What Should I Give Away Free on my Website?

"What kind of information should I have at my website?" "What kind of resources should I have at my website?" "What can I offer my visitor at my website to keep them there?" In the past few articles I have talked about how important it is to give away good information at your site, build credibility and rapport with your visitors and become a good research resource.

You want to become the ultimate one-stop shop for your industry.

You want people come to you looking for information… this gives you the opportunity to direct them to your service or product… so that they end up buying from you.

Your objective is to get lots of traffic and develop that credibility and rapport.

People often tell me that they don't know what to give away for free. They say they don't have any information of value, they don't have any articles and aren't writers. They insist that they can't possibly become an information resource because all they have is the one product they want to sell.

Well, you can ALWAYS find an angle.

Let me give you an example. Crayola Crayons. What in the heck kind of information could you give away for free at a Crayola Crayons site? What kind of articles could you write at a crayon site? Well you know what?

They did a great job of it!

Take a look www.Crayola.com for yourself. They know they have three target markets. One is children, two is parents, and three is teachers. So they have created a separate section for each one.

If you are a parent and you visit their site, they have a little section about how to get stains from crayons off your walls or clothing and kitchen cabinets. You can pick out what kind of crayons were used, what kind of material it was used on and they'll show you the solution on how to get the crayon stain out of that material. Isn't that a fantastic service? Isn't that worth something? These are great ideas.

If you are a teacher, they'll show you all the advantages of using crayons. They have all sorts of teaching games that teachers can print out from their computer and actually distribute in class. These games use crayons but they also teach the kids different things. Teachers love this because they are actually educating their children, and Crayola loves this because they are getting their name out there and are getting people to use their crayons. People end up buying product.

For children they have coloring books and crayon puzzles and games. They've got coloring books that you can actually printout. There are different coloring books for different types of products since Crayola has crayons, markers, chalk, and everything else you can imagine. They've got lots of free stuff for kids at their site.

Crayola has three target markets that correspond to the three sections at their site. This allows them to track their target markets and reach each of their markets individually. This is very, very powerful marketing.

Crayola found a way to give information and resources to each of their target markets. So don't think that you can't do this. Get creative. Open your horizons. Think about it.

• What can you do that would generate a lot of value to your site?
• How can you be a great resource for your target market?
• What do they want to hear about?
• How can you help them?

Giving away free resources and information can make the difference between a winning site and a losing site… so make sure you have something of value for your visitors!