How Do Websites Profit From a “Free Model”?

I just read a very interesting article on ways that companies have made lots of profit by giving away free software. Since I do a bit of software development, this got me to thinking about my own products. But more than software development, my business focuses on affiliate marketing, and so I thought it was time to review a more general question. Let’s explore some ways that free websites generate profit for their owners.

When I first started in internet marketing back around the big 2K, there were a lot of news stories about free websites, that allowed visitors to find a lot of trials and free stuff, gave their owners the ability to quit their day jobs. Of course, this hasn’t stopped, but has just become so common it hardly makes the news anymore. But if you have’t explored the topic, you may not be familiar with all of the business models, or you may just take these websites for granted now, and haven’t really considered how it can profit your own business!

Free Content From Websites and Blogs – These websites offer their visitors some information. But the owners do not spend their time researching and writing because they are altruistic, and least most of them do not. No, these website owners want to attract visitors with their compelling and useful articles, videos, etc..

In return, the websites probably display some form of advertising. This could be obvious, in the form of banner or links from marketing networks. Or it could be more subtle, in the form of paid links from other websites. In the world wide web world, internet visitors equals money, or at least the lack of them usually equals no money.

But understand that some websites that generate millions of page views a day do not make as much money as other websites that geerate only thousands or even hundreds of visitors! The idea behind any good website is to attract targetted, or interested visitors, to the subject of that website. These people are brought in with the hope that they will also be interested in the targetted marketing on the website.

Example of Free Websites That Can Make Money

Think about a website on beauty tips. The tips about skin care, hair cut styles, or even dressing for a body type, are totally free. Maybe the website includes written articles, pictures, or even videos that can help the visitors make themselves look and dress better. So far, nothing has to be paid for.

But that website probably runs ads from skin cream manufacturers, local hair salons, or online clothes shopping websites! They can profit from becoming a portal to the “money” websites. They can also do a good job of acting as a funnel. The browsers or lookie-loos just come to read some free articles or watch a video. But the buyers click through, and hopefully, do their business with the advertisiers who get displayed on the website!

Free Sites Giving Away Free Stuff!

Some websites are totally set up to give away free things. This could be software, free trial offers, or any number of things. The content of the website is the free stuff! This is even more direct than the model of posting content to attract buyers. An example of that might be PHP Scripts for Free which gives away tutorials and programmig scripts.

Again, some of the scripts may be upgraded at a cost. Or software advertisers may want to pay for adv. space in a variety of ways.  Contet specific marketing agencies like Google Adsense has been set up to display context sensitive ads to a market like this!

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