Like them or loathe them, traffic exchanges always seem to get an opinion out of people. Some people can't see the point and others love them to death. Sure, a lot of the time you are only going to find other people trying to punt their opportunity in them and you have to put a lot of clicking effort in to get results but the results we've had have been positive rather than negative. I even like idly surfing sometimes to check out when else there is out there!

As I said before, you need to actually put some effort and time into promoting via traffic exchanges. But then you get what you pay for, and promotion this way is essentially free. So it's best to spend your time wisely and surf several exchanges at once. The best way to do this I've found is with the firefox browser because it allows you to have several pages open at the same time within the same window due to it's "tabbed" browsing. Plus if you store the surf pages of all your exchanges in one bookmarks folder then you can launch them all at once by selecting "Open in Tabs".

So, what works best in a traffic exchange? Personally, I think that the shiny corporate pages of your affiliate and networking schemes may work when that program is new - but surfers will soon gloss over them and not see them after too long. So what is the best option? Obviously you've got to come up with something better!

You'll need some web space to put your files in, but you can get this at very reasonable prices. Then you need to create your advertising. One effective page would be to advertise is one that contains a list traffic exchange referrer URLs! Start to build a downline to earn your credits...

Another effective page is a very simple lead gathering page such as a generic recruitment one or a customer prospecting one. I usually design the first one to be totally company independent so that when somebody contacts me through it I can discuss what's best for them in person. They also get directed to my site afterwards to read at their leisure. Short and sweet, that's the key to effective advertising in the exchanges. You only have around 20-30 seconds to grab someone's attention so come up with something that everybody else ISN'T doing, something amusing or topical.

Don't make you page an excuse to cram in as much as possible with banner adverts everywhere and flashing graphics. That's completely tasteless and you can advertise all your programs separately with a much greater effectiveness.