How to increase blog traffic without financial investments (part 4)

In the forth part of the research, we will continue investigating the most promising ways to increase traffic flow to the Blog. Earlier, we already discussed several methods of the site promotion, related to the Blog submission to the various search engines and directories. In this chapter we will review the traffic exchange approaches.

Part 4: Traffic Exchange

Manual Traffic Exchange
Manual Blog Traffic Exchange communities operate on a basis of a reciprocal viewing ratio: every member, by visiting other members’ Blogs in the network, is earning credits that could be exchanged for visits by other community members to his own Blog. Some traffic exchange networks also encourage members to buy additional credits, which will be translated to the non-reciprocal visitors’ traffic. Among the main benefits of using traffic exchange as a method of the blog promotion is opportunity of getting extra traffic from the fellows-bloggers that you would never get in any other way. The communities’ members are the blogging fans themselves, so you get the traffic from the people that might be interesting in what you can offer. However, I would not personally consider this traffic as high quality traffic. The reason of this downgrading is based on the fact that most participants review the sites for simple credit making without an actual interest in the Blogs they are viewing through, frequently not even noticing, what is happening on the screen. Another disadvantage of the manual traffic exchange – it is very time-consuming. Indeed, you click and click, and at the end you get several visitors to your site that even might not note what it is about. And, finally, this area comes too close to the borders of the permitted by AdSense traffic generation guidelines. Just wanted to cite to you a clarification on the topic from the AdSense official Blog:
“As many of you already know, our program policies strictly prohibit any means of artificially generating ad impressions or clicks, including third-party services such as paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, auto-surf, and click-exchange programs. These programs offer incentives for users to view web pages or click on ads, resulting in activity that is harmful to our advertisers. We occasionally receive questions from publishers interested in using traffic exchanges to bring traffic to their site. While these services may help advertise your site, we don't recommend using them, as they may also result in similar invalid activity”.

http://adsense.blogspot.com/2007/04/note-on-traffic-exchange-programs.html

As you see, there is no prohibition to use traffic exchange services, it is just not recommended. So, it is your choice, if you want to use the traffic exchange program in your marketing campaign. In case you are not linked to AdSense income share program any, consequently, to any related obligations, you can simply disregard all the related warnings. The list of the most recommended Traffic Exchange services is provided in the Web List, hosted by RateItAll:

http://www.rateitall.com/t-24372-manual-traffic-exchange-for-blogs--free-online-services.aspx


Note that this list covers only the Web Sites that, in their service coverage, are dedicated exclusively to the bloggers. There are even more general traffic exchange services, which accept any type of the membership Web Sites in the community. I have not prepared the Web List of services in this category, but you can easily get multiple hits if you search on Google “manual traffic exchange”.

Automatic Traffic Exchange

An Automatic Traffic Exchange approach has one big advantage: your participation is almost not required. You sign for one, or for multiple accounts; leave your computer overnight, and the “smart” auto-trafficking program will guide your PC through Internet, earning you money, credit for your own site exposure, or both. These programs, however, clearly violate the AdSense instructions, and there is a good chance that you will be busted one day, if you use the scheme. Definitely, if you are working on your Blog or Web Site with no AdSense participation, you are clean from the legal viewpoints. Usually, the automatic traffic exchange program is activated by the participants overnight, while the account owner is away from the computer.

So, even thou your traffic statistics will show significant increase, no one from your “visitors” will actually see your site. The generated traffic is purely artificial, and can increase site exposure earnings per impressions, if it would be legal. As a bottom line, I would not personally recommend using the Automatic Traffic Exchange schemes, as it is illegal (for AdSense or others similar advertising brokers) and might cause your account suspension. You can loose more than you can gain.

To be continued…