The Importance of "Free Stuff"

I read somewhere that the proverbial average web surfer visits the average website for no longer than 20 seconds before surfing off to another site. Unless, of course, the surfer finds something interesting to keep him/her at your site. And how are they going to be tempted into spending $$$ when they're eyeballs aren't on your site?

Well, nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing keeps people hanging around your site longer than the promise of free stuff!

There are at least two reasons to put tons of free stuff on your website:

1. You keep your visitors at your site longer, where you give them as many opportunites to purchase your product or engage your services as possible.
   
   
2. You attract more traffic to your site, because of course your are going to submit the pages that contain the free stuff to all the search engines.

Of course, putting free stuff on your site is not all giggles and grins! First, you have to find the free stuff. You don't want to send people away from your site, so linking to someone else's web page as a source of free stuff might not be the best idea. The best way to obtain free content for your site is to make it up yourself.

One of the best examples of free stuff you can give away on your website is information. People are constantly surfing the web attempting to learn something new or find the answer to something they have been wondering about. If you are an expert in your field, or at least know a lot about some topic, you can write some kind of guide and post it on your website. You'd be surprised how valuable that can become to you.

Another good example of free stuff is software. I don't mean you should learn to become a programmer just to promote your website. The work has already been done for you. There are tons of freeware and shareware out there... The authors are practically begging for distributors. If you amass a decent collection of freeware and shareware, and keep it updated, you'll see that plenty of people will visit your site to download your free stuff.

So what do you do with the web pages you put your free stuff on? Don't forget to tell people about the product or service you offer, and how it can benefit them. Pick free stuff that complements your product/service.

To sum up, putting free stuff on your site can help attract visitors who never would have found you otherwise, and also keep visitors hanging around longer. Regularly updating your free stuff section can keep people coming back for more, which can help your bottom line. And that's what it's all about.

Dan Kramer
KloakIt

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