Assuming that everything else is being done correctly, web traffic is probably the most critical element in the success or failure of a web site. Out of the many ways to get a lot of steady traffic, two are vigorously promoted—one is free and the other requires money.

On the free end, we have traffic exchanges where you can sign up and list your site and earn credits by surfing and clicking on other members’ links which converts into how many times your site will be displayed. Assuming you have all day every day to do that, I suppose that’s a fantastic idea, but I have found that to be the most time-consuming and boring exercise of all marketing strategies I have employed.

There are people who use these religiously and swear up-and-down by them—and they get great results—so they say. It’s an option and it won’t cost you any money (unless you opt for the paid upgrade which some of them have), but you had best be prepared to invest some time. Me, personally—I need to be maintaining my site and running my business—I do not have time to be clicking for ad credits.

The paid option involves services that will sell you web traffic in the form of hits, visitors, guaranteed visitors, or guaranteed signups. When you go to the sites of these services, you will find that they promise you the moon and the stars, but for the most part, seem to deliver only star dust. I have tried several of these companies and I have had dismal results—and that is the concensus of successful online marketers.

It seems that there are some, at least, that employ dirty little tricks once they get your money. Some of the underhanded ploys include sending you hits when you have paid for visitors, counting repeat visitors as new visitors, redirecting people to your site from expired domains who have no interest in what you are selling, showing a thumbnail image of your site rather than a full page view—and the list goes on.

For someone starting out, guaranteed traffic can be a godsend if you’re getting the real thing—but that’s the problem—you don’t always know. The immediate goal of someone starting out online is to get into profit as quickly as possible and this is best achieved with a steady volume of traffic because it all comes down to a numbers game—with x amount of traffic, you get x number of sales.

I am unaware of any unbiased reviews of the specific companies selling guaranteed traffic, so my best advice would be to pose the question in forums such as the Warrior Forum, and get other people’s experience. Article marketing and building back links are slow to take effect; of course, once they do, then you will start to get lots of free traffic from the search engines, but that doesn’t help you in the short-term. It takes a daily, steady flow of traffic to make an impact—if you can find the right service at the right price, it can get you where you need to be in a cost-effective and time-saving manner.