Traffic Exchanges: A Testimony

The traffic exchange is a simple idea. You view my site, I'll view yours. The more sites you view, the more views you get to your own site. It sounds like an amazing way to generate traffic... until you realize the nasty shortcoming of the fact that it's a seller's market. No one who surfs is looking to buy anything or join anything. You'll get a lot of views, but pretty much no attention at all.

I never put much stock in traffic exchanges either, until recently. My first Clixsense referral was from a TE, but otherwise... I had nothing. And then I met Lucie. One day last month I was doing some spare surfing on a few traffic exchanges, and I was on the look for anything that could boost my online income. I signed up for several programs, but this training was different. Lucie was promoting a claim that she could teach me to get a good, steady income from traffic exchanges alone. It was free training, so I signed up, but I wasn't convinced that she was anything more than a desperate affiliate until a few days later. I was continuing to surf, and I recognized her profile picture on an ad for another traffic exchange. Under her picture she was credited with having earned over a thousand dollars on that site alone.

Do TE's even pay that much money? Some of them give out odd pennies for prizes or hold lotteries at regular intervals, but a thousand dollars is a lot. Lucie was not a desperate affiliate. She was doing very well, and she was offering me her system for free.

Did it work for me? Surprisingly, yes! I got my first signup within only a few hours after completing step one of the system. When I started active list building after finishing the training, I got two subscribers within the first couple days. It's slowed down since then. One subscriber was active and signed up under me on a traffic exchange, and since then he has been actively referring people under himself. I have quite a downline on that site now! Unfortunately, it's not a site that pays money for anything. Just credits.

This weekend, my free trial for Traffic Wave came to an end, and I did not renew it. I had set aside some money just for that purpose, but after researching and looking up options, I decided to put that money into SFI instead so that I could become an Executive Affiliate. I moved my list over to MailChimp (not an autoresponder, but when my list is too big to handle on a one-on-one basis I should have no problem signing up for a paid TrafficWave subscription. The good news is that I shouldn't have to wait long. Three paid TW referrals will completely pay for my own account, and so I'm hoping that within the next month I can return to that. In the meantime, I'm continuing to surf. I'm getting new referrals almost every day, with a click-through rate of about 3% (which is decent for a TE).

Do I recommend traffic exchanges to the average marketer? That depends. If you plan on only surfing on one site for only a few minutes here and there, then don't. If you are willing to put the work into it, joining a bunch of programs and surfing for several hours a day after designing your own splash page, then go for it! Because now I know--it works if you know how!

Interested in Lucie's course? I'd love to share it with you and help you out wherever I can! Just give me your contact info on my squeeze page here or my website here, and I'll send you the first step ASAP!

SFI: Affiliate Scam or Genuine Opportunity?

I joined SFI recently. I was hesitant about it at first, knowing that it's proud of its "affiliate opportunities"--which in the language of work-at-home scams means, "I bought into a scam. Please join me so that I don't have to feel so bad about it!" In fact, I probably wouldn't have joined at all if it weren't for my awesome sponsor... but that's for another article. Anyway, I joined SFI a few weeks ago, and here's an inside look at what I found:

First, the good. It's a lot bigger than I thought it was. SFI owns the online TripleClicks store, which I've been hearing about lately. It also boasts 100,000 ways to earn (though I still have to learn what most of those are). If you want, you can focus exclusively on selling things through TripleClicks. Even better, if you can't get anyone to buy except yourself you'll still find yourself earning through it by the end of the month. How does that work?

When you first sign up, you're encouraged to explore and participate in the SFI website. In return for visiting pages and reading popular articles, you can earn VersaPoints, which (among other things) translate as shares of TripleClicks. If you earned at least 1500 VersaPoints in the span of the month, you get paid according to your number of shares. VersaPoints can be earned very easily when you first start out with SFI, and also for every SFI member you refer. However... that also leads me to the bad.

The bad: No matter how much SFI brags about its many ways to earn and the importance of TripleClicks, it all comes back to affiliate marketing. If you can talk people into buying from "your" store as opposed to Amazon or Ebay, good for you, but the rest of us can only hope to earn by sponsoring more affiliates. It gets old fast. Also, the community is not nearly as close and tight-knit as it pretends to be. It's very hard to contact support, and if you just stick to asking fellow affiliates, there's a good chance that they won't be able to help you. Plus, SFI cuts corners. I joined in the end of March, and earned about 1000 VersaPoints in my first few days. I was excited to finally earn my first 1500 and be able to get paid for it... but that never happened. By the time I reached 1500 VP, it was April. It doesn't matter how many points you can earn, so long as you earn it within the same month. That being said, I confess I feel cheated compared to everyone who joined just a few days after I did and will get their money without having to refer anyone or sell anything.

My conclusion? Enter at your own risk. Even though there is decent business being conducted there, it's predominantly an affiliate scheme and it's hard to work around that. Can you earn from it? Yes. Is it a scam? Not really. Is it a good idea? I guess all that depends. I'll try to keep up with it for a while to see if it goes anywhere, but I'm not letting my hopes go up. You can make up your mind for yourself, and I do encourage you to check it out if you're curious here.

What Gurus Don't Tell You: The Importance of Ownership

Internet marketing gurus drive me crazy. They're all the same: they sit there behind their webcam in their luxurious homes telling how they were once so desperate for money and now have a fortune because of their miraculous "system," which they will share with you if you pay them enough money. You know that something's got to be working for them if their finances have improved too much, so you decide to give it a try. You wheedle down the price as much as possible by clicking the red x and then "stay on this page" several times and then make the purchase. The system is yours. You get it set up, plug it in, and... nothing happens. What is it that the gurus don't tell you?

The truth is, if they told you the one thing they all have in common then they would have nothing to sell to begin with. That is because the one thing that they all rely on is their brand--their stamp of ownership on their system. They're the admins. They're the boss, the founder, the guy in charge. And that's where it all comes from.

In most cases, you can't expect to make a cent from paid affiliate programs. People want to buy something new, something that they haven't seen before. You need a site, a system of your own to sell. And don't be cheap about it either. If you really want to keep people coming to you, help them out. Give them something they need, a handbook and step-by-step instructions on how to do something. A further secret: it doesn't even need to be about making money.

When I started out, I thought that the only way I was going to get anywhere in this industry was if I chose a major niche and capitalized on it. Entrepreneurship seemed the most logical because of the many affiliate opportunities available. One thing that Wealthy Affiliate taught me was that you don't need to go crowd chasing--a steady trickle is all you need to be successful in your industry. You could go with birdwatching or knitting or medieval weaponry. Chances are, you might be even more successful simply because you don't have as much competition as you would with a major niche. How do you profit on it? There are two good ways that I've discovered. One is through affiliate systems. You'd be surprised how many affiliate programs there are about anything under the sun--simply google your keyword + affiliate and you'll likely have several good choices to choose from. Depending on where you live, Amazon Associates is also a good option for pretty much any niche. It's easy to sign up and add whatever you want to your site. The other option is to display. I haven't made any money this way, but many people do and it is worth looking into. Every time anyone clicks on an ad they see on your site, you get paid.

Later I plan to report on a few options that can help you get started, but for now hopefully you're a step closer to making it work online.

Welcome, Chitika!

Yesterday I temporarily locked viewers out of this site so that I could experiment with advertising. There was no way I would allow a repeat of my first monetization attempt, but even without Amazon Associates and Google Adsense, surely I could find something that worked!

Yesterday I tried Bidvertiser first. It says it does targeted advertising, and even though it was a disaster last time there must be a way to adjust the settings and limit the kind of ads shown! I searched through the site and double-checked all of the ad options to make sure that everything was just right, and then I applied it. It didn't last long! As soon as the first pornographic ad popped up on the side, I realized my mistake and was relieved that I had locked the site from views for that experiment. Nope, Bidvertiser won't do the job for me.

After that I started scanning the web for Adsense alternatives. Even though Bidvertiser seems to be the next biggest, there had to be something less dangerous. And I think I might have found something. I say think because I've only had it for a day and can't speak for its success. Chitika is considered one of the closest things to Adsense there is. I was incredibly relieved when I not only had to specify the nature of my site for ad sifting (which Bidvertiser already did) but also had the option to select what kinds of ads I wanted and what kind I didn't want. Text, image, or both? How flashy was I ok with? And, most importantly, what keywords did I not want in certain ads?

The results are dry. The ads don't perfectly match up to the site, though every now and then something interesting pops up. But so far, Chitika has proven itself to be reliable and honest, and I hope it will continue to be so in the future. I also hope I get more specialized ads than a list of related keywords. But hey, it's a start. Now I just need to wait and see the long-term results and effects. Hopefully they'll be positive!

Eww... It's An Ad!

I tried to reactivate my Google Adsense Account and had mixed success. Yes, they will let me set up a new account so I can use it, but no I can't use it here because I have links to PTC's. I also can't use it on my Wealthy Affiliate site because it's on a sub-domain. Ugh. Fortunately, I might use it for another blog in the future. I've also applied for a Yahoo Adsense-like thing, but it will be a couple weeks before they get back to me.

On top of that, my Amazon Affiliate account has been locked because apparently the State of Maine (where I recently moved to) doesn't like it and won't allow it. Yeah....

In the mean time, I hesitantly decided to see if I could maybe to Bidvertiser again. Mind, I still stand by what I said earlier about only advertising things that I approve of and respect--and Bidvertiser is very questionable. So I'm sticking with a little column by the side that so far hasn't advertised anything too suspicious, and I sent in a request to use only text ads instead of graphics, since in my experience text ads are both more pleasant to look at and have better things to advertise.

I do care about this site and want it to succeed, and fortunately I have been getting traffic that I could only have dreamed about a year ago. Hopefully these little adventures and mishaps of mine are amusing, if not educational, to everyone reading this! And I will be keeping an eye on that ad to make sure it doesn't get too out of line. The memories from my previous attempt still hurt my mind when I think about them!

Wealthy Affiliate: The Good, The Bad, and The Unfair

First, an update: looks like blogging take #3 isn't going to happen. Ugh. Maybe I should try PPC ads again?

I was messing around the other day and came across a program called "Wealthy Affiliate." It wasn't like other affiliate programs--instead of just trying to sell the same site you just joined, WA equips people to start their own home business based on anything they like. And a starter account is free.

How could I resist? I looked around the site and joined up, and in the next couple days had watched all ten of the starter videos. They were very well done. WA is built around a strong community atmosphere, and you can work alongside other people in your same position as you get step-by-step help setting up your own Wordpress website. I was loving it... and then the free lessons ended. They had covered basic setup of the website and everything was all set to happen, but then what? There were no instructions on where to go from there, other than to sign up for a premium account to learn just how to publicize your site and how to profit from it. Basically, you're just left with an empty shell of a website with an "about me" and a "privacy policy" page, with no traffic, no domain, and no profits. Ugh... foiled again.

I'm trying to patch it up and get it set up to actually make a profit, but it's hard without everything they had implied they would provide as needed. I can scope out the WA site to find conversations, but I can't ask questions without a premium account and I can't access any new "classrooms" to learn about a topic.

Yep, I feel pretty cheated. Google Adwords won't even accept the new site because it's using a subdomain, and I'm really reluctant to go back to Bidvertiser after what happened last time.

So for now I'm going to skulk back to paid surveys and article writing and keep my eyes peeled for something that could actually help. I'll keep you posted as to my results!

Make Money Blogging: Attempt #3

Yeah, I just can't seem to leave this idea alone. Making money with my own blog would be totally awesome. My latest gig is freelance article writing, and before that website owning and list building. You'd think I would have stopped once I realized I could make money with surveys, but I just don't like how uncontrollable they are. It's completely unpredictable whether I'll get long or short surveys or whether I'll qualify. Sure, I could spend all day at it and count on making at least some money... but writing is what I love. I want to be able to write an article and know people will read it and like it and know that I'll earn something from it.

Here's a summary of my monetary blogging attempts:

1. Last May. That's how this got started. I read a handbook that guaranteed that I would be making money blogging within thirty days, so I followed it as closely as possible. I got tons of views, kicked out of a Reddit section for "blog-spamming"--which I totally didn't intend!--and really turned off some people with some Bidvertiser ads that were way out of hand. And guess what? I actually did make money by the end of it. It just wasn't coming from the blog. It was coming from things I had decided on while writing the blog, often ideas and inspirations that I decided to explore. So I left the blog and happily settled down with Survey Money Machine.

2. Sometime last summer or so. I heard about companies that pay you to review products on your blog. I do lots of reviewing here, so I thought it sounded like a good deal. I signed up with a bunch of companies... and none got back to me.

3. A repeat of #2, but hopefully with a better outcome? Also maybe some more of #1's experimentation (sorry if some of it backfires!)

So here's a code I need to verify myself to one site:
2fa89d3910ca979a67a82f9cb4be76f28c2d34b72b5f264fe6

I'll be back soon... maybe...