A manual traffic exchange is a membership web site that allows you to view web pages selected by other members and allows other members to view web pages you select. In other words, a traffic exchange allows members to exchange traffic between their sites.

You can sign up as a free traffic exchange member or as a paid member with a monthly subscription. Once you sign up, you will have the opportunity to provide the URLs for several web pages of your choosing. You may also be able to include banner ads and text ads.

As you might imagine, your goal in joining a traffic exchange is to promote your URLs by having other members view them. You earn credits to have your pages displayed when you view other members’ pages. Free members normally must view more pages to earn a credit than paid members. You’ll typically view each page while a timer counts down, usually from 10 to 30 seconds, before you can move on to the next page.

You can also purchase credits or receive a monthly allocation of credits as a paid member. But, the most economical way to receive credits as a beginner is to earn them by surfing.

To earn credits as quickly as possible, you may want to surf traffic exchanges by opening up multiple tabs in your browser. You’ll view a different traffic exchange in each tab. So, immediately after clicking to the next page in one traffic exchange you’ll move to the next tab and click to the next page on that exchange. In this way you are not waiting for any timer to count down, but are earning credits on multiple traffic exchanges as quickly as possible.

Because most other members also use tabbed browsing, your page has only a second or two to capture their attention. Your page’s headline must immediately interest them and distract them from clicking to the next page.

And because most members are clicking almost mechanically to get to the next page, they will need to see your page several times before they decide to do more than glance at your headline. This means you will need lots of credits to successfully promote your URLs.

These facts have a profound effect on your ability to make money using traffic exchanges. To make a significant amount of money from traffic exchanges there are two things you must do.

Build a Downline

First, you must build a downline. That is, you must encourage other people to join a traffic exchange from your promotional link to that exchange. This is important because most traffic exchanges give you credits that allow your pages to be displayed when members of your downline surf. You may receive credits worth 10% or 20% of the credits earned by the surfing of your downline.

A large downline adds significant credits to your account and allows your pages to be displayed frequently. It gives you tremendous power to promote money making opportunities on the traffic exchanges. This is why building a downline should be your first priority.

You can build a downline in two ways. One way is to cross promote. That is, you use a splash page from traffic exchange “A” on traffic exchange “B” and visa versa. So, when someone surfs traffic exchange “B” and joins traffic exchange “A” from your splash page, you’ve added to your downline on exchange “A”.

The second way to build a downline is to make use of a traffic building resource like TrafficHoopla.com. TrafficHoopla tracks the performance of traffic exchanges and ranks them in order of effectiveness.

You can join TrafficHoopla and the traffic exchanges they monitor. After joining each exchange you can add your program ID for each exchange to TrafficHoopla’s database.

Then, when you advertise TrafficHoopla, the links to the various exchanges will contain your program IDs. When someone joins the traffic exchanges via your TrafficHoopla link, you’ll gain a downline in each of those traffic exchanges.

So, by advertising only TrafficHoopla you can gain a large downline in a number traffic exchanges. This is a very powerful technique for building a downline on the traffic exchanges.

Build a List

The second thing you need to do as you build your downline is to build an opt-in list. Building a list is one of the primary uses of traffic exchanges. A quarter of the web pages in a traffic exchange ask for your email address while another 38% of the pages will ask for your email address when you click to a second page.

An opt-in list allows you to send out newsletters that cover a topic of interest to your list members. As you cover topics relevant to your list members you’ll build credibility with them. Your list members will then be more likely to investigate the products you recommend in your newsletter. And, when you recommend your own products or affiliate products you’ll make money when your list members make a purchase.

You’ve probably heard that “the money is in the list.” When you have a large list you’ll be able to make money every time you send out a newsletter. The larger your list, the more money you’ll be able to make.

So, remember that the most effective use of your time while starting out with traffic exchanges is first to build a large downline and second to build a list. Doing these things will put you head and shoulders above the average traffic exchange member.

Using classified ads for driving affiliate sales is often discouraged because it is harder than other advertising methods. There is a way though, to use classified ads correctly to drive traffic to your website offers and make sales of affiliate products.

The name of the game when constructing a classified ad is to keep the ad simple. You must remember that you are seeking clicks to your site, not trying to sell anything with the ad itself. With that in mind, let’s look at the structure of your first classified ad headline.

The way you want to make your headline get noticed is to use words in it that get attention from your readers. Using a psychological trigger can help you get more clicks to your ad. To get the most clicks from your ad, use words like “cheap”, “free”, “proven” and “shocking”. It is also important that you know which ads are doing well and bringing responses, so be sure you track each ad you submit.

A quick trick for those of you who are submitting multiple ads to the same URL is to use a format for your URL link something like this: http://www.yourdomain/?=trackingcode — The tracking code should be a 3 or 4 number code. And be sure to write down each tracking code that corresponds to each ad you have placed. The tracking codes are best when they are a random number. This makes them unique. Always use the same tracking code for its assigned ad.

The next step in creating your ad is the first line of the ad itself. According to many experts, the best way to make your ad appealing is to state a quantifiable benefit in this line. This benefit should make the reader recognize right away that they have come to the right place. A good way to do this is to tell the reader exactly what solution your product offers them.

The third line of your ad should be about a crucial feature of your product. This can be a unique selling point. The purpose is to draw the reader into clicking through now to find out the details and price of the offer. Just remember to keep the ad as simple as you can. The goal when advertising with classified ads is to use as few words as you can to achieve the greatest results.

In fact, using a bigger, more complicated ad will only lessen your chances of success. So do not write heavily worded ads, or you might waste a lot of time and effort.

Next you will need places to post your new ads to. The criteria here is to find places that will allow free classified ads that get large amounts of traffic themselves. Two of the best places to post your classifieds for free are http://www.craigslist.org and http://classifieds.yahoo.com/.

Both of these sites will allow you to post your classifieds for free if you place your ads under the CORRECT TOPICS. Do not break this rule ever. This can lead to your ads being deleted and you could be banned from using their free service. And always read the terms of service before posting to these sites.

Your overall success and profits will be greater when you follow this proven method of advertising using free classifieds. The results can be more effective exposure for your affiliate promotions and an increase in sales for your company. So start submitting your ads today for more clicks and profits.

Building backlinks to your website is highly recommended in the Internet marketing community these days. This practice is especially helpful for the purpose of drawing organic (read “free”) traffic to your website. And, if you don’t have traffic to your site, you don’t have much if earning money is your goal.

By building backlinks to your website, you benefit in a number of ways. First, your placement in the search engines can improve, since the number of backlinks pointing to a website appears to have considerable impact on search engine ranking (love). Second, you may also attract traffic, as visitors on the other sites see your link and click over to see what you’re offering.

The rest of this article will focus on several backlink building methods that are great for beginners and experienced marketers alike.

Social Bookmarking

There are now literally thousands of social bookmarking sites. These sites offer an opportunity to bookmark all of the websites (including yours) that you find interesting and want to keep track of. Bookmarking your site often means you’re creating a backlink too.

Website Directories

These also are in great supply. These sites are storehouses for information about all sorts of websites, sorted by topic. Many allow you to submit your website for inclusion for free and create a backlink if your website is accepted.

Link Exchanges

These are also known as reciprocal links. You allow me to put my link on your website and I allow you to include your link on my site. Reciprocal links are considered more valuable if they are placed on a website whose theme is relevant to yours.

Blog Comments

Many blog owners welcome readers’ comments in reaction to their posts. The reader can generally include a website link along with their comment, creating a backlink. Just watch out for blogs that include the “no follow” tag because then the backlink won’t count.

Press Releases

Submitting a press release entails writing up a short news story about your website or some of its content. It’s a who, what, when, where, and how of something likely to be of interest to the media. As with many of these methods, there are free and paid options. Of course you include a link to your site in your content.

Article Marketing

Some say article marketing is the best method to draw free traffic and ultimately lots of backlinks. The webmaster writes an article on a topic relevant to their site and submits it to one or more article directories with a resource box incorporating links pointing back to the website.

Link Networks

These are typically private networks of blogs or websites on which members can post content which includes a link to their website. Often the blogs that are available in these networks have a fairly high page rank, say PR5-PR7, which is an attractive feature. The value of a backlink can increase if it is placed on a web page with a higher page rank

Using all of these methods at the same time to create backlinks might lead to being scattered and ineffective. If you’re interested in building links to your website, start with one method, complete it thoroughly and then move to another.

Of course some of the techniques, like article marketing, are never complete. There is always room for more, so intersperse this with other link building methods. With some concerted effort you will be able to create hundreds or thousands of backlinks to your website and really feel the search engine love.

You know by now that you should be building an opt-in list. It’s one of the best ways to earn money on the Internet.

When you have a list, you can send members a newsletter with one or more interesting articles along with ads for products related to the topic of your list. The larger your list, the greater the positive response will be to your ads. And, the more money you will make.

Creating and managing an opt-in list involves a number of tasks, including:

- Defining an appropriate topic for your newsletter
- Implementing software or subscribing to an external opt-in list service
- Attracting potential list subscribers
- Preparing articles and ads to send to your list

In this article we’ll discuss an aspect of attracting subscribers by offering a free article or ebook.

Today, nearly everyone expects an incentive in return for giving you his or her name and email address. It’s not enough merely to receive your periodic newsletter. After all, they don’t know the quality or content of your newsletter. So they expect something of value up front.

The typical product you can offer as an incentive is a free ebook or article.

To successfully get new opt-in subscribers you’ll need to offer an ebook or article that provides immediate benefits. That is, your product must solve some problems or answer some nagging questions of your target audience.

You can offer an ebook or article you have resale rights to or you can create your own. Most existing ebooks with resale rights have been marketed for some time and often people with more resources and experience than someone just creating their first list have marketed these products. So, the information in these ebooks is often familiar to many people.

You’ll often find that if your product has unique content you can corner the market for your particular set of solutions. This offers an advantage because your target market can only get these solutions from you.

How to Develop Ideas for Your Ebook

As you gain experience with your topical area you’ll probably be able to identify some of your target audience’s problems or concerns. And, knowing their concerns or problems, you’ll likely be able to offer a few solutions.

Once you have identified some solutions, you can expand your thoughts to a few paragraphs. To explain them clearly and give examples, each solution may be become a chapter of several hundred or even thousands of words.

You can often research your topic and look for additional solutions by using the search engines or by searching various article sites. Once you locate material that describes solutions you can express those solutions in your own words. You can add your own examples to make your expression of the solutions unique and more personal.

While copyright protection applies to the expression of ideas, it does not prevent you from expressing those same ideas in your own words. There are many books and ebooks that express the same concepts in different words. So, your expression of the solutions you choose to present will not conflict with the rights of others.

Preparing and Publishing Your Ebook

Most people use a product like Microsoft Word to prepare their ebook or article. With it you can check spelling and grammar, create chapters, headings, bulleted lists and a table of contents. You can also add photos and clip art to help explain and illustrate your ideas.

You may already have access to a commercial clip art package. Many packages are available at your local computer store.

Microsoft allows you to download and use any of over 150,000 images and sounds from their online library. To search and download art from Microsoft using Microsoft Word, select Insert -> Picture -> Clip Art. Then select the Clips Online tab. You will then be able to search photos, clip art and sounds for just the right images to illustrate your ideas. As long as your purpose is to enhance your own product, you can freely include Microsoft’s images.

Once your ebook or article is complete you’ll want to create a PDF file. This is the most popular format for downloadable ebooks and articles. People using both Windows-based PCs and Macintoshes can view documents in PDF format.

You can “print” your document to a PDF file using any of several free conversion applications. Newer PCs often come with this conversion software preloaded. If your PC does not have this software you can get it free from several sources. Three free products that create PDF files from virtually any Windows applications are:

- PrimoPDF (http://www.primopdf.com/)
- PDFCreator (http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/)
- doPDF (http://www.dopdf.com/)

After creating your PDF file you can then upload the PDF to your server. You’ll need to upload it in BINARY format rather than ASCII format. To make sure you did everything correct you should download your PDF and test it to make sure it is viewable.

You’ll also need to create a web page that promotes the benefits of your ebook or article, describes your newsletter, and includes a subscription form. In addition, you’ll need a “Thank You” page that has a link to your ebook PDF file so subscribers can download your product.

With unique content that offers an immediate benefit to potential subscribers, you’re sure to have a successful list building experience.

It is so easy to make money with a blog. Whether the purpose of your blog is to get traffic to your sales page or to sell affiliate products or to get Adsense clicks, getting your blog onto the first page of Google can be done quickly and easily.

Using the following quick tips you could get listed on the first page of Google for some keywords within a month or two, depending on how competitive your niche is. A video game site that followed these tips got on the first page of Google, in the fifth spot, for a popular search term when the site was less than one month old.

Here are the five quick tips for getting to the first page of Google:

1. Put some original content on your blog. Post at least once a day but not more than every two to three hours. It doesn’t look good if you are posting every few minutes. Continue adding new content regularly. Some of the content can be duplicate content (from an article directory or private label rights articles) but the more original content the better.

2. When you have at least five posts with original content then submit your blog to Google’s sitemap. It’s not hard, and it only takes a few minutes. As long as you have a blog that looks authentic and is not filled with scraped content, this is a good start to getting noticed by Google.

3. Write some original articles and submit them to article directories such as EzineArticles.com, GoArticles.com, ArticleAlley.com, and SearchWarp.com. Do not submit more than one a day since it is better to not inundate the article directories or they might think you are spamming them. It is very important to have a good resource box with links back to your site.

4. Submit your RSS feed to at least fifty sites. This can be done in less than a couple of minutes using RSS Submit (RSSFeedsSubmit.com), a great piece of software that automatically submits your feed to more than fifty sites. The price is very reasonable (less than $50) but if you don’t want to spend any money and would rather do it by hand, Robin Good sells a list of 55 RSS submission sites for a very small fee.

5. Get your URL link listed in as many places as possible. Submit your site to directories like DMOZ. Answer questions at answers.yahoo.com and include your URL with your signature. Leave comments on blogs that are in a related niche to yours, again including your URL in the signature. Do a search with the phrase “keyword add url” and add your URL at sites that allow you to do it for free. “Keyword” would be replaced by one of your keywords for your niche. Submit your blog to Technorati. Submit your original posts to social bookmarking sites like Digg, Netscape, Redit, Plugim, and so on. Be sure to tell friends to vote for your submissions at the social bookmarking sites.

These five quick tips will give your blog a powerful boost and get your blog on the first page of Google in a very short time. Within days you should be getting traffic from Google as you rise in the search engines. And you did it with spending little or no money.

Thank you to all who support JROX.COM and I wish you all a very safe and Happy Thanksgiving Holiday!

Make sure to checkout our Thanksgiving Holiday Sale:

http://jam.jrox.com/thanksgiving/

If you have a business that you’ve built a Website for, or indeed a fully online business, then you shouldn’t dismiss free listings in the major search engines as a source of traffic.

The Internet landscape is a constantly changing phenomenon and it can be very difficult to keep up-to-date with all of these changes. This is never truer than where the major search engines are concerned. Getting listed in Google, for example, was much easier two or three years ago than it is now. What with constantly changing search engine algorithms and the extra competition from more and more new Websites you can be forgiven for thinking that the work required to get a decent listing would be better spent elsewhere.

Of course, there are plenty of other things you can do to attract traffic to your Website, but most of them will be more costly than a free search engine listing so it’s definitely still well worth the time and effort to submit your Website to the major search engines.

A word of warning. Beware the online services that offer to submit your Website to hundreds or even thousands of search engines and directories for a fee. There are plenty of horror stories about false and expensive promises to be found here.

It is much better to hand submit your Website to the comparatively small number of search engines that really matter, or get a reputable SEO company to do it for you.

Are the submission software’s that run from your own computer worth purchasing? Well, you’ll find mixed feelings about these if you surf around a few of the major Internet marketing forums. A good one, which has seemingly worked for many, is AddWeb. This is a full-featured package that has many SEO tools as well as the submission engine. One very good feature of this package is that you can submit your Website(s) on a daily basis without fear of over-submission because the software has a built in knowledge base that contains the submission guidelines of the search engines and directories it submits to so it is programmed not to over-submit.

Before submitting your Website you should make sure that your pages are properly optimized with the right keywords and meta tags and that the right pages are on the site concerning the owner/organization behind the site i.e. the major search engines will expect there to be a contact page, an about page, a disclaimer page and privacy policy page for them to take the Website seriously. Your Website has to convey a professional impression of the person or organization behind it otherwise you run the risk of not being taken seriously - and that can result in you not being listed despite your best efforts.

Just because you’ve informed the search engines of the existence of your Website and they’ve sent their indexing software to have a look at it doesn’t mean that you’ll automatically be given a listing high enough in the results for your chosen keywords to get significant traffic. There’s a little more to it than that. The main way that you’ll impress upon the search engines that your site is important and that they should take it seriously and list it prominently in their results is by getting lots of links to it from other Websites - and the more important the Websites you can get links from, the better - but that’s a whole other subject.

What do you need to create a maintainable, scalable website quickly? Perhaps not as much as you think. Let’s go through the list of website requirements and some suggestions.

First, you will need a domain name. Decide on a top-level domain (”com”, “net”, “org”, etc.), go to a a domain-name registrar like “godaddy.com” or “networksolutions.com” and start entering domain names you might be interested in purchasing.

If you have a unique brand or company name, your choice should be easy because it is not very likely that anyone else has already bought your domain name. If you want a domain name like “cheapcomputers.com”, on the other hand, you will have a more difficult time. Most of the easy domain names have been taken, but you should still be able to come up with a good one based on your registrar’s suggestions and by using a bit of creativity.

Once purchased, you will need a place to host your site. Here’s a word of warning: do not register your domain name with your hosting provider even if they offer it for free. Hosting providers come and go. They vary in quality. And they can change management. Should you need to change web hosting providers at some point, you do not want to give them a chance to hold your domain name hostage.

Here are some things to look for in a hosting provider. The first thing is Fantastico. Fantastico is a script maintenance package that allows you to quickly set up a blog, content management system, or discussion board.

The next thing you should look for is Cpanel. This is a web-based graphic user interface that helps you maintain your website without having to learn any arcane Unix commands.

Finally, make sure that the Drupal (see drupal.org for more information) content management system is one of the installations available through Fantastico with your provider.

Compare your hosting provider candidates. A couple of recommended providers are AN Hosting (anhosting.com) and Hostgator Web Hosting (hostgator.com). Both offer Cpanel, Fantastico, and Drupal in plans that start at less than eight dollars a month.

Once you have set up your hosting account, your provider should have sent you two domain name server (DNS) addresses. Go back to your domain registrar account, and enter these addresses in the name server area for the domain name you just purchased. It usually takes a few hours for the internet to realize that your domain name is now hosted with your provider. Sometimes it can take as long as two days, though, so you’ll need a bit of patience.

While you wait for the DNS for your domain to establish itself, though, you can set up the rest of your site. Fantastico and Drupal make this easy.

First, log into your administrative account with your hosting provider. Click on the Fantastico icon, and then the Drupal link. Now establish a new Drupal installation. Choose the domain name from the drop-down box, do not enter a directory (we’ll be driving the whole site with Drupal), enter an administrative id and password (do NOT forget these), and enter a your permanent email address for the administrator email. Click the “Install Drupal” button to continue installation.

This should take you to the second screen (out of three) of your Drupal installation. This screen has some important information, like the access URL for your new site, so you should print it and put it in a safe place. At this point you can finish the installation.

Now you can go to your domain and login. You are now in the Drupal CMS, and there are some basic things you will want to do.

In most fresh Drupal installations, there should be a menu in the left column that includes an item called “administer”. Click on this item, and more items should appear. Click on the “modules” item and enable the path module — for a simple installation, all the default-enabled modules plus the path module should suffice. Make sure to click the “Save Configuration” button at the bottom of the page.

Next, you will want to modify your settings. Click on the “settings” menu item. Then click the “General Settings” link in your page’s main content area. Here, you can change the name of your site, the slogan, your mission statement (not always displayed — it depends on what theme you use), the webmaster email address, and the footer message. The footer message, by the way, can contain HTML so you can include links to other areas of your website like a privacy policy, an “About Us” page, and a sitemap, once they’re built. When you have made these changes, hit the “Save Configuration” button.

Usually, you will want your pages to have readable URLs, so click the “General Settings” link again and scroll down to the “Clean URLs” section. Click on the link that says “Run the clean URL test”. If your server passes the test, you should be able to scroll down the the “Clean URLs” section again, and enable clean URLs. Remember to save the configuration.

Now you can go the menu in the left column again and click on the “Create Content” item. The most often used content type is the page. Create a title and add content, and your site is up and running.

If you are interested in customizing your site further, you can use the official Drupal website (drupal.org) as a resource. Not only does it cover much more about using Drupal, it also includes downloadable themes to change the look and feel of your site, and modules that can add functionality to your site.

Here are some of the most useful modules and their uses.

* gsitemap - Creates a Google Sitemap.
* nodewords - Populates meta tags.
* path - Enables URL renaming.
* pathauto - Automatically creates paths based on content attributes like title and date of publication.
* pathfilter - Converts internal Drupal paths to absolute or relative URL addresses.
* sitemenu - Creates a user-friendly sitemap.
* urllist - Allows management of URLs and their aliases.
* userlink - Enables you to create a links or bookmarks directory.

Even though AdSense is a very popular income source for many online marketers, few will make enough money from it to make AdSense their primary business. If you are currently trying to increase your AdSense earnings there are some tried and tested rules that will help you achieve more clicks and make more money.

As an online marketer, you realize that you must be consistent and persistent to achieve the goals that you set for yourself. The AdSense business is no different. Yet the people who make the most money with AdSense are the ones who work at it smarter rather than doing the same things over and over that do not produce good results.

In fact, it is a popular myth among online marketers that you must only develop and promote websites that pertain to high paying keywords. As a rule the marketers that make the most money from AdSense are the ones who consistently keep building websites around medium priced keywords within a theme. Then as they go along, they build websites that are related to that common theme.

For example, you might build your websites under the theme of ‘computers’. The mistake some people make is to develop one site devoted to only computers. It is advantageous to the marketer to make many websites related to computers such as laptops, computer hard drives, computer keyboards, etc. It is the concept of more is better that will make you the most money.

As you start building your AdSense publishing business, here are some major rules to consider that will maximize your profits:

1. Track your successes and failures.

2. Use the latest tools and software available.

3. Keep your AdSense sites easy to navigate. Do not promote anything else on these websites.

4. Treat your AdSense business as a real business.

The marketers that make the most money with AdSense are the ones who treat it as a business and consistently continue to produce high quality websites around themes or ‘niches’ daily.

If you are just starting out, you have to realize that there is a lot of work involved to set up your websites, do the seo optimization, track your results and then repeat the process.

You can use the latest tools and software to automate the keyword selection process, create good websites and do most of the tedious seo optimization for your AdSense websites. In this regard investing some money in the right software will turn more profit in the long run because you will be able to make more sites faster. The name of the game in the world of AdSense is to make highly profitable websites and keep making more of them all the time.

A large AdSense income does not happen overnight. The best way to make the most money with your AdSense business is to follow the rules outlined here and constantly build more websites. Like planting seeds in a garden, you will reap AdSense income according to what you sow.

You have decided to hire a professional to do your web design. The problem is that not all of them are professional. Some are working with knowledge that is out of date, and some of them are working out of the basement that belongs to their parents!

What you need to know:

1. Qualifications are worthless. Unless the person has a proper graphical design background, almost all of the web design training is learned at a community college part time and not very credible. Unless the person you are qualifying can explain XHTML and CSS to you and why they are good for your website, stay clear.

2. A good web designer will have a diverse portfolio and lots of attractive sites they have built for their customers. They will also be able to explain to you why they designed the site the way it looks. If a person does not have a substantial portfolio, get them to do a first draft design to display their skill to you.

3. Your designer candidate needs to realize that they are building your website for users. This means all users regardless of technical ability and which web browser they are using. Amateur web designers tend to come up with what they think are impressive looking pages while ignoring the visitors who will come to your site. Ask the prospect which browsers they will test the web site on? (Answer: as many as possible) What is the purpose of the website? (Answer: explain the point of the site very simply).

4. Many web designers have no idea what to charge for their services. When you ask, you will get bids form $50 to $5,000. Both of these are ridiculous as one of them may be from a non English-speaking foreigner and the other a committee that will accomplish little. Look for an independent individual as opposed to a corporate type person. Be willing to negotiate the price but never agree to a let them do whatever it takes to make a good site and pay by the hour!

5. Be very wary of any web designer who tries to sell you a whole package such as domain name, web hosting, etc. Most of these types of operations have huge flaws in one area or the other. They will either be web hosting specialists who think designing web pages is easy or designers who are reselling some cheap hosting package for a huge profit. It’s best to buy the hosting yourself.

Keep these five points in mind when looking for that perfect web designer.