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Not much of a post today I’m afraid, I’ve had my head buried in some serious coding and I really need a rest. I can’t describe how much I hate Vistas new user permissions, anybody would think that Microsoft didn’t want people to write applications for their new OS!
One of the worst kept secrets in SEO is that giving away free software is the daddy of all link-bait. Sure you can write an e-book, give away clip-art, write some articles and distribute them but the BEST way of getting inbound links is to write some good free software and get it out there. The first problem you might encounter here is the problem that you’re not a programmer. Little problems like that should never get in the way, there are loads of websites out there that will let you hire a programmer (or even Rent A Coder) for a very reasonable fee. For a few hundred dollars you can have a program that you can try and sell or like what this post is about, give away for free.
Free software has 2 benefits when it comes to linking. In terms of link-bait some of the people who download your software will like it, some of them might even have websites, some will write about it and link back to it. 1500 downloads a day is not an unrealistic target for a good piece of software, at that rate it does not take very long to get a good amount of links back. With software it also helps that people tend to review rather than just document, this gives any links back a more natural feel in terms of SEO. Page rank 5 is fairly easy to achieve with a page that hosts a good free software program.
The other benefit of free software is the many download websites that are out there. Literally thousands will let you submit your free software for free. As with the plethora of website directories out there many of these are very little if any benefit in terms of SEO or referred traffic. These mainly exist to generate Adsense income for the website owner and do nothing for you. Some on the other hand are little gold mines. Something worth keeping in mind is that when submitting to try and make each submission to the best download sites unique. More importantly do not use any text from your website in any submission, duplicate content is not looked upon nicely by the search engines and it’s well worth spending that little extra time making your top submissions unique. If you’re going to go down the submit to every download site route then using a PAD file is the best option, I’m more concerned with quality at the moment though so I’ll go into that another day. Anyway, here are my top 5 Download Websites on which to list your free software:-
1 . Download.com – Huge PR, huge alexa ranking and more traffic than you can throw a stick at. You used to have to pay to get your software listed here but an account is now free via upload.com It can take 3-6 months to get your product listed and they are quite stringent on quality control. The sheer number of downloads your software will get not to mention the link juice passed back more than makes it worth the trouble. For those with less patience there is a paid short cut.
2. Tucows.com – Page rank 8 home page with an almost guaranteed page rank 4 for each product you list. If anything the quality control is even more stringent than Downlaod.com (only really good programs need apply). Waiting times are again around the 100-150 day mark but a pr4 link for free is worth the wait. Money can speed things up.
3. Snapfiles.com – A very nice looking website with a direct link back via your publishers profile page. This a very good way of getting a Pr3 or PR4 link for little effort. You’ll normally find your listing (if it’s accepted) live within a week.
4. Softpedia.com – Page rank 7 home page with the average product page sitting around 3 or 4. This website does get a lot of traffic as well as allowing a link back to your website. Submitting is a straight forward process and software is listed quickly.
5. Softsea.com – Looks quite unremarkable and doesn’t direct link back to your site but they do have a very optimised website. Quick submission and addition to this site combined with a highly optimised interface make it a good choice for getting your name and product out there.
There are lots of other download sites out there that can benefit you but these are my top 5 at the moment, from experience I can say that all of these have helped promote my programs in the past and I hope they’ll continue doing so long into the future.
It’s been a week now since I started using TrialPay to distribute my free products. To be fair it’s only been live for 6 days because I didn’t take into account the 1 day on average it takes to get a product approved but lets see how I’ve done?
Over those six days I’ve made $291.86 at an average price of $11.67 per download. It’s not cost my users anything but that’s the money I’ve made just by using TrialPay to deliver the software. The funny thing is that it started off on fire, I was averaging just under $100 a day for the first 2 days. Things have settled down but as an extra income source I’m more than happy with it.
TrialPay Trends
A couple of things I have noticed when using TrialPay.
I’ll be continuing to use it and will be adding more products in the near future. If you have something that you’re currently giving away for free then this is a great way to earn some online money. I’d recommend that anybody who can sign up to TrialPay.
A little note about this turned up in my Inbox yesterday and for once I read it instead of just binning it as spam. I’m glad I did. Plenty of people will ask what makes you an authority on something, “why do you consider yourself an expert?” When it comes to making money from the internet my answer is always the same, my niche is free software and I’ve done very well out of it. I’m not a millionaire, the reason being the word FREE, if I could have monetised the actual software then I would be, if I’d charged just $1 each time somebody downloaded my software I’d have been able to retire 3 years ago with 3 million+ in the bank. I’d be pulling in $1500 a day from 1 website alone. It was never an option for me , what started as free shall always be free, I see it as some sort of loyalty to those who have stuck with me over the years. I earn money around my software, not from it. Well thanks to TrialPay that could all change.
TrialPay in simple terms is a new checkout system, but instead of charging for your products (like my free software) it gives them for free. Ok, so how do I make money from this? In order to download your product for free the customer will be shown some offers and trials from some of the biggest brand name companies out there (ebay as just one example). For doing this the advertiser, ebay for example, will pay you an amount of money. You get paid, the customer gets your free product for free. Sounds too good to be true? TrialPay has some very serious backing, some of the backers behind Skype, Google, and Akamai to name just a few. Their idea is simple, to pay for one product by trying or buying something else. It did take a little setting up but I’m good to go now on a couple of products so will report back in a week or so to let everybody know how I got on.
If you deliver any service or product for free at the moment it will be well worth giving it a go, after all what have you got to lose? You can sign up for your free merchant account at TrialPay here.