Website Promotion
Traffic Exchange Programs
The second form of banner advertising we'll look at is traffic/banner exchange programs.
Although these sorts of programs are not really perfect at targetting the best audiences for your product or service they can still be a good way to generate additional traffic, especially if you don't have a huge advertising budget.
Traffic exchanges work, quite simply by exchanging your banners for those of other sites, normally through a third party website or company that will already have a large network of members ready for your banner to be displayed.
These sorts of programs usually offer a number of options, such as different banner sizes, and different traffic exchange rates depending on where you place the exchange banners on your own site.
Some of the better exchange programs will have a number of different catergories to choose from, so that you can try and direct your banner towards people that are more likley to be interested in your service by selecting the types of websites you'll exchange banners with.
How much traffic do they promise?
The amount of traffic you recieve depends on the amount of traffic you send out through the banners on your own website.
Exchange programs work on a click or exposure ratio which varies depending on which program you choose or the types of banners you are willing to display.
For example a banner exchange program may offer an exchange of 3:1 which would mean that for every 3 people that click the banners placed on your own site you would be credited with one click for your own advert.
This is just an example, some offer higher returns and some lower, it depends mostly on the types of banners you are willing to display, for example if you were willing to display adult banners on your site, you would most likley get a higher click ratio.
Displaying popups or popunders on your site would also usually get you a better return that just displaying stand alone banners, but consider the fact that they can be annoying to your visitors if you have too many.
Many exchange programs will also offer "free clicks" to encourage you to sign up, that would basically mean your account is credited with a certain number of "clicks due" when you join.
Choose Carefully
There's no shortage of banner exchange programs around, infact there's so many it makes it very difficult to select one, but if you're going to use traffic exchange programs take the time to find one that suits you best.
Make sure the program you're looking at can provide some statistics on the results that people currently using their program are getting.
Make sure that they have a good system for you to be able to monitor the traffic coming to your website, not only so that you can ensure you're getting what was promised, but also to see if the program is making any real difference to your traffic, if it's not you may want to consider trying another.
Try to select a program that lets you target your banners towards people that would be interested in your services, for example if you run a website offering services for students, it wouldn't be much use having your banner displayed on a website that offers holiday packages for the elderly. Sounds crazy? yes but unfortunatley with some exchange programs it can happen.
Exchanging Links Directly
Aswell as exchange programs, it's well worth contacting webmasters of sites that offer similar content to your own to see if they are interested in exchanging links, it doesn't have to be a huge banner, even a text link is a good way to generate some new traffic, and, once again i'll mention that the more sites you can get your own link placed on, the better chance you'll have of getting a good placement in the major search engines.