8) Avoid hyping in your resource box.

Your resource box, while promotional in nature, should be brief and tasteful. The purpose of your resource box is not to sell your readers something, but to lead them to your website which does actual selling. Your resource box should contain your name, your company name, a brief description of your products or services, your web site's URL, and a clickable link to your site.

9) Put some thought and effort into your writing.

E-zines have varying standards for accepting articles, and some accept and publish all submissions without any human review at all. However, this does not mean you should write an article just for sake of having it published somewhere. If your article comes off as half-baked, readers may make a similar assumption about you and your business practices.

10) Submit your article to as many e-zines as feasible.

There are dozens of e-zines on web that welcome submissions from independent authors. Ideally, you'd want your article to be exposed on as many of them as you can. But it takes time to register and submit to each one of them. Therefore, I recommend that you submit to only a handful of more popular ones.

Below is a list of e-zines along with their Google PageRanks (PR). The higher PR of an e-zine, greater its online visibility.

Amazines - www.amazines.com - PR4 Article Alley - www.articlealley.com - PR5 Article City - www.articlecity.com - PR6 Article Emporium - www.article-emporium.com - PR4 Articles Factory - www.articlesfactory.com - PR5 Article Finders - www.articlefinders.com - PR5 ArticleSubmissions.com - www.articlesubmissions.com - PR3 ArticleWarehouse - www.articlewarehouse.com - PR4 AuthorConnection.com - www.authorconnection.com - PR5 Business Know-How - www.businessknowhow.com - pr6 BusinessToolchest.com - www.businesstoolchest.com - pr3 Buzzle.com - www.buzzle.com - PR6 Common Connections - www.commonconnections.com - PR3 Connectionteam.com - www.connectionteam.com - PR3 Constant Content - www.constant-content.com - PR6 Createonlinebusiness.com - www.createonlinebusiness.com - PR3 Digital Women.com - www.digital-women.com/submitarticle.htm - PR5 Ezine Articles - www.ezinearticles.com - PR7 Family-Content.com - www.family-content.com/articles - PR4 Free Content - www.certificate.net/wwio - PR5 FreeTrafficTip.com - www.freetraffictip.com - PR4 FreeZineSite.com - www.freezinesite.com - PR2 Fresh-Articles.com - www.fresh-articles.com - PR3 GoArticles.com - www.goarticles.com - PR6 Home-Business-Directory.com - www.home-business-directory.com - PR3 Home Based-business Opportunities - www.home-based- business-opportunities.com - pr5 Home business Tips Newsletter - www.home-business-tips-newsletter.com - PR3 HowToAdvice.com - www.howtoadvice.com - PR4 IdeaMarketers.com - www.ideamarketers.com - PR5 isnare.com - www.isnare.com PR5 Jogena's - www.jogena.com - PR4 jorbins.com - www.jorbins.com - PR5 Li'l Engine - www.lilengine.com - PR7 LinkSnoop.com - www.linksnoop.com - PR3 Main Street Mom - www.mainstreetmom.com - PR5 Marketing PitBull - www.marketingpitbull.com - PR2 NetterWeb.com - www.netterweb.com - PR4 OpportunityUpdate.com - OpportunityUpdate.com - PR3 Organic-Rankings.com - www.organic-rankings.com - PR3 PromoteNewz.com - www.promotenewz.com -PR4 PromotionWorld.com/articles.html - www.promotionworld.com -PR4 Sales Masters World - www.sales-masters-world.com - PR5 SearchWarp.com - www.searchwarp.com -PR4 SmartAds.info - www.smartads.info/articles - PR4 StoreBuilder.co.uk - www.storebuilder.co.uk - PR4 T & I Grafix - www.tigrafix.com/articles.htm - PR3 TheEzine.net - www.theezine.net - PR4 Top-Web-Marketing.com - www.top-web-marketing.com/article - PR3 Web Host Industry Review - www.thewhir.com/find/articlecentral - PR5 UniTerra.com - uniterra.com -PR3 upromote.com - www.upromote.com - PR3 The Warrior Forum - www.warriorforum.com/forum - PR4 Web Host Industry Review - www.thewhir.com/find/articlecentral - 5 WebMomz.com - www.webmomz.com - PR3 WebProNews.com - www.webpronews.com - PR7 WebsiteFuel.com - www.websitefuel.com - PR3 website-promotion-ranking-services.com - www.website-promotion-ranking-services.com/article.htm - PR4 Web-Source.net - www.web-source.net -PR6 Womans-Net - womans-netnews.com - PR4 WorkAtHomeArticles.net - www.workathomearticles.net -PR3 Work-at-Home-Jobs-Iowa.com - www.work-at-home-jobs-iowa.com -PR3 Work911.com - www.work911.com - PR4 Xongoo.com - www.xongoo.com - PR6 zinos.com - www.zinos.com -PR6

Article by Oudam Em. Oudam is webmaster of Web Launch, http://www.nexcomp.com/weblaunch, a free resource for web site promotion and search engine optimization. Please visit his site for more free tips and tutorials on building traffic and generating income on your site.

The sites they show should appeal to you and should be changing a lot. Sometimes I am surfing programs and I keep seeing same sites over and over again. Not a good sign!

The design of your page or ad should be as simple as possible. No jokes, no pictures, no music etc., just plain text html. I am a firm believer of KISS principle (Keep It Short and Simple) and dealing with traffic exchange programs, that is just a MUST. My most successful ads are just simple sign up forms (with little more) or a plain text page where I invite people to push button (that opens in a new window) “to learn more about ..”. They load super fast, are short and to point. People can actually see what page is about while they are looking for “next” button.

Suppose you are a member of a MLM or multi-tier affiliate program and you want to build up your downline. You could of course just keep sending your affiliate page to traffic exchanges (and there are a lot of people who do just that!) but that way, you will probably not be very successful.

Build your own site featuring your opportunity and send teasers to traffic exchange programs to lure them into visiting your site. Prominently on your home page (or using a pop up, although I hate those) you should place your opt-in form and your personal recommendation for that program. You will have all time of world (so to speak) to try out different offers, teasers, wording and formatting of your ads. You should find enough material for those with your affiliate program, if not, you are probably in wrong one.

Sometimes you will be send an offer that seems to be to good to be true (or something like that) and you will want to fire from all ports to advertise it. Hopefully you have build up some reserve credits so you can take internet by storm!

Well, it happens to us all and it is good to be prepared for such an event. Being fast and being first are always good tactics in these. Pause all other pages in your rotators and feature new offer and bombard programs for a few days. If it is a good offer for kind of people who surf traffic exchange programs, it should actually work quite nicely! You could even consider joining a few other exchange programs, if only for taking advantage of initial free credits you will be allotted.

Actually, there is a lot more to say about traffic exchange programs and you will always see people fervently in favor or in contra. When you start reading about them or even investigating theme, you will soon see why. Take a look at their background and their site. That will tell you enough. Somebody who is interested in downlines and cheap tools might favor them, someone selling advertising or mainly concerned with search engine optimization will generally not favor them. I just plainly like them, and as they fit my general strategy, I frequently use them.. And maybe you will permit me a last word about free advertising.

FFA, or free for all pages are definitely out of question. They are not effective and even can be harmful to your site. Safelist were quite an alternative until recently, but since appearance of automatic submitters, they have gone down considerately in effectiveness (although there still remain some opportunities out there). And probably best way of free advertising is “targeted free advertising”, but I will leave that subject for another article! I am not saying here that traffic exchange programs are answer to all your prayers or even most effective way of advertising, but they sure can give a starting marketer a break. Any questions or comments? Drop me a line!