Your website needs lots of visitors
(traffic) if you are going to make money from it.  If you do not have a large advertising budget, traffic exchanges
can be an effective way to advertise your site for free.  Traffic exchanges, sometimes known as
surfing sites, can bring a steady stream of visitors to your website, for no
payment - very important for a business startup if you want to make money
online from home.

There are two main types of traffic
exchanges - manual exchanges and autosurf. A manual exchange requires you click
a link after viewing every page, but you can log in to an auto exchange and
leave your computer running.  It is best
to checking every few minutes that all is well, to ensure you get your credits.

When you join a traffic exchange (usually
free) you view other members' web pages in return for your own web page being
displayed to other members in rotation. You log in to the exchange and surf,
and you are credited for viewing other members' web pages.  You allocate these surfing credits to your
web pages so they will be displayed to other members.  

There are some important elements in
surfing for traffic, which may be new to you. 

-- Paid/Pro Memberships - most traffic
exchanges offer free membership with the optional paid upgrades.  If you upgrade, you get extra benefits,
possible an allocation of credits per month and a higher credit ratio for the
pages you surf.  You can also buy extra
credits. You can decide whether a paid membership will help you after you have
tried out free membership.  I have
usually found this gives enough credits.

-- Credit Surfing - all traffic exchanges
allow you to earn credits in return for viewing other members' websites.  Also look out for bonus credits: many
exchanges will give you bonus credits for signing up, for surfing a certain
number of pages, or they pop up as you surf, to see if you are paying
attention. 

-- Minimum Time Limit - you need to leave
a site on your web browser for a minimum length of time before you earn a
credit. This is normally up to 30 seconds.

-- Anti Cheat Mechanisms - to ensure that
a real person is viewing your web site there are anti-cheating mechanisms.
These mean that instead of clicking a "Next Site" button you have to
click a specific icon such as a number, letter or picture, before you move on
to the next site. If you fail this test repeatedly, your account will be
terminated automatically, so pay attention!  

-- Referrals - this is the fastest way to
build up your credits. Most traffic exchanges provide you with referral pages
and banners. You can use these to recruit yourself a downline. When someone
signs up from your promotional web page or banner they are placed in your
downline. This can earn you an immediate bonus plus a percentage of your
downline credits, for example you get one credit for every 10 sites they surf.

There are hundreds of different traffic
exchange websites. You can sign up for an account instantly, submit your
website's URL and start surfing for credits. Some sites allow you to advertise
up to five web pages.  I usually include
my homepage, plus pages promoting ebooks and free courses. 

But the big question is - which traffic
exchanges will give you results? Will you be promoting your website in the
right places?

Traffic Hoopla
(http://traffichoopla.com/cgi-bin/ref.cgi/21755/) produces regular reports to
show the most productive and successful traffic exchanges to use. This report
is updated weekly with the top 50 traffic exchanges and the top 10 new traffic
exchanges. You can find out from this report who delivers the highest unique
percentage of visitors and who will deliver quality traffic to your
website.  This will help you to decide,
then you can sign up at the best traffic exchanges to get the biggest return
for your efforts.

In the beginning you may want to set
aside time to surf for credits - in fact some traffic exchanges require you to
surf a certain number of sites to activate your account.  Most people find they can complete their
surfing in less than an hour a day.  In
the longer term the best way to make traffic exchanges work for your benefit is
to build your own downline. Then the credits increase as others do the clicking
for you. You can recruit members by using the referral web pages of each of the
traffic exchanges that you have signed up with or you can sign up with Traffic
Hoopla and advertise the 10 best traffic exchanges in one go. I have done this,
and more than 50 people signed up under me in the first week. I now have a
comfortable credit balance without needing to surf frequently, and I use my
credits to promote my online businesses.