.

If you haven’t been to WolfSurfer.com in awhile, you should visit and see that all your promotions are in order.

While I didn’t dislike the old script they used, I like the current script much better.

If you’re not familiar with the LJ script, it’s used by most of my favorite traffic exchances, including Soaring4Traffic, I Love Hits, TrafficSoldiers, DragonSurf, and many others.

If you’re not taking advantage of these traffic exchanges, it’s something I think you should look into. Yes, it takes some time to get everything set up and you have to study how these systems can help you, but - if you do it right - you can benefit by driving visitors to your most important offers.

As soon as you have a business, you also have to start a traffic generation business, and traffic exchanges can work very well if you use them properly.

Want to learn how to use them more effectively?

There are two downline builder programs that offer great training and support, and both are free to join. Each has upgraded memberships at very reasonable prices and I’m upgraded in both of them, but you can get most of the benefits even as a free member. Both programs help you learn how to use the traffic exchanges to your benefit and also help you build downlines in a variety of the exchanges.

If you’re using traffic exchanges, you should be a member of VitalViral and Affiliate Funnel.

And, if you’re going to join many traffic exchanges, you should take advantage of the outstanding surf center feature offered by Soaring4Traffic. Not only does Soaring4Traffic offer this feature, it is a fast growing traffic exchange owned by a very caring and helpful owner. In my opinion, if you’re going to join only one traffic exchange, or if you’re looking for a good one to start with, I recommend Soaring4Traffic.

Act on your dream!

JD

I’ve had a Squidoo lens about Traffic Exchanges for quite some time and never really did anything with it.

This morning, I decided to add a module so you can vote for your favorite manual traffic exchanges.

I encourage you to rank the page by clicking on one of the stars at the top of the page.

Your comments are always welcome.

Act on your dream!

JD

(This article is part of my Marketing Tools and Techniques: Traffic Exchanges series.)

Normally, I won’t be promoting the latest and (supposedly) greatest thing, so don’t be afraid that I’ll bombard you with untested programs that may be here today and gone tomorrow.

I prefaced this recommendation because Soaring For Traffic is a new traffic exchange, but I believe it will be around for a long time and I think it will rise to be one of the best.

I’ve known Ray for a few months and I have seen for myself that he knows quite a bit about Internet marketing and is always working to learn more and to share what he learns with others.

I first met him on the Affiliate Funnel forum, where he answered some of my questions about ad tracking on traffic exchanges. I did some searching and found that he is the owner of Private Success Team, where he is busily helping others learn how to market on the Internet more successfully.

I recently learned that he has been working for about a year to introduce Soaring For Traffic, his free traffic exchange and downline builder.

Lately, I’ve become more discerning when it comes to traffic exchanges and I’m reaching the point where I probably won’t join too many more.

Over the last year, I’ve joined and used about 75 traffic exchanges with varying amounts of success. Now, I’m a member in about 60 and actively use about 20 of them.

I am an upgraded member in about a dozen exchanges, and I just upgraded my account with Soaring For Traffic.

Although Soaring For Traffic is free, you will get more traffic with less time and effort by upgrading to one of the two upgrade levels. I chose the highest upgrade and I’m looking forward to using this exchange a lot in the coming months.

I added about 170 sites to this exchange in one fell swoop by using my Page Swirl rotator and spent another hour or two advertising it on some of my marketing pages, including my LinkScout marketing site.

After I’d finished setting everything up, it was time to surf the new exchange and see how I liked it.

I found a couple of small errors when setting up to use the exchange, but surfing the sites of other members was easy and the site responded quickly, even on my very slow dial-up connection.

The downline builder part of the site contains five money making affiliate programs and I’m a member of three of them. I didn’t count the number of traffic exchanges in the downline builder, but almost all of my favorites were there and I saw only a handful of sites I’d never tried before.

I know that Ray will be a helpful and responsive owner, and that is a big part of being an upgraded member of an exchange.

Even though Soaring For Traffic is new, it already has nearly 1,500 members and is growing quickly.

Regarding the problems I encountered, one was just an incorrect height and width attribute in the HTML code for a 100×300 sidebar button link. That was easily corrected, and I’ll let Ray know about it as soon as I publish this.

The other was a bit more of a problem, but probably has an easy solution. The site offers a way to personalize one of the splash pages that can be used on other traffic exchanges. It features your name, photo, a banner, and a testimonial.

I filled in the form and submitted it, only to be told that the banner URL was incorrect. No problem; the exchange is new. However, the real problem, for me, was that the error page did not preserve the entries on the form that were correct. As a result, a very complimentary testimonial was lost.

Ray, if you read this, I said some nice things about you that nobody will read because the form lost my heartfelt compliments.

With only a couple of minor negatives (which I’m sure Ray will fix quickly) and lots of positives, I heartily recommend Soaring For Traffic to you.

If you want to be a free member, this exchange is better than most.

If you plan to upgrade, the prices are right and the One-Time-Offer page offers good discount pricing for an annual or lifetime membership.

If that doesn’t fit your budget, the second One-Time-Offer (OTO) page offers a 33% discount on the highest upgrade level, making it a good buy. Normally, the highest level, Soaring Eagle, costs $14.95 per month, and I think that is over-priced for a 1:1 surf ratio and anything less than 1,000 credits per month. However, the second OTO page offers the Soaring Eagle level for $9.99, and I think that is the proper price for what is offered.

I don’t know if either of these discount pages will be available should you join, nor what they may offer at that time. These things are always subject to change.

If you don’t take advantage of either OTO page, you’ll pay more, perhaps a lot more, in the long run.

Soaring For Traffic will be one of the dozen or so traffic exchanges I’ll use on a regular basis.

You can join Soaring For Traffic for free and see for yourself how well it works for you.

Act on your dream!

JD

Steve Brown has created a new downline builder at Downline Planet that promotes, so far, mostly traffic exchanges.

If you are a regular surfer at any of the major traffic exchanges, you should join Downline Planet and publicize it on your favorite traffic exchange. Build your downline in multiple programs by advertising Downline Planet.

These programs are being promoted through Downline Planet at this time. Early users get to add up to three programs of your own.

Steve has a forum for members, too.

Join Downline Planet today.