CodingElite.com | Articles

Links & Traffic | Article #24: MANUAL SURFS (TE’S)

Manual surfs are more commonly referred to as traffic or hit exchanges. These have been popular for some time now. The problem with these manual surfs is that most people just don’t know how to use them. Used properly, you can get some results from them. No, they are not knock ‘em out of the park and they are very time consuming as well. But with the right approach, and the right sites, you can make a few sales a month. Yeah, I know, it’s not much.

Okay, what exactly are manual surfs and how do they work?

A manual surf is a site where you sign up, tell them the URL of YOUR website and then after you’re activated, they give you a surf URL for you to use in order to do your “surfing”. This is no different from when you go to any other web site on your own to check it out. But there are advantages to this over simply going to sites on your own.

The main advantage is this. For every site you visit, you get 1 credit or a part of a credit towards YOUR site. This depends on how that particular exchange works. They are all different.

Anyway, when you earn credits towards your site, those credits are then removed from your account every time another member of the exchange views YOUR site. That’s right. Those credits make it so that others get to see your site. Why is this important? Well, obviously, every time a person sees your site, in theory, there is a chance that they will like what they see and buy your product or sign up with your service. Yes, in theory this is wonderful.

The reality, unless you know how to use these sites, is much different.

The sad truth is, 99% of people who use manual surfs are only interested in ONE thing and that’s to build up enough credits for YOU to see THEIR site. They couldn’t care less about your site so don’t even expect them to.

Plus, there is another problem with manual surf sites.

All these sites have timers on them. In other words each site you see only has to be viewed for so many seconds. Some are 10, some 30, some maybe a little more. But in almost all cases, there is just not enough time for your site to even fully load before the timer runs out. Certainly if you have a large sales page there is very little chance that the person on the other end is going to stick around to view it.

Why?

Remember? They only care about getting credits, NOT viewing your site.

It would seem from all I have said that manual surfs are a TOTAL waste of time. Well, there are certainly better ways to spend your day, but if you know a few tricks, you can make a few sales per month if you’re willing to put in many hours of surfing.

The first thing you have to know is which are the best surfs. By best surfs, we mean the ones with the most traffic so at least a large number of people will see your site.

To find out what the most active manual surf sites are you’ll have to subscribe to the site below.

HIT EXCHANGE NEWS

This will give you the top 10 or top 20 every week. I have to admit, I don’t really keep up with it anymore because the lists don’t really change that much from week to week. The best sites pretty much stay the best sites.

After you have done this, the next step before you even sign up with any of the surfs, is create what we call a splash page.
A splash page is a very short page with a catchy headline that will get people to want to click through to your main site.

Here is mine.

SPLASH PAGE

Short and to the point. That’s it. That’s all people will be able to handle when they’re using manual surfs. It’s easily readable in about 5 seconds. If it catches their eye, they’ll click through to your site. I’ve made a few sales with this page. I just don’t have the time to surf anymore running 6 different businesses. Like I said, it’s time consuming. But done properly, you can get some results.

Now, obviously, setting up a splash page means you have to have your own web hosting to direct people to your main site from the splash page, especially if the site you’re promoting is not your own but an affiliate program.

Because this splash page doesn’t have to be anything fancy, there is no need to get paid hosting. Any free web hosting service will be fine because you’re not going to get enough traffic to cause any problems like exceeding bandwidth. And if it ever DOES get to that point, it means your splash page is doing a heck of a job and you’re making quite a few sales.

As you can see, manual surfs are not the greatest thing going. They take a lot of work and produce little results. But if you have the time and are happy with a few sales a month from them, you might want to give this method of promotion a shot.

Read The Next Article On This Topic.

View All Articles Under This Topic.

P.S: If you would like to learn more about this topic, you can do so by joining our mailing list. Just go to the top right hand corner of this page, enter your name and email and click "Join Our Newsletter!".