And While I'm At It-- Now HEAR This!

Okay, enough said about SafeLists. Now, about Traffic Exchanges.

When I first started learning HTML, I actually forked over the cash and took an online course. It was pretty good, too. Within the course, one thing that was pointed out was that a good, professional site should ALWAYS be as accessible to as wide an audience as possible. Makes sense. I mean, it doesn't matter how pretty a site is, if people cannot access it.

And whether a site developer or site owner knows it or not, when you add audio files and flash presentations onto a site, no matter how "pretty" it may make the site look, it is ALSO making the site INACCESSIBLE to at least 25-50% of the internet.

Great. So, a site owner now has this awesome site. But if someone with a computer that's even a year or two old can't access it, what's the point?

And on traffic exchanges, this is especially true. Why? Because on most traffic exchanges, the surfer has no choice which sites are viewed. Everytime a surfer happens upon one of these kinds of sites, they must sit back and wait as their computer struggles to load some overly-laden page. It is really annoying to the person, especially when the timer doesn't start until the page is loaded (depending on the exchange). That means, instead of taking up the allotted amount of time, that hog-site has not only taken up more RAM than it should, it's also taken up way more of the surfer's time than it should.

And here's a little tip: Want to succeed in marketing? It's usually best NOT to start off by ****ing (choose your expletive) off the customer! And NOTHING, but NOTHING annoys a customer faster than creating a site that will have trouble loading on any computer. BECAUSE I know this, even when the page loads smoothly on my computer, I am annoyed. I cannot market this-- WHY are they wasting my time?

The bells and whistles are wonderful for fluff sites -- [sic] vanity sites and celebrity sites. But for a good, professional looking page, I'd rather scroll through 10 folds than have to put up with an intrusive auto-audio site or some fancy flash presentation.

Wake up, guys. This is business.

Marketing Sense (in SafeLists)

Having gotten more involved with Safelists and traffic exchanges recently, I have noticed a few things that really separate the winners from the losers, especially when it comes to Safe Lists.

Now, many of the new safe lists are offering click-for-credits options, which allow even free members to send out a lot of emails to the safe lists, so long as they spend some time each day opening the emails THEY receive and click on the "click-for-credit" links. I have been doing this myself, to build up credits, and it's been very, very rewarding. Some systems offer as many as 50 credits for one click.

So, each day I am able to build up enough credits to send the maximum emails out, plus use the left-over credits for rotational ads and other promotions, depending on what each safe list program offers.

Of course, many of the safelists still offer regular mailers. That is, mailers that go out without these click-for-credit links.

Even Mad Vlad has updated their system to include CFC options. Unfortunately, however, Herculist (at the time of this writing) has not.

By the way, I must add that I found another advantage to my list mail ESP, Moomia. It seems that Moomia segregates the emails from click-for-credit safelists and non-click-for-credit safelists, sending all those that come from non-click-for-credit safelists straight to my bulk mailer! :) I love that-- I don't even have to check!

But that's because Moomia is one of the few ESPs that's designed FOR marketers. They have all kinds of advantages, even their OWN safe list system and affiliate system. Plus, they never bounce any of the emails that are sent from safelists-- or anyone else for that matter.

I like that in a mail server.