How Can Free Be Profitable?

I have been an internet surfer for about a decade now, and I have to admit that my own bookmarks contain a lot of free websites. I have returned to websites which offer freeware and shareware software, trial offers of major name brands, and other no cost offers.

Since I am also an internet marketer, I understand the business model of these websites. And some of them have endured for years, making money for their owners, while still allowing their visitors to get something for nothing!

So how does that work. How can these websites profit their owners?

One of the first things that became popular on the internet was the offer of free software. This may have been timed versions, versions without all of the features, or even fully functioning, complex online tools.

Well, some of it was written by moonlighting owners, and it really started out free. Perhaps the owner just wanted to share a useful tool he or she had written.

But much of it promoted a paid option. That option may have been extra features, a version that did not expire, or even consulting services.

Large companies, like the developers of Wordpress, MySQL and PHP operate like this. Big business distributes for free, but gets paid to consult.

Other websites consisted of hundreds of links to free commercial products. You could find anything from magazines to baby products for free. These trials were posted in order to bring in potential customers. The manufacturers would actually pay website owners to give away their products.

Then the model changes a bit when website owners began posting free content, and that could have been articles, videos, or even games. The idea here is to keep internet visitors coming back for qualify content that did not have a charge.

In internet terms, traffic equals money. The website owners would be paid by having a sponsor. That sponsor would offer advertising in banners or links, and would pay the owner for clicks, sales, or leads. Some websites got paid by impressions as they had advertisers who just wanted to get their message displayed.

Think of traditional print magazines or newspapers. Now these are made of paper and must be printed and actually distributed physically. So they did cost money, but that charge covered distribution.

The real profit came from ads, and readers were attracted by the pictures and articles.

Think about tv. If you don’t count your cable bill, most programs are free. They are paid by commercials.

This is how many free websites work too. They exchange content, which can be articles, videos, pictures, or even user discussions for returning visitors. Websites that are good at bringing back visitors are considered “sticky”.

These websites can usually turn a good profit on their ads, if they can target them to the type of people who visit their website.

So return to considering a website that gives away freeware or shareware. That website may never profit at all from upselling this software, but can probably find ads that would also interest the type of people who are looking for computer programs.

If a free software website has sectons which would interest different types of people, it can be even easier to target. Consider that a woman who wants some content management software for her website may not be interested in the same software that a man who simply wants to find some software to help him run his offline business.

Success of a website may be tied to success at bringing in visitors, and then managing to target ads at those types of people. The free website model is one very effective way to win at this.

If you’ve got a business and need a hosting solution, you need a scalable, affordable and sturdy solution that’s not going to cost you a lot of money, but will still give you an uptime of 100% for critical applications. To do so, you don’t need dedicated servers and tape backup, either. You also don’t need to take on the expense and risks of a bespoke solution that can cost you plenty of headaches and money.

SANServe managed hosting can do everything dedicated servers and dedicated hosting can do, but with better peace of mind and less expense. It is also very easy to understand and manage, unlike the headaches that can sometimes come from having your own dedicated server.

For example, if you have a dedicated server and your drives or CPU fail, you will need to rebuild or replace everything. This can cost you not just money in the replacement, but earnings also due to the downtime and disruption you have to put up with.

Instead, SANServe stores data (securely, so that you don’t have to worry about being hacked into) on an IP SAN; hot spots are available, it’s mirrored across several drives and you don’t need to worry if your drive should fail. If this happens, the server will boot off the SAN, if the CPU or fan fails, they can be replaced within minutes without losing data.

Service options available:

Snapshots and recovery

At a specified time, the snapshot saves you an exact duplicate of your data. Because of this, you can restore your data quickly, so that your system is up and running after a failure very, very quickly. If you need to roll back to a previous time, you can do so without disrupting your data. This lets you restore your system from corrupted data.

Extra storage

You can start with the storage space you need when you begin, and then add more storage as you go, instead of having to choose more than you need to begin with.

A dedicated firewall

Fully customisable firewalls based upon your specifications are available, along with 24-hour monitoring and management, implementation, operations and configuration management.

Data transfer

If you need extra bandwidth, it is available on request.

Dedicated standby servers

Dedicated servers are available as needed, charged based upon the server the dedicated server is on standby and four. You can also attach a dedicated server to another SAN on the network. For this, you will need two volumes for snapshots and might need more bandwidth between sites.

Load balancing

With load balancing, no single device will be overwhelmed by too much, because processing and medications will be evenly distributed across your network. If needed, server requests can be sent to other servers with more capacity when busier than expected.

Other guarantees

In addition, most companies now offer 100% network availability and fast hardware fix, within one hour of notification.

So to get your business up and running quickly (sometimes within a matter of a day or two), choose a hosting service that provides you all of these needs today.

If you’re a small business owner, you are probably always on the lookout for new ways to promote your products and services, and it’s little wonder, in the market today it can be hard for a young business to find interested customers and build a clientele. One tactic you may not have discovered is how to use articles to promote your business and gain exposure. If you provide services or products through the Internet, you can use the opportunity to advertise to whatever niche your business might fulfill.

So how does this work?

Well, you can write an article that relates to your products and what particular problems they solve, or why the reader might be interested in what you have to offer. Don’t go into a full-swing sales pitch, because the reader is there for the article, for information. Your website and emails should make your sales; if the reader finds your article impressive, they will likely follow a link to your web business.

Once you’ve written the article, find a few article directories to submit it to. These directories are publicly searchable by Google and will help you gain exposure for your business. Of course it’s best if you supply a number of articles directed towards your niche, as this will increase the odds of someone finding an article of yours.

The best way to help your articles be found is to focus on the title, which is indexed by Google for searches. Use Google’s keyword tool to help find phrases that people are looking for. Try to use this in your titles and more people will see it as a search result.

The content of the article is the most important, as this is what the reader cares about. If you try to make a sale upfront you will probably lose your reader. Instead, try to offer unique information about your industry or products. The article should be informative and gain the reader’s trust and interest. This will attract internet clients better than an over-handed sales pitch.

However, don’t be shy about what your are selling - be confident, ask for the sale or at least direct them towards your website. Take advantage of the resource box at the end of the article to advertise. If they bothered to read the whole article, they are probably looking for more information. This is where you can gain a lot of exposure, and build a regular clientele. Don’t miss out on this opportunity!