Traffic Buying Guide

While I believe firmly that good SEO efforts provide the best quality traffic you can get online, I also know that many people find it difficult to understand and not everyone can be in the top 10 for their keywords. Sometimes it's just easier to simply buy traffic for a website (I recommend http://www.proexpertstraffic.com/order.html) then it is to wait several months or even years for SEO to pay off. However, it's also been my experience that at least 90% of traffic buyers have no idea what they're doing and are bound to fail without proper preparation. For this reason I have decided to write this short traffic buying guide in an effort to help those still struggling with trying to generate visits to their site.

- Optimize your landing page or squeeze page: Do NOT send paid traffic to a blog or page full of distracting links! In almost all cases, except for a TE or PTC, visitors you pay for will come from some form of redirection or pop advertising, which means that someone looking at another site will be shown YOUR site and you have a mere couple of seconds to grab their attention before they decide to explore further or click out and leave forever. That's the reality.

You don't want that potential customer to be faced with dozens of links first thing and have no idea what your site is about. Use a clean, simple graphic with a bold headline and brief description with a distinct call to action, such as to join a mailing list for a free giveaway, or mention a special discount, etc. Tell the visitor exactly WHY they should explore your site further. You don't need to change your site at all, as you can simply add a page to your existing site that you specifically use for your traffic campaign.

This may sound strange, but try to make your page look somewhat like an ad. People are used to ads on websites, and are generally ok with them, as long as they fit the user experience and have added value. So, for example, if someone is visiting an arcade online because they want to play a game, then they aren't going to be interested in being redirected to your insurance blog, but if you create a landing page of just one game, or theme, with the call to "Click Here To Play Now!" then they are more likely to check it out, as you've gained their attention, even if it looks like an ad to visit another site.

Also, do not use a page or site with automatically playing sound or that has pop ups. It annoys the visitor and makes them click away before they even get chance to read what you have to offer them.

- Use targeted traffic correctly!! - Most people get this one wrong, as it's not always obvious. The average traffic buyer will buy health traffic to a website selling health related products, or dating traffic to a dating site affiliate link, etc, because that seems like the most logical choice. However, online marketing is much different and involves a certain degree of trial and error, as well as proper research.

Did you know that the highest conversion rates for diet products online come from white males over the age of 50? This is because many of them are self-conscious of their midlife "spare tire" and would rather work on it discreetly at home than go to a gym full of fit 20-30 year olds or be seen running around the block with their belly hanging out. So, they order pills online shipped directly to their door.

Therefore, with that demographic as your potential customer, it's your job as the marketer to target the right category most visited by these older males, such as news, politics, golf, etc. Do the research BEFORE starting your campaign!

- Promote a product that is worth the investment! - Here's another one people miss. Purchasing traffic costs money, so obviously you should be promoting a product or service that provides a reasonable ROI (return on investment). By far the most common question people ask before buying traffic is "Is it safe to use with Adsense?" and the answer is it doesn't matter because you shouldn't be using Adsense when buying visits because it doesn't pay enough to be worth it...ever. I don't care if your niche pays $2 per click or whatever it is...most visitors simply won't click third party ads on a redirected site, so the 1 or 2 clicks you MAY get (if you're extremely lucky) simply aren't worth the overall cost of a typical campaign.

What you should be using instead is a high end product with a decent profit margin, so that even if the conversion rate is low, then you still come out ahead. A good example would be using some of the advertisers on Commission Junction that pay $100+ per lead. Pick one with a good conversion rate (high EPC shown in their stats over 3 months AND at least something showing for the past 7 days). Then create a catchy landing page for it and research possible categories and demographics to target.

Once you are ready then buy a small campaign of 5000 or 10000 visitors to test response to your page. If there is no response at first then tweak the page or switch categories until you get a few "bites" and scale it up. For example, if you get 2 leads per 10k, then 100k would give you 10 times that, or 20 leads, more or less. If even just 2 of those "qualify" (most advertisers scrub leads and will find a way not to pay for them...that's life, so just assume it will happen), then you've earned $200+ from a $160 investment for $40+ profit. That's not bad considering many power sellers are scrapping out a living on Ebay at only 3% profit, or others using programs online that only pay out 2% or less.

- Be realistic - This should be a "no brainer", but yet it still needs to be said. Don't expect to make $100 off 5 bucks worth of traffic! It just doesn't work that way. I've seen customers complain that they didn't make a sale from their tiny 1000 visitor campaign to their site stuffed full of random ads, while I have other customers order 100k worth of traffic consistantly month after month because they know how it works and what to do with it. The truly successful sites are the ones getting 1000's of visits per DAY, not 1000 per month.

Small campaigns of under 10k are used for testing purposes only and should not be assumed to bring sales, especially to unoptimized pages. Any sales you may get should be seen as unusual and good luck, but don't expect miracles. Get 5 or 10k to test your page to see how effective it is first, and THEN scale according to your results.

Also, paid traffic typically has a high bounce rate, as it is not organic and only the truly interested visitors will explore your site further, and THOSE people are the ones you should concentrate your efforts on. A 90%+ bounce rate is common, but it's the 5-10% who stay, especially from a large campaign, that will make the difference. A high bounce rate WILL NOT affect your Google ranking in any way, as they only measure the rate from visitors through their own search engine. Outside stats like this have no affect, so don't worry about that and start working on your new customers instead. Plus, it should be a given that anyone buying visitors isn't already doing well in the SE's anyway, or why would they bother?

Bottom Line: Research, optimize, test, tweak, then do the math and scale your efforts accordingly. I personally use an advertiser on CJ that pays $110 per lead that converts at 2-3 per 100,000 visitors. That's $60-170 profit per campaign!

Good luck!!

Warning To All Website Traffic Sellers

As anyone who knows me on all the various webmaster forums can attest, I'm a very reasonable person and I'm willing to help out wherever I can. I'm very honest and listed in the top 1% of the largest webmaster forum online, Digital Point, and a top rated seller at Fiverr with close to 1000 transactions there.

I mention this not to brag, but to explain that I do a lot of business online and I work hard to make sure buyers are happy when they purchase anything from me. I process about half a million visitors in traffic sales EVERY MONTH and have only ever had one complaint, and that was from a guy with a splog that just wouldn't have worked well with ANY traffic source.

Well, an hour ago a buyer with the username Printsteals on Fiverr ordered one of my traffic gigs and then cancelled it just 5 minutes after placing the order. Since I hadn't even processed the order yet (I still had 2 other Fiverr ones in my queue that I was working on), I just figured the buyer had changed his mind...nothing wrong with that.

Then I logged in to review the order and he claimed I sent him bot traffic from ip address 184.105.140.157 which seems to be from a company called Hurricane Electric in California. Since the buyer's site, www.printsteals.com , is a business printing company, it just looks to me like a regular visit from a company maybe looking for printing services. However, since according to Alexa, most of Printsteals traffic comes from India, maybe this USA visit confused the buyer.

Anyway, he accused me of sending this bot to his site and that's his reasoning for cancelling the order. I tried to explain to him that I have nothing to do with that visit, bot or not, as I couldn't possibly have even processed his order in the amount of time between his purchase and cancellation. He wouldn't listen to reason and continued to be unreasonable throughout our conversation on Fiverr.

He said he would reorder and I told him not to because I don't need the abuse. Can you imagine what this guy would be like in another order? It would be hell! "I got a visit from Maine. I don't like Maine...its YOUR fault!!" or "That visitor only stayed 37 seconds. It's not my site they didn't like...it's YOU!" Every single thing he doesn't like would be blamed somehow on the traffic, even if it wasn't even from me!

If he feels reasonable to cancel an entire order based on ONE hit from somewhere else that had nothing to do with me, then imagine how bad it would get with an actual processed order! He would be complaining about every single visitor!! It's not worth the hassle to me, and I told him so. I've attached a screenshot of our conversation, as I think it's important to put it in context and to note that he never even apologized for his mistake and somehow still thinks I sent him fake traffic, when I never sent ANY traffic at all...that's how bulb headed he is. I always try my best to please a buyer, but I'm not about to accept being wrongly accused of something I did not do!

I don't usually air my grievances in public, but I'm doing so here because I sincerely want to warn other traffic sellers about this guy, as he plans to buy traffic from someone else and I feel sorry for anyone who accepts his order. Do not sell traffic to, or send visitors to, PRINTSTEALS as it will only cause you aggravation, like it did for me.

If anyone reading this is a seller who has dealt with him, or anyone like him, before then please sound off in the comments so we can warn other honest sellers not to get burned.

Thanks for reading!!

Free Website Traffic Offer

I sometimes give newbies a hard time about not having their own website with an original domain because the reality is that it's MUCH easier to promote something when you have control over your own content, meta tags, ad placement, etc. Promoting ANY program, opportunity, product, affiliate link or whatever is harder when so many other people are doing it. The advantage comes with creating your own site that is well optimized through SEO for your keywords and that contains your own ads placed on it.

It's not nearly as complicated as it might sound at first. You simply buy a $10 .com domain from a registrar like Godaddy (specials can be found through the banner on the right) and then get a basic "unlimited" hosting plan to host your site files (such as the Hostgator "Baby" plan, also on the right). That way you can always expand your online "empire" in the future and the cost won't increase at all, as your hosting provides free scripts to build sites (including forums, blogs, classified sites and more), plus your own personal email addresses so you have that professional edge over your competition.

To get you started I have worked out a deal where you can get free traffic to kick start your shiny new site, once you have it setup on your new hosting plan. You can read the details at the free website traffic offer here. The visits are good for getting a targeted visitor flow going right away, so you don't have to worry about the usual wait time or exhausting promotions to get a fresh website "off the ground".

Good luck!!

Need Traffic? Surf For Credit!

I'm Back! I hope everyone had a great week and many successful ventures.

My post for today is focused on what I call the "surf for credit" type sites, also known as surfing for cash or credit. Very similar to what I mentioned in my Adbux post, but with a couple of important differences. (By the way, Adbux was having some problems with their site hosting and have moved, in case you noticed it was down).

The important differences are that with the surf programs the sites will breeze right by in front of your eyes while you watch, whereas the Adbux type ones you have to specifically click on the ad text to see the full site. The other thing is that, technically, there is no money adding up for you as you surf the credit sites, since you are being "paid" in credits to be used for your own ads. While you CAN make a little money with their affiliate programs, that requires more effort, whereas with Adbux and the like you can start making your few cents on your own right away. The thing they ALL have in common, as far as I'm concerned, is that they shouldn't be thought of as a means to make any amount of riches, but as a cheap means of getting advertising traffic for whatever program you choose that WILL make you rich.

That being said, I'll just give a quick overview of 2 surf credit sites I recommend along with the pros and cons of each. There are MANY sites out there, but 2 of the best to get started are the WebCentreSurf traffic site and the ad traffic exchange at TrafficG. The obvious first difference between these two is that the Webcentre site is more user friendly and easier to start than the TrafficG site. The TrafficG site takes more effort to list your sites and add descriptions while at Webcentre you just copy and paste your site addresses and you're good to go.

Each one features fun symbols to click on for credit as you view the sites. At WebCentre you have to watch each site for 10 seconds and when the timer hits 0 you have to click on a matching symbol or color to confirm your credit. The rapid trivia for bonus points helps keep you paying attention if you start nodding off while surfing! The main stats page is also very user friendly and easily understood. Surf ratio is 40% unless you upgrade. Also, you can only list up to 5 sites as a free member.

TrafficG has a 30 second timer and no trivia games, but there is what they call a "skill card" which you have to click on once in awhile to prove you are still viewing the sites. Their symbols are generally cartoon characters as well. They have a promotional page where you can list all your sites on one page, which I found handy. They also offer a starter page option for your browser. Surf ratio can be 1:1 without upgrading, but only after you surf for awhile. You can list as many sites as you like for free.

To summarize, Webcentresurf is fun, easy and to the point when surfing. TrafficG offers many other features (perhaps too many) for a beginner with only 1 or 2 sites to promote. Your pick depends on what you require from them. My recommendation for listing them here is that they are both FREE services in which you can create ads for your websites and programs and have them seen by 1000's of people looking for what you are selling. Both also have a hit counter telling you how many times your ads/sites were viewed and you can list several on each site. So, what have you got to lose? It's FREE advertising for you! Check them BOTH out NOW!!