“Free” Services – Not Always Good or Bad

I’m always on the lookout for free things on the internet – especially ways to save on business expenses. And thanks to the nature of the internet, there’s plenty to be found.

I’ve noticed that most “experts” don’t recommend the use of the various free services available, and they’ll give you many reasons why. But the truth is, the main reason they don’t usually recommend them is that there’s no money to be made by referring you to them. They’d much rather give you their affiliate referral link to whatever they promote so they can earn a commission.

That’s to be expected - it’s just how business works. But I’m interested finding ways to save money wherever I can, and I’m sure you are too. So just be aware of this fact and realize that, because of this, you won’t see nearly as many glowing reviews of free services, even though they can often be excellent. Or they can just be a waste of time, so you need to try them to find out for yourself which ones are which.

Here’s one example of each…

StatCounter.com is a free web tracking service I’ve been trying out. This thing has so many impressive features it’s amazing, yet as of this writing it’s totally free to use. The only limit being once you start getting hundreds of thousands of hits per day, you’re then asked to upgrade to the pay version. Beginners don’t need to worry about this anyway. (I certainly don’t, for one!) So I followed the instructions and set it up on this very site to see what I might find out.

Meanwhile, another thing I’ve been trying is called TrafficSwarm.com. It’s a free advertising site that displays your ad in exchange for viewing the other ads they have listed...unless you want to pay a fee to bypass having to view ads. I suspected that most people just click on the ads to earn their credits, without paying any real attention to the web sites they’re shown...and I was right.

Thanks to StatCounter, I was able to know that after about a week on TrafficSwarm, they sent me only about 20 visitors...all of whom stayed for only 5 seconds or less! Meaning not only did VERY little traffic result from that ad, but the people who did click through to this site didn’t even take more than a glance. (If that!)

So I’m starting to think TrafficSwarm is really more like “WastedTimeSwarm”. Maybe with just the right product offer and just the right ad you could accomplish something with it, but otherwise it doesn’t look worthwhile to me. But it IS free. Even if it sent more traffic though, visitors who don’t stay for more than five seconds are worthless anyway. Oh well, at least now I know spending any money for more exposure on it wouldn’t exactly be a good idea.

“Free” products and services are usually advertisement supported in some form or another, but not always. Ads are usually what makes the whole thing possible, since most companies don’t keep websites up and running, etc., just out of the goodness of their hearts – they need to make money somewhere along the line just like everyone else. I use a free email reader called Eudora, and it’s only ads are in a small square in the lower left corner of the screen – they don’t bother me a bit. If there’s no advertising, there’s usually some other ulterior motive somewhere, if only the hope of upgrading you or selling something to you in the future.

One exception is free web hosting services. You probably do want to avoid using them for business web sites, since the ads could possibly distract your readers from your own message. (Or worse, even conflict with your message.) For personal websites though, they could work out fine if the advertising doesn’t bother you. Plus, blog sites like this one (Blogger.com) are also free to use. So in my own case, by the way...yes, I CAN afford to offer the information in this blog out of the goodness of my heart! I hope this helps you out in your own efforts to start your own computer internet marketing business!

John