Most Commented

Top Money Makers

Subscribe

The Best Download Websites For Your Software

Posted by Paul B | September 11, 2007 .

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.

Social Sharing: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Netscape
  • StumbleUpon

Related Posts

Posted under Make Money Online | Like this article? Subscribe to our RSS feed

Leave a Comment

If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Comments

3 Comments so far
  1. Googlelady RUSSIAN FEDERATION Windows XP Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.6  September 14, 2007 2:10 am

    Download is my favorite here.

  2. Thomas Sinfield AUSTRALIA Windows XP Mozilla Firefox 2.0  September 17, 2007 10:52 pm

    I agree, whenever I am looking for something I go straight for download.com

  3. Mighty Blogger - Today’s Top Blog Posts on Blogging - Powered by SocialRank UNITED STATES WordPress 2.1.2  October 1, 2007 12:19 pm

    [...] The Best Download Websites For Your Software [...]