Exchanges are a way of sharing your own traffic to other websites. Brilliant
people who are experiencing the same problem of directing an inadequate
number of visitors to their sites devised this strategy. The idea is very
simple. All a person has to do is to post advertisements of other websites on
their own sites in exchange for the same thing. In essence, it is you-
advertise-on-my-website-and-I'll-advertise-on-your-site sort of agreement.
People want to increase the popularity of their sites and that's a given. Some people are more than willing to exchange or share resources with others, so
to speak.
There are different things you can propose an exchange with to other
websites. You can exchange links, banners, content, and a whole lot of other
promotional stuff. It is more about sharing what you have to other web
masters so that they can share what they have to you in response. The most
popular exchanges in are in the form of URL's. Some web directories are
actually requiring websites to put their link on the front page of the website
that is requesting inclusion. More often than not, web directories test their
live links to see if it is really there before they accept the website for
submission.
Web directories are online classified listings of different websites. The links
of the websites they contain actually came from the web masters who had
intent to be included in the list. Some web directories are paid directories.
This means that you need to pay these sites a certain amount before your
link shows up on their pages. However, web directories understand that not
all web masters have the necessary funds to pay for advertisements. As
such, web directories devised another mode of payment. Instead of web
masters paying them money for link inclusion, they pay by publishing the
web directory's link on their front page. This setup benefits both parties. The web directory is getting the promotion it gets while your website is getting
more backlinks.
But links are not the only things that are used for exchanges these days.
There are also inline text advertisements and even banners. Banner
exchanges work in the same way as link exchanges. Only in this type,
graphical banners are published instead of mere URL's. Here, you can catch
more of an audience from another website because you are free to use eye-
catching graphics and sometimes, even multimedia, to get your message
across. Banner exchanges with another website is a good idea if and only if
the other website you are trading advertisement spots with have a better
page ranking and traffic than you do.
Of course, the other website may be a little choosy in selecting a banner
exchange partner. Either your website had to be related to their own, or
yours has to have an equal amount of traffic and enjoy the same page
ranking as theirs. There are certain requirements that both parties have to
meet. And it is very important that the two web masters exchanging links
with each other have open communication so that they both maximize their
efforts of generating traffic to their respective sites.
There are several websites nowadays that are proposing exchanges to fellow web masters. They serve as a middleman between two websites that are
looking for traffic. In essence, they match two or more websites so that they
can pool their resources together to gain the traffic they need. Their service
makes the whole system easier, as you don't have to personally talk to
another web master for an exchange. Most of them offer their services for
free, by the way.
Exchanges can really do wonders for your site. If you have distributed your
links or banners to a substantial number of websites over the internet, even
if only one unique person gets to click them everyday, you should be getting
the results that you want. However, you have to be very careful when
entering deals like these. You don't want to over populate your websites with
somebody else's links, advertisements, and banners in such a way that your
own content becomes merely a shadow of the ruckus. Be very wary when
positioning the links and banners from exchanges as well. They should not,
in any way, make your website lose its credibility.
How to Use Exchanges to Create Traffic
