WEBSITE ARTICLES

FREE - Could be the Most Profitable Word on the Net!

How can offering something free make you money? It's simple. There are a huge number of sites on the Internet dedicated to announcing free stuff, contests and coupon savings on their sites. These sites get major traffic, because EVERYONE wants free stuff. Most of these sites allow you to announce your product or service on their site. In other words, you "submit" your free offer or contest to these freebie sites and they announce it to all their visitors.

Advantages:

• Once your contest is announced to a few freebie sites, you'll begin getting traffic to your site that you may not have gotten otherwise. Folks will visit your site that may not be looking for what you sell right now and thus haven't done a search in the search engines to find you.
  
  
• Visitors to your site who sign up for your freebie or contest are semi-targeted visitors. They show an interest in what you have to offer by expressing their desire to win it or get it free.
  
  
• Offering a contest or freebie on your site allows you to collect the names and email addresses of the people that sign up. This allows you to later email targeted email messages to these visitors to get more traffic and sales.
  
  
• Announcing your site on freebie and contest sites may boost your link popularity in the major search engines and cause your site to rank higher in the results for your best keyword phrases.
  
  

There are literally hundreds, even thousands of freebie sites out there, and they all need freebies and contests to announce. Web surfers are constantly looking for free stuff, contests, sweepstakes and coupons that save them money.

How much does it cost to submit your site to these freebie sites? It costs nothing, except time to make the submissions. Some sites may also want what is called a reciprocal link. This is a link from your site to theirs in exchange for announcing your contest or freebie. Most sites that require this will provide you with a small graphic to place on your site. They will even provide the HTML code that you simply paste into the page, where you want their link to appear.

Now that you've seen the advantages of offering a contest or freebie on your site, you may be wondering what results you can expect from your efforts. Your results will vary depending on the type of business you are in. The more popular your products are the more traffic you are likely to get. Still, if you sell products that are unique or appeal to a specific niche market, you can still profit from offering a contest or freebie. The key to making this work for your business is to make the offer as targeted as possible. Don't give away a flower arrangement if you sell cookware. Make sure that whatever you offer appeals to the market you're trying to attract. That way you'll receive the most targeted traffic possible.

Guidelines for Effective Contests and Freebie Promotions

• Focus on specific products, rather than offering discounts or a certain dollar amount of products. In other words give away a decorative paper towel holder, instead of offering a $20 discount or $20 in free merchandise. Winners like to win things.
  
  
• The prize you offer in your contest or giveaway should have a certain perceived value, but it doesn't need to be expensive. In fact many more people will enter a contest to win a $20 item than they will to win an expensive vacation or car. The reason is that they feel they have a better chance to win a $20 item.
  
  
• If you're running a contest, make sure it has a closing date. People are often turned off by ongoing contests that never end. Visitors may think that no one ever wins. If you want to give away the same thing every month, make sure you have a certain day of the month that the drawing occurs and post the winners on your site to give your contest credibility.
  
  
• If you're going to give something away, put a limit on how many freebies are available so you don't lose money on the deal. This creates an urgency to sign up and protects you from incurring exorbitant costs.
  
  

So start getting more targeted traffic today by offering a freebie or contest on your site. The rewards can far outweigh the cost of the item you give away and the time it takes to submit to contest sites and freebie directories. To find places to submit your contest or freebie, simply go to your favorite search engine and type in "freebie sites" or "contest sites". You'll find a ton of sites that will allow you to post your freebie or contest. Just be sure to read their guidelines carefully and you'll be on your way to getting more targeted traffic, building your email list and boosting your link popularity.