How many times have you seen a catchy headline that claimed to give you “tons of guaranteed targeted traffic?”

Since web traffic is a priceless commodity to online business owners — like any business there are tons of honest providers and mingled within them are the scumbags that will take you for anything they can get.

I have to admit, that I was taken down the scumbag path when I first got started.  It seems like I was taken for every web traffic scam there is.  It was overwhelmingly frustrating, when I had so little money, to find out I had purchased yet another scum sucking rip off.

The bulk traffic providers are the worse!  It is extremely difficult to tell the real traffic from the thieves.  Here’s what some of them do:

Spam and Bots: they’ll use traffic that comes from bots or from spam harvesters, or they’ll show 10 popups to the same person and count that as 10 customers. That’s the worst of the worst.

Email campaigns: they’ll pay people in poor areas of countries in southern Asia 1 penny to click email ads they generate with your link.  They call it targeted because, when the sign up desperate people, they ask them what category of business they would like to read to get their penny.  Do you think these people have any money to buy your product?

Traffic Exchanges: they’ll feed your site through tons of traffic exchanges.  You’ll see visits register, but all through auto-surf exchanges, or traffic co-op feeds.  They get you no opt ins and, of course, no buyers.

iFrames: your site will be feed through an iframe script where people are paid to view your site for 10 seconds, or 20 seconds.  Just like the email readers, they are desperate.  They get paid a penny per view.  Once again, do you think they have money to buy your product?

There are more ways than what you see above, these are just some of the most common ways you’ll be taken.

But how do you recognize the good from the bad?

Well, bottom line is, no bulk provider – good or bad – can match the quality of targeted traffic you can produce yourself using a system like TrafficStarterPro.  You have the ability to focus on traffic uniquely qualified for your site.  No bulk provider does that.

If your goal is to increase online traffic above what you are doing, and lowering your opt in rate is acceptable, then there are bulk providers that can achieve this for you.  I’ll cover one of the ones I tested inside the Premier Area of TrafficStarterPro.com.

So what you can do to try to weed out the rotten apples from the good is first, contact the provider.  If they don’t tell you exactly how they get their traffic in their sales page, then ask them.  Ask very specific questions.

• Do you use bots?
• Do you use traffic exchanges?
• Do you use email?
• Do you use pop ups?
• Do you use iframes?

If they answer, that’s a start.  Then ask:

• How the visitors are brought to view your site?
• Are the pop ups on sites similar to your product?
• How does a real person, of real interest in your product view the iframe?

You can probably think of more things to ask that would concern you.  If the traffic provider won’t tell you, then leave.  If they do tell you, of course you still don’t know for sure that they aren’t just telling you what you want to hear.  But now you are poised to make a better decision, or ask further questions.

The bottom line is, if you are just starting, and you don’t know anything about any of these methods above, you are better off not even touching any bulk traffic provider until you learn something about getting targeted traffic yourself.  It will take you a little time…

… but when you are on a low budget, and don’t have money to toss around testing traffic providers, you are better off spending it learning the basics of  getting your own traffic before trusting the tons of bulk providers.  I made the mistake of trying bulk providers when I knew nothing, and it cost me dearly.

Don’t do it!  Be patient and learn the basics first.  You will have greater success and reap the profits much faster!

- Wayne Sharer