By Stephen Bucaro

This morning I joined a traffic exchange network. You are probably familiar with traffic exchange networks. You logon to a traffic exchange network and earn credits by using their application to view web sites of other members of traffic exchange. You trade credits for visits to your web site by other members.

You are required to view other members web page for a specific time, usually 30 seconds, then you have to click on a button to view next web page. This is a useful way to earn traffic to your web site.

The power of using traffic exchange networks can be increased if you are a member of one or more banner exchanges. By placing banners on page that you submit to traffic exchange, you can earn banner exchange credits and traffic at same time.

I have been warning visitors to bucarotechelp.com that traffic exchange applications that do not maximize browser window are useless because, by making browser windows small enough to expose only "Next Site" button, users run four or more of these applications simultaneously. Nobody actually sees your web page.

I have also been warning that traffic exchange applications that have a timer less than 30 seconds are useless because most people access web via a 56K dialup connection. Unless web page that you submit to traffic exchange can load before time expires, nobody actually sees your web page.

But traffic exchange that I joined this morning does not require you to click. This traffic exchange application advances pages automatically. This is of critical importance because user now does not even have to be in same room as computer that is logged on and earning credits.

Top 10 Webmaster Challenges

Webmasters deal with a myriad of complex design challenges every day. This article will discuss top ten challenges and provide solutions and tips for solving each problem.

Browser Compatibility You must design your Web site so that it is viewable on both browsers: Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE). Netscape Navigator is very strict when it comes to HTML tag completion, but IE isn't. You need to view your site first using Macromedia Dreamweaver before publishing to Web. Make sure you've run command convert to ensure your site is version 3.0 browser compatible. If you're using Netobjects Fusion to create layout of your site, make sure that all layer objects are converted into tables. This is highly recommended if you want to reach a broader and wider audience.

Online resources: A) Dr. HTML, located at www2.imagiware.com/RxHTML/ B) Web Site Garage to check your links, located at websitegarage.com

Graphics Optimization Web graphics play an essential part in your Web design, because it conveys emotion and impact of your site. Always make sure that all of your graphics are in .gif and .jpg format. Unless your site deals with photography, minimize use of .jpg format. You can use Macromedia Fireworks to minimize file size, especially slicer feature if you need to place a large photo on your site. Another option is export preview of Macromedia Fireworks. This allows you to remove unwanted colors in your graphics, thus decreasing file size.

You can also do this online by using one of these online utilities: A) GIF Optimizer by Media Builder, www.gifoptimizer.com B) JPEG Cruncher and GIF Cruncher, www.spinwave.com/crunchers.html C) Windows-based graphics optimizer, CyberView Image Lite (JPEG Compressor), www.cyberviewcd.com/cvimage/index.html D) Advanced GIF Optimizer, www.gold-software.com/ago.html E) Photo Crunch (JPEG Compressor), www.imroncorp.com/photo.htm F) JPEG image compression FAQ, www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part1/

Keeping Site Fresh I think this is bulk of a webmaster's work, if you want your site frequently visited. You can keep your site fresh by really working on new content on a daily or regular basis and by making it interactive. As with content, you can make use of www.moreover.com, www.subportal.com, www.newshub.com, and other content syndication sites to provide content for your site automatically. Let them do hard work for you! If you place a tag, they will email you with new content. As for interactivity, offer your visitors web-based email accounts, a message board with a chat room, a search engine crawler, and banner ad rotation. This is easy, and provided by Everyone.net. Searching your site is another way to easily provide information to your visitors. You can get a site search engine from www.picosearch.com and www.atomz.com.

Pushing Information to Your Visitors A Web site is a "pull" promotion, but as a webmaster, you also need to be thinking about how you can "push" information to your visitors, users, or subscribers. You can publish an ezine on a weekly or monthly basis just to let your users be informed about latest technology you've added to your site. As for mailing list, you can get a free mailing list from www.egroups.com, www.topica.com, or you can choose a paid service such as www.aweber.com or www.getresponse.com. As for content, you can get lots of articles from bbs.weblord2000.com, or try one or more of my articles that can be found on same Web site.

Driving Traffic Webmasters shouldn't forget to announce your Web site. Accomplishing this is easy for Web sites that already have a lot of traffic, but even sites that are starting out with 5 or 10 members can benefit from viral marketing of online recommendation software. Services include www.recommend-it.com, www.evite.com, and www.ewomp.com.