Thank you for taking a look at this new group. This won't be much more of a post other than simply welcoming both visitors and members. I'm gonna let the FIRST REAL post be done by the first member to join. He/She Now has the Floor!

Hi Jim and all! Thanks for making this group.

So, I'll throw out there that I run a few traffic exchanges and would be happy to trade upgrades with other webmasters of exchanges.

Also have 2 questions - how much time do you spend revamping your site so that it looks fresh and new versus time promoting it?

And how do you know that you've reached a look for your site that works the best? I mean, do you base that on user comments, or sign-ups or something else?

Thanks! - Rob

Hi Rob,
Thanks for joining the discussion. To be honest, I change the look of my blog about once a week and I'm trying to put out at least 2 posts per week and 2-3 hours of shuffling things around and trying new programs to compare my response rate.

I'm not a traffic exchange admin at this point, but may be in the near future, we'll see what happens.

A lot of people who use the Blogger platform don't know how to create a #dofollow attribute for their blog, Mine is #dofollow, so i encourage people to comment on my posts to get a backlink to their website. This helps in recieving frsh "on topic" content usually containing keywords that I target.

Often times, I will get in touch with some of my visitors and ask them what they liked and what they thought could be improved. No sense in running a site that doesn't appeal to the readers who enjoy the content.

I found a few different places to get templates from and will probably experiment with new looks... Quick tip. Find your competition for your targeted keywords; what does their site look like? How can you duplicate the same "feel" without copying exactly what their doing. Most visitors have a certain look they are attracted to, try your best to have your sites navigation similar to your competitions and be unique with your content.

This is what my blog currently looks like http://MonetizeAndPromote.blogspot.com ... subject to change weekly!

Again, thanks for joining the conversation! I enjoy sharing ideas and strategies with like-minded individuals.

Jim C.

Oh, and this is what you add to your Blogger meta tags to create a #dofollow with the attribute to recrawl every 2 days




I use this code immediately following my 'keywords' meta tag
I don't suggest going less than 2 days to recrawl as you will be Pinging your site after every post anyway and this way you make sure you have fresh content by the next recrawl ( the bots and spiders love this)

Jim C.

[Update] I just want to let everyone know that I also started a "clone" of this group over on friendfeed. Simple reason being is it is PR7. Register there and post your brief bio ie; who you are, what you do, what you still want to accomplish, and a link to your main website. Result is a high quality backlink and like minded marketers to collaborate with! Check it out and register today when you see the potential to not only help others, but to get great backlinks to any your websites. http://friendfeed.com/monetize-and-promote

Hi Jim,

In the few posts you've made I already see you will be a great source of much needed information for me as well as for others. I've been in the online business for a few years but I still have scads to learn and look forward to some interesting conversations.

Phyllis McClintock

Hello Phyllis,

Thanks for joining in. I will do my best to provide tips and strategies on a regular basis. Keep an eye out for new discussions here. Any and all feedback is appreciated. If there is something in particular you would like to learn more about let me know.

Jim Cintron
http://MonetizeAndPromote.blogspot.com

In answer to Rob Wilsons question, we work on our site daily. We're constantly adding new features, resources and anything else we can think of to increase value. I'm not a Traffic Exchange owner but if I were, I would be watching what others are doing, and then do something different that is bigger and badder than what everyone else is doing...

For example... how about a welcome video in the members area where your member can see and hear you. Perhaps some training videos on how to get results with Traffic Exchanges. Camtasia makes it easy to do that.

If I've learned anything, in my 12 years as a full time Internet marketer, is that it pays to be the kid in the yard with the better toys... ;)

Cheers!

Rex