Software Download Site

Everyone loves free shareware. The increase in Web sites offering free software downloads proves this. These sites allow up-and-coming software designers to display their programs to the public. They also allow established businesses to offer trial copies of their software. Usually these trial versions are limited either in their functionality or by the number of days you can use them. Since these sites offer free programs, they typically receive high volumes of traffic.

How do you generate revenue with this type of business? Since these sites receive such high volumes of traffic, you provide businesses with an excellent online advertising opportunity. You can sell banner advertisements on pages throughout your site. If you decide to launch a mailing list, you can also sell advertisements in the body of the mailing list message. Since your site will receive so many visitors, you will be able to generate maximum exposure for your advertisers’ products and services; thus you will be able to generate a tremendous amount of revenue for your business.

There are several things that you have to remember when launching a software download site. It is very important that you ensure that the server that you’re hosting your site on has high-speed access. If it takes a long time to download software from your site, visitors will be dissatisfied. This will also turn away potential advertisers from your Web site. This can be avoided if your host has a state-of-the-art server with lots of capacity and a high-speed connection. To keep your software download site fresh, you should try to update your site on a regular basis. Consider having a ‘What’s New’ page on your site. You could ask visitors if they would like to be notified via e-mail when you have made updates to your site. This would be a great way to generate repeat traffic to your site.

Advertisers are going to want to purchase ads on your site for one reason - exposure. This can’t happen unless your site receives high volumes of traffic. To ensure that this happens, you are going to have to do whatever you can to promote your business online and offline.
Online marketing techniques

• Launch a strategic banner advertising campaign on Web sites frequented by your target market. These sites should relate to software, programming, or technology in general.
• You could hold a weekly or monthly contest on your Web site for a free full version of a product offered by one of your regular program providers. The programmer or business donating the product could be your Featured Designer. You could ask people if they would like to be notified of the winner via e-mail. This e-mail will encourage them to return to your site to re-enter your contest, thus re-exposing them to your site. • Develop as many links as possible from Web sites, directories, and metaindexes related to your target market. These sites should relate to software design, development, programming, or technology in general. There are also thousands of “free stuff” sites online. It would be very appropriate for your site to be listed on all of these sites.

• You should develop a ‘What’s New’ page for your site. Here you could feature the newest software uploaded to your site. You could ask people if they would like to be notified via e-mail when you update your ‘What’s New’ page. This will encourage them to return to your site.
By: Francis David