Ten Seconds of Fame
The 10 second timer seems now to be the standard for most traffic exchanges. Yes, some might have an 8 second timer, others run specials at 6 seconds or even 5 sometimes but less than 10 seconds in my opinion is not a valid view of your site.
Soaring4Traffic has adapted the 10 second timer for all accounts. Ten seconds we feel is fair both as you’re surfing and as an ample amount of time for your site to be seen.
There are some points you need to consider however. We have always advised everyone to use splash pages, or at least pages that will load within 3 to 5 seconds. Even if the timer is 30 seconds or more, sites that don’t load within the first few seconds are likely to be by passed anyway.
Remember, an average surfer is surfing to build credits for his/her own site to be seen. Some of us are looking for products, tools, training, information that will improve our own business. Most of the products or services I’ve added to my portfolio has come from traffic exchanges. Many of the subscribers lists I’m on came from traffic exchanges. Most of the information that I know today came from traffic exchanges. All this before I owned one, and still today I look for more.
The tools I now use online, the training I’ve received, the resources and people I’ve gotten to know have basically all come from traffic exchanges. How did they get me on their list? How did they convince me to buy their product or use their service?
By utilizing the Ten Seconds of Fame theory! In other words, the pages they used were attractive, short, sweet and to the point. They didn’t try to sell me something while I was surfing but rather encouraged me to either sign up to get more information and or click to see what they were offering. Of course the lure of a free product to take a look at their site was in play at times. 
Pages that attract me are ones that give me 3,4, or 5 reasons why I need the product, and an easy way to get it without interrupting my surfing. Of course, sometimes I just opened the page and saved it to my favorites for later review if it was interesting enough.
My point to this is simple. Basically you only have a few seconds to attract attention. Do you have your name, image, logo, or subscribe form on your site? Does your site load quickly enough? Is it unique, different, attract attention? It might actually take 10 times for someone to see your site before they commit to anything. If they continually see it, over and over with your name, logo, image, people will get familar with you, remember they’ve seen you before.
Recognition plays a huge role in your online success. People buy from people they know and trust.
Building your image for recognition on traffic exchanges should be one of your main objectives. Combined with building your list by adding a subscribe form to your page. If you concentrate on those two objectives alone, your success and conversions using traffic exchanges should increase.
Keep in mind, you have 10 seconds to impress, 10 seconds to attract, use your 10 seconds wisely!
That’s my thoughts and opinions, what attracts me might not be attractive to you. Hence, the reason we continue to change, test, try different methods, different looks, and different ways to attract others. Advertising with traffic exchanges is no different than offline or other online methods. Just a whole lot less expensive. One difference is that with traffic exchanges you have a captive audience, now go impress them.
Traffic exchanges can make you famous, but you only have TEN seconds to do it!
Would love to have your comments, suggestions and maybe some ideas of what has or has not worked for you.
Ray White - Proud Owner
Soaring4Traffic.com
August 16th, 2007 at 4:58 am
Hi Ray,
I agree that 10 seconds is about the minimum useful time for a traffic exchange to show a page.
I find that I’m surfing much less on sites with timers over 15 seconds, and kind of feel like I’m cheating someone out of a credit when the timer is less than 10 seconds, even for a special.
Most of the splash pages I really look at are simple and clear to the point. I can tell in five or ten seconds if it’s something I want to look at further.
I’ve signed up for all the traffic exchages i intent to join, so I completely zone out when I see TE pages. I have more free ebooks than I’ll ever read, so I’m much more selective than I was. In order for me to want a new ebook or report, it has to specifically address an issue I’m researching right now. The same goes for signing up for a newsletter.
That said, I signed up for three new newsletters last week because they were talking about problems I wanted to solve.
If a page hasn’t loaded when the timer is up, I move on with no problem. If a page has loaded and doesn’t clearly tell me what it is offering, away I go.
When I come across a page that offers what I need or want, like you, I’ll give my contact info or click to open a new page to learn more.
As you know, I’m re-evaluating all my marketing and I’ll be replacing all of the webpages I show on the traffic exchanges with customized splash pages and lead capture pages in the next month or so. The more I think about it, the more I’m sure that this is the correct way to promote something on the traffic exchanges, and it also makes sense that paid ads and links in article resource boxes should also go to lead capture pages.
I’ve learned a lot about this over the last couple of months and I think you’re on the right track with your advice.
Act on your dream!
JD
August 16th, 2007 at 6:34 am
Thank you for the clear and good News
I like 10 sec. Also Bonus thing appear
when you surf, cause that make people
look more careful of the pages…
Regards
Stefan Berg
http://sberg.ws
August 16th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
I’ve been one year now online. 10 seconds timer is just enough to see the full page of the site. When I select TE the first things I locate is the surfing ratio. As for me, I accept only TE with 10 second timer. More than 10 second timer is to much that is SURFING TO THE BONES. If it is below 10 second timer it is almost same as AutoSurf.
I strongly recommend to use Soaring4traffic to all the readers for the reason first of all, the timing surfing ratio is only 10 second. Besides, it is clean and fast responding when ever you click, it is very fast.
See you all.