Experiments in Traffic Generation

I haven't written a serious blog post since my last tutorial and figured it was about time. Recently I have tried a few tools/programs to increase the traffic to Ointment Games. Following is a short list of the tools I have tried:

Traffic Exchanges
+ Smiley Traffic (http://www.smileytraffic.com): Netted me a few hits with poor conversion rates - helped my bounce rate go through the roof;
+ Hot-Hitz (http://www.hot-hits.us): Same as above - although had a lot of free credits which I am still using;
+ Farm Traffic (http://www.farmtraffic.com): I only signed up for the FreeTrafficBar credits.
+ About 10 other traffic exchanges after I realised something (see my tricks for using traffic exchanges).

Advertising Exchanges
+ Instant Traffic Domination (http://www.instanttrafficdomination.com): Netted me no ad impressions despite having an approved ad and plenty of credits;
+ Instant Buzz (http://www.instantbuzz.com): Avoid it like the plague. Didn't even bother installing the toolbar after I read that the toolbar had a trojan embedded in it;
+ AdsVert.com (http://www.adsvert.com): Netted me over 10,000 ad impressions with a CTR that made me abandon the program (approx. 0.001%);
+ Insane Hits For You (http://insanehitsforyou.com): Damn these guys do some serious spamming. It is too early for me to comment on how many hits they have sent me so far. I will reserve judgement until I write a follow up article.
+ FreeTrafficBar: Forget the URL, just sign up at Farm Traffic and get the free credits. Don't install their Traffic Bar software and submit your text ad. You've got nothing to lose - I think you get around 10,000 free ad impressions for signing up at Farm Traffic.

Software
+ Website Submitter: A semi-automatic submission tool that assists you submit your site to a few thousand web directories. I really like this tool. I'm only about halfway through the submission list but intend finishing the submissions after I get the next game out of the way.

Tricks for Using Traffic Exchanges
If you just want to increase your Alexa rank and are not concerned with the quality of traffic it is better to find traffic exchanges that offer free credits for signing up. Most of them will require you to surf a minimum amount of sites. Because most of the traffic exchanges that offer free credits for joining have an auto surf feature use that to surf your minimum amount of sites to get the credits, assign the credits to your site and then never visit the traffic exchange again. There are so many traffic exchanges that offer as many as 25,000 (or more credits for joining - the average is around 5,000-10,000).

While traffic exchanges might be good to get your Alexa rank up and the traffic looks good on paper. You won't make much money from advertising revenue. I actually noticed my Adsense revenue go down because I wasn't engaging visitors. They were just visiting for the auto surf timer's duration to get their credit.

In Summary
I will end up writing a follow up article to this. It is too early to say with some of the other programs I tried and haven't listed. I have noticed an increase in my traffic. I have also had to do some redesigning to lower my bounce rate. I refuse to pay money for any of these programs. The only paid advertising I do is a very small daily budget allocation for AdWords which seems to bring in a little traffic. I will see how these free systems pan out and write the follow up after I finish the game I am currently working on - I need to pay the bills!