Just imagine, you could have five thousand visitors to your web site in the next 48 hours. Does that sound wonderful or what? And all this just for visiting a few sites yourself and "exchanging" traffic. Sounds like a low cost way to generate some sales, doesn't it? The only investment is your time.

Traffic exchanges are an interesting concept about bringing visitors to your website, but are they effective? You might receive traffic, but will that traffic generate sales? This article will explore the basics of traffic exchanges and a few strategies to apply if you think that route is for you.

Basically it's an "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" concept. Traffic exchanges allow web site marketers to earn credits and have their sites advertised to an entire community consisting of several thousand members of the same exchange. Webmasters earn credits by surfing through other websites within the traffic exchange system. On the surface it sounds wonderful, doesn't it? You can go from being an obscure little web site nobody has ever heard of to having thousands of hits on your page in a very short time.

The question you have to ask yourself, as you should with any traffic generation scheme, is will that traffic bring any new customers? You'll have people clicking into your site, but will they stay long enough to read your great content or hear about your valuable offer? Well, let's look at it another way.

You'll be earning points by visiting the web sites of other traffic exchange members. The more sites you visit, the more points you'll get for exposure of your own site. So will you be spending much time at each of the sites you visit? Will you be reading all the articles and examining all the special offers you'll come across? Or, will you be clicking on as many web sites as you possibly can so you can earn more and more points and exposure for your own site?

I'm not saying there might not be traffic exchange programs out there which will be good for your web site. What I am saying is you should think through what is being offered. Are there real testimonials you can validate of people who actually made more sales because of a traffic exchange program? Sure, they might have had tons of new visitors, but what is the bottom line? Was it good traffic that spent money?

Is the investment of your time worth the return? Only you can decide.