I read a really interesting post over at Nathan Hangen’s last night in which he talked about giving away free information instead of charging for it. This rung true with me because I am in the midst of monetizing as most of you know. Now the one thing about monetizing a site is, for me anyway, it’s difficult to make the transition from free to charging a fee.

I have a few different plans to start making money online, now of which will affect this site or it’s readers, so don’t worry, but I’m going to write another tutorial this weekend which I plan on being free, but Nathan’s post got me thinking, should we be giving away free content?

  • Business

The main argument against giving away so much free content is that your website could be a business. I say ‘could be’ because if you’re not charging for anything, then it isn’t a business. Why shouldn’t you get paid for your efforts? You work hard so you deserve something back. Aaron’s guest post also says that if you’re product has a value then don’t give it away for free.

The problem I have with this is, how much do I charge? Matthew Needham said by following my tutorial ‘7 Days To Better Traffic‘ his stats went up by over 50% and I should be charging $7 a pop ofr the tutorial. $7 is peanuts really, but if say I sell 1,000 over a set time that amounts to quite a bit of cash, but by charging for it, am I narrowing my audience as this site is still in it’s infancy.

  • Loyalty

In the masses of comments left on that post was one which said people in Europe think and react differently than people in the US etc. Readers in Europe are naturally suspicious of anything sales related, people in Europe expect it to be free, so giving away free content can be a good way of  bringing in new readers and smashing down those suspicious walls, they get to know that your products are of good value which could lead to solid sales.

I say could because it could also backfire. Constantly giving away free content then starting to charge for it could massively upset people, but it’s meant to be a business. Loyalty as Nathan says should be to you and not because you are giving away content. Essentially you are buying loyalty by being free all the time, which isn’t necessarily a good thing.

  • Teasers

Free reports, tutorials and ebooks are teasers really, packed full of good information, which the reader should find valuable. When it comes to the point of selling a product, those readers could already be won because they have loved your ‘pre-products’.

I’m still on the fence with this one and look for great guidance from the guys doing it already and most of all the readers of this site. Your readers should be in the fore front of your mind when you start going down this path, it’s one journey I’m already on, but unsure where the path is going to take me.

A quick reminder, non of the daily content on this site will ever be charged for and my main plans for monetizing won’t actually be on this site, so please don’t worry that I’m going to start hitting everyone up for a sale, it’s not what I’ about, the readers of this site come first.

Parquímetro
Creative Commons License photo credit: Daquella manera

What do you think? Again this isn’t about my next tutorial, but do you think free or fee is better?

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