WHY GETTING SOMETHING FOR FREE DOESN'T

WHY GETTING SOMETHING FOR FREE DOESN'T

ALWAYS BENEFITYOU BUT REALLY PADS

SOMEONE ELSE'S WALLET.

By Sandi Hunter

Today I received an email, a rather rudely worded email, where a prospect inquired about the services that my company, Worldprofit offers. I replied promptly and politely with detailed answers to his questions. Shortly he replied brushing me off, stating that he could get some of the same services for free and provided the URL where I could see what he was talking about.

Convinced of the good value of the sophisticated services offered to our customers, I went to the URL to see exactly what one got for free at this site.

Once there I was initially impressed with the layout of the site. In a professional manner the site highlighted the services they offered; free classified ad system, free postcard greeting systems and so on. To test the systems I pasted the code for each of these systems on to my site to see how it would function. This was easy to do and the systems worked immediately.

Once the free classified system was installed on my site, I clicked on the link on my homepage to see what would happen. My mouse click transported me to my "new Classified Ad System". But once there what did I see? Indeed, I had a classified ad system but it was like a billboard for the company that had provided me with the system! There was a large banner at the top of the site promoting and linking to some other company I'd never heard of. I noticed too, a large heading promoting the company that I had got the free system from, with a link to their site! My first positive impression began to crumble and it all became clear to me why this company was offering these free systems like the classified ad system. The more people who had the system on their site the more traffic THEY got, and the more banner sales THEY could generate! I was getting something for free while they got all the traffic and the profits from their own banner sales! I was starting to could see how someone unfamiliar with the web and Internet business would mistakenly think that this "Free System" was a good thing, all the while not realizing the motivation of the system provider and the lack of benefit to the user. This is one of the fundamental mistakes new web site owners make, they load up their site with links, and nifty free stuff that simply takes visitors away from their site and makes them NO money.

I returned to the site where I got the system from to see if it was possible to remove the offending banners. I found that is was only possible to change the text colours on the site, the background, and the heading on the page from the company's name to my name. I could not remove the very large banner at the top of the site that linked to someone else's site. I could not use that space to sell my own banners, nor could I promote or link to any of my own products and services on my own site. Really what this "free system" was offering me was a way to send people away from my site and on to someone else's! While getting the system for free I was really sabotaging any sales I could have made on my own site. Of course it's free so you can't really complain can you, but wise people will see the problem with this.

Bottom line: The companies that offer these free classified ad systems, and postcard sites and other similar systems that you can place on your site are doing it for one reason. No, its not simply to offer something free to you and me. If you think that's it you are naïve. They do it for their own personal profit! The more people who get those free systems on their site, the more traffic they get to their site! The more banners they can sell on it, the more money they make in promoting their own products and services. You are the mule in the traffic trade!

Now if you are so bold as to ask so what? I will tell you so what. Remember the old adage you get what you pay for? Well it applies here. If you are content to set up one of these free classified systems on your site and send people out the back door of your site on to someone else's please do.

I hope you will never complain about loss of traffic and lack of profit from your site. However, if you understand the basic premise of what I'm about to say you will become one of the smart folks who truly makes money on the web!

To make money you have to be the one selling the services instead of the one sending people out the back door of your site. You need to be the one who offers the system not the user of it! You need to be the one that offers the system on your own site, the one who sells the banners and pockets the profit yourself, the one who uses the systems to generate traffic to your own site! How do you do this? You buy a classified ad system, a postcard system, a magazine system, or a reminder system, that allows you to do the following:

1) Sell your own banners at the site, not only on the main page but on the categories and directories within the system. See examples at http://www.worldprofit.com/classifieds

http://www.worldprofit.com/reminder

http://www.worldprofit.com/postcards

http://www.worldprofit.com/magazine

2) Sell or promote your own products and services at the system site. Yes, that way when people come in to place and ad or browse the ads they see YOUR products, services, banners, not that of another company! Details here http://www.trafficcenter.com/service_classifieds.htm

3) Use the system on your own site or refer others to buy a system and earn a commission on the referral! Details on this here, http://www.trafficcenter.com It's not enough that you use systems like Free Postcards and Free Classifieds to bring traffic to your site, you also have to be selling banners, ads, links and so on at those sites so you make profit! You are NOT in the business of offering something for free; you are in business to make money! If you aren't doing the latter you will be out of business!

Summary: I want to thank the obnoxious gentleman who let me know about these "Free Services" so that I could investigate them thoroughly. It reminded me that misinformed people don't always compare apples to apples. I've now completely restored my confidence that the systems Worldprofit offers, provide our customers with both traffic generating tools AND profit-making tools!

Yes, customers have to pay for these systems. However, the sophistication of the systems, their ability to be customized, the tech support, and the profit generation centers they offer the customer are not matched by anyone else in the industry. If you'd like free information on these systems so you can judge for yourself go to http://www.trafficcenter.com or contact Sandi Hunter, Director of Web Site Development for Worldprofit at mailto:sandi@worldprofit.com

Sandi Hunter is the Director of Web Site Development for Worldprofit an Internet Service Provider. Get free newsletters, free report and traffic generating tools at http://www.worldprofit.com E-mail Sandi at sandi@worldprofit.com