HawkinzWeb Blog

It is a well known fact that on a traffic exchange it is better to use a splash page, preferably a personalised one, rather than an affiliate page, but a question I am often asked is how do I make a splash page?

This post is not going to talk about the design mechanics of building a splash page, but rather what you should be putting in, and leaving out, of your splash page.

Firstly you want to ask yourself
“what is unique or special or different about what I am promoting?”
ie, why should someone be looking at what you are offering? Related to this – if you are promoting an affiliate page – “why should they sign up under me rather than someone else?”

Once you have an idea of what it is that you can focus on, the next question is
“what is the purpose of my splash page?”
ie – Are you trying to make them sign up straight away? Go and get more information? Go and visit a different page? Collect their contact details?
This is important because it will affect what and how you present the information you include on the page.

You now should have a good idea of what you want to say, so how are you going to say it?

There has been a trend towards including video on splash pages as there is a school of thought that says videos are more effective than static pages. Whilst in general terms this may be true, there are a 2 points to bear in mind:

1. There has been an increase in people blocking videos and scripts, which means they may not be seeing your video.
2. The video needs to be very fast loading, and make its point in the first few seconds.

Because of the issue of people blocking videos / scripts, if your splash page is relying on just your video to make its point, then you will be unable to make any impact on the viewer, and so your page is worse than using an affiliate page.
The video needs to make its point fast, because most people will only be viewing your page for just 2 or 3 seconds – so if you can not grab their attention in that time then you have lost the opportunity.
Therefore you need to consider the video to be at best a supplement to the main message rather than replacing it.

Likewise, if your splash page relies too heavily on scripts – especially if you are using a script-driven signup form – then you will be excluding some potential respondants. Scripts generally are not recommended in a splash page as they will slow the loading time as the browser will take the time to load the script, and if the script is positioned before the sales pitch, then the content will load slower and may not even be seen! (remember the page only has a 2 -3 second viewing window for most surfers)

Try to avoid using an all-in-one graphic that contains all your message as:
1. they tend to load slower because the file size is bigger
2. if they graphic fails to load, then all your message is lost.
If possible, try to use a mixture of text and graphics so that your eggs are not all in 1 basket.

There is no ‘golden formula’ for making a winning splash page – despite what some marketers will tell you – remember you are marketing to people, not robots and individuals will respond differently to the same input. Some people will respond better to humour, some to facts/statistics, some to emotional factors. Therefore you need to test and adapt your content to see what works best. You will probably find that you end up with a variety of pages that are ‘targetted’ at different people.

Try and get a punchy, attention grabbing ‘headline’ – something near the top of the page to grab their attention away from whatever else it was they were doing when they saw your page – it does not have to be text, it could be a graphic.
Next, you want to get your primary message across in 2 or 3 short, concise statements – remember the idea of a splash page is that it is a quick taster of more, not a full 4 course meal
Finally, the call to action – this is what you want the viewer to do next eg click a link, enter contact details, etc

Popularity: 8% [?]

I recently came across the following item, and it raised the question of Exercising Due Diligence when online -  Truth About Internet Marketers

Now, you will often hear ‘experts’ telling you to “exercise due diligence”
but what is it, and how do you do it?

Due diligence is nothing more than taking the time to research the company / individual you are planning to do business with. The amount of research will be in proportion to the amount of money and time you intend to spend. (remember – time is money)

One of the more bizarre phenomenon is that often the same people who are advocating due diligence will be the same people who then send a mass email asking you to join their latest program, and that “you want to get in now before everyone else does”

Having done your due diligence – Act on it!
If you were invited to join a program and your research reveals something of concern to you, share it with the person who invited you – this is the essence of relationship marketing – a 2 way dialogue.  Ultimately, you will have to make the decision – not everyone will share the same criteria and requirements of a ‘suitable’ business opportunity.  If you decide not to go ahead with a business opportunity, and someone else does – this should not of itself necessarily be a stumbling block, although it may ultimately impact on your future decisions.

Popularity: 59% [?]

There is an old saying that “there is no such thing as a free lunch” and this holds true in the Traffic Exchange industry.

Sadly, this basic concept is often over-looked or mis-understood, not only by Traffic Exchange members, but more importantly by Traffic Exchange program owners!

Many people mistaken believe that because a credit does not cost any money to create it is therefore without cost. This is to totally fail to appreciate that the currency of traffic exchanges is credits not cash. If an exchange ‘charges’ a free member 3 page views to receive 1 page view (one credit) then every credit that is given to a free member that they do not ‘earn’ is actually 3 page views that have not been delivered.

This leads on to the whole concept of credit stock or inventory, and stockpiling. While there is no problem with a little stockpile, or reserves, on either side – it is when it gets too large that problems can occur. If a member has too many unused credits then there is a reduced incentive to surf. This then leads to a reduction in traffic delivery, and so these credits take longer to be converted and so last longer, reducing the incentive to surf, and so a vicious spiral begins. To break the spiral, the excess credits need to be taken out of the system by inducing the member to use them on non-traffic delivery items eg banners, text ads, competitions, etc. Often a program owner will introduce measures to prevent members from stockpiling credits by introducing either limits on the total amount of unassigned credits or enforcing a minimum level of credits being assigned.

Often these problems are triggered by program owners giving away too many credits, either as sign up bonuses, or as competition bonuses.

Likewise if a Program Owner has too many credits that are not being used on sites for display then you can get the “seen that” syndrome, where members are seeing the same sites repeatedly.  This can be resolved by releasing more credits back to members either in the form of bonuses or in credit sales.

A good, vibrant exchange should have a good selection of sites in rotation, with prompt and reliable delivery.

Popularity: 67% [?]

A lot of traffic exchanges ban so called ‘investment surfs’ and auto-surfs, and with reason.

BUT, and this is a big BUT, many are confusing facts with perceptions and heresay.

Before I explain, I want to clarify what I mean by certain terms, so that there is no mis-understanding.

Autosurf – sometimes called non-click surfing, are traffic exchanges that automatically rotate advertised websites in your web browser without requiring any additional intervention by the ‘surfer’
Manual Surf – sometimes called click surfing, are traffic exchanges that rotate advertised websites in your browser when the surfer ‘interacts’ with the page – either by clicking on something, or hovering their cursor over something.
Investment Surf, sometimes (inaccurately) called Paid-To-Surf or autosurf, are traffic exchanges (Autosurf OR Manual surf) where to earn money surfing, members must pay a fee and are then promised a certain return on their fee. The “investment” is claimed to be a membership or upgraded membership fee and the “return”, a per-site commission.This fee can usually vary from a few cents to tens of dollars, and the minimum and maximum is set by the site operator. The program then offers a commission based on the member’s account level for viewing a minimum number of sites, for example, for a period of X days, every day that the member views Y sites, Z% of the upgrade fee will be credited and can be withdrawn from the site. The product of Z% and X is always over 100% to ensure that the member makes a profit.

Now, the problem with this model is that in order to generate the funds necessary to make this payment, the program owner has to get the money from somewhere else. If the program is not generating enough non-membership fee revenue to meet these payments, then the only options are to not pay, or use the fees from newer members to pay older members and so heads straight into the realms of ponzis and pyramid schemes.

However, it is possible to generate enough revenue from other, non-member fee sources to cover this. Possible sources of revenue are:

• Banners
• Text Ads
• Upgrades
• Credits
• Non-Member adverts

The other aspect that will affect the feasability of the payment structure is the amount and frequency of payments made – it is going to be harder to maintain a 110% of investment every 10 days than it is to maintain 105% of investement every 50 days.
The problem being, the first option is going to attract more people than the second one, even though the first one is less likely to be sustained.

So, to run an investment surf over a longer term, you need to actually discourage the traditional ‘quick buck’ member, for one who is prepared to look longer term and accept lower payments, as in addition to meeting the members payments you will also need to pay for the normal running costs of a online program. Ironically this is actually the type of member often found on the traditional non-investment surf traffic exchanges, yet often these are the members who are frightened off by the tales of scams and failed programs.

Now I started by saying that many exchanges ban investment surfs with reason, and that is because many owners do not plan how to grow their exchange in a sustainable manner, and so the exchange runs into cash-flow problems and fold leaving members unpaid. Which creates bad feeling, and bad publicity, for the Traffic Exchange industry as a whole.

So, in summary:

A investment surf, if carefully managed, with sustainable investment and payment models can survive and prosper amongst other non-investment surf models.
Many investment surf programs will fail due to poor management.
Because of these 2 facts, a newcomer to the traffic exchange industry would be advised to avoid starting their first exchange on the investment surf model until they have more experience of how traffic exchanges work from an administrative perspective.

Popularity: 100% [?]