If you are serious about earning extra income online, you need to get your product, affiliate link, website etc seen on the Internet. OK, so you may have a well-designed, flashy website, or blog – but if you do not advertise it – it will not get seen. You cannot just sit back and expect customers to come to you. Any business needs a good marketing strategy, and you need to spend at least a couple of hours a week in promoting your product, sites or affiliate links. There are many ways in which you can do this on the Internet.

Traffic Exchanges
There are literally hundreds of traffic exchanges on the Net, with new ones appearing all the time. There are generally two types of traffic exchange, Manual or Autosurf. There are some like Storm Surf Traffic that have both an Autosurf and Manual surf option. Autosurfs are great if you just want raw hits to your site – but you cannot guarantee that anyone is actually looking at your site, since they can be turned on and left to run. Manual surfs require you to click an icon to proceed to the next page, so you know your site is being seen. I personally have a mixture of both and find that this works well.

The idea with all traffic exchanges is of course to ‘exchange traffic’. You submit your site for viewing by other members and in return you view their sites. The number of sites you are able to submit for viewing varies a lot, as does the surf ratio, i.e. how many sites you have to surf to get one hit to your site, and it is worth checking this out before signing up. All exchanges offer upgraded memberships, where the surf ratio is higher. It is generally worthwhile upgrading as you also get added bonuses, like extra monthly credits, banner ads, text ads, and higher commission percentage. Some exchanges also give upgraded members random referrals, these are members who sign up, but have not been referred by another member. You can purchase a monthly or annual upgrade, and often when you join a new exchange there are One Time Offers ‘OTO’s where you can sign up at a reduced monthly rate or purchase an annual upgrade at considerably less than cost price. However, you may prefer to get the feel of the exchange before upgrading – and I would generally recommend doing this.

Before joining any exchange you should read their Terms and FAQ’s. These usually contain essential and useful information, particularly about which sites they will allow to be shown. Most will not accept sites with adult content. Some do not accept ‘paid to read’ or ‘paid to promote’ sites. I would advise you to check these things out before joining.

Getting started with Traffic Exchanges is easy – you can just do a search for ‘Traffic Exchanges’, and you will get plenty of results. Once you have joined one traffic exchange, you will be viewing a variety of sites relating to online marketing, internet businesses, etc, including other traffic exchanges. I would advise you to start with three or four different traffic exchanges, and build up from there. Plan your surfing, so that you surf at a few exchanges each day. Traffic exchanges are ideal for getting your site seen on the Internet, so do make use of them.

The table below shows the traffic exchanges I use, just click the site button and you will be taken to the relevant site. Remember, it is free to sign up at these sites, try them for a while. If you like the site, consider upgrading. If you aren’t keen on the site, you are free to delete your account at any time.

	Site Information
	Manual surf. Banner ads. Text Links. Dynamic Surf Ratios. Upgrade your account for higher surf ratios. Prize pages in rotation. Free offers.
	Manual surf. Dynamic Surf Ratios. Surfing Rewards. Prize pages in rotation. Plenty of contests.
	Manual Surf. Banner and Text ads. Downline Builder. Surfing rewards. Guaranteed Prize Pages
	Manual surf, great OTO! Dynamic Surf Ratios, Prize pages in rotation. Even free members can earn 15% commissions from their downline purchases. Upgraded members earn 50% commissions. Banner ads & Text Links.
	Auto and Manual surf, banner ads and text links. Very large membership. Choice of upgrades. Also has PTC’s, Signup bonuses. One of my real favourites.
	Autosurf and Manual Surf. PTC section. 1000 credit signup bonus. You must surf 25 sites to fully activate your account and receive signup bonus. Daily and Monthly drawings, surf contests and ad deals.
	Manual Surf. Dynamic surf ratios. Downline builder. Sink the Ship prize pages
	Manual Surf. 2000 credit signup bonus, plus banner ads and text ads. Free members earn 10% commissions on downline purchases. Downline builder. Ad Tracker.
	Manual surf with no click hover surfing technology. Signup & Surfing bonuses. Contests. PTC area. A percentage of all profits go to dog rescue.

Advertising Exchanges
Advertising Exchanges are an excellent way to advertise on the Net. They provide a way for you to send your marketing mails to other members without the risk of being accused of spamming. SPAM is a serious issue for online marketers and it is vital that you are aware of current SPAM regulations. Wikipedia defines SPAM as “the abuse of electronic messaging systems (including most broadcast media, digital delivery systems) to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately. While the most widely recognized form of spam is e-mail spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engine spam, spam in blogs, wiki spam, online classified ads spam, mobile phone messaging spam, Internet forum spam, junk fax transmissions, social networking spam, and file sharing network spam”. Also see CAN SPAM ACT 2005 for more information on US SPAM regulations.

Advertising exchanges offer a variety of advertising methods, such as banner ads, text ads, login ads, and solo ads. Solo ads are good because they are sent directly to other members mail boxes. In return you are expected to read their ads of course. The key thing here is to have a mailbox set aside for your ad exchange mail. Whilst exchanges do limit the number of mails they send each day, if you join a few exchanges you will still get a fair number of mails, and it is best to have one mailbox where you can go and login, read your ads and not have to worry about more important mail being lost amongst all the solo ads! Google Mail (gmail) is about the best free email account around, so I would recommended using them.

As with traffic exchanges, Advertising exchanges have free and upgraded accounts, and you must decide which account suits your needs best. Most exchanges offer good cheap advertising packages, so if you want to buy extra ads you can. New advertising exchanges are appearing on the Net all the time and they all have good opening offers, many offering a free PRO (upgraded account), and excellent OTO’s. It is certainly worth joining a few exchanges, as it gives you another marketing outlet. You will find a few ad exchanges on my Recommended Sites Page.

Site Rotators
Site Rotators are a very useful Online Marketing Tool. They enable you to advertise all your marketing sites using one URL. Take a look at My Ultimate Rotator for a good example of a site rotator. Many rotator sites include the use of other useful marketing tools, such as banner rotators, and ad trackers. Most rotator sites offer free and upgraded memberships, and you can earn commissions from any referral upgrades or purchases. Once you join a rotator site, you set up your own rotator in your member area, by adding your websites to your unique rotator url. There is usually a limit on the number of sites you can add.

The key thing to remember with a rotator site is that you still need to actually advertise your unique rotator url in order to get hits to your site and get your site seen. Many traffic exchanges now allow you to submit rotator URLs. However, you must make sure that your rotator does not contain any sites that are not allowed at the Traffic Exchange, so if one particular exchange does not allow ‘Paid to Read’ sites, then your rotator must not contain any of these sites as it will be a violation of their terms and your rotator url will be suspended. If this is a real problem for you, consider joining a couple of rotator sites, and have one rotator set up with your Paid to Read sites in to submit to the Traffic Exchanges that allow them and one without to use elsewhere.

DISCLAIMER: Some items listed on this blog, whether in print or of a graphic nature, may be affiliate links to other websites. These links may result in compensation to the publisher.