Offering free things is a great way to increase traffic—everybody likes a freebie. If you provide something for free that is valuable to your target market, you are sure to have a steady stream of repeat traffic. When you have freebies or giveaways on your site, your pages can also be listed and linked from the many sites on the Internet that list places where people can receive free stuff. To find these listings of free stuff, simply go to a search engine and do a search on “Free Stuff Index” or “Free Stuff Links.” You will be amazed at how many people are giving things away online.
You don’t have to give something away to everyone. You could simply have a drawing every week. You could then ask entrants if they would like you to notify them of the winner, which again gives you permission to email them.
To get people into your restaurant, you could offer a coupon for a free dessert with purchase of an entrée. To get a number of people to visit your mechanic shop, you might have a buy-three-oil-changes, get-one-free coupon. You might also have a free gift upon joining for a fitness facility or a gym.
You should change your freebie often and let your site visitors know how often you do this. Something like “We change our free offer every single week! Keep checking back” or “Click here to be notified by email when we update” also works well.
Freebies make great Facebook posts and Twitter tweets. Remember: . . . leverage, leverage, leverage.
Freebies provide ideal viral marketing opportunities as well. Have a “Tell a friend about this site” button near the freebie so site visitors can quickly and easily tell their friends.