I am constantly on the lookout for free software and particularly I am always looking out for free alternatives to the common commercial applications such as Nero. The 3 most common reasons for this (in my circumstances) are:-
- A friend or client wants CD burning software and doesn’t want to pay for it
- I’m re-installing a PC where the owner does not have the key for it
- To replace an unlicenced copy of Nero
Over time I have come across my favorites to replace these programs and in this case I have found a free alternative to Nero which fits the bill quite nicely.
I have 2 goals when it comes to running this website:-
- Produce a website which includes special offers, freebies and services which appeal to my visitors
- Make a little money from it.
Of the offers and freebies that are available on Lots Of Freebies there are some that I earn a small commission from and there are others where I don’t earn anything from… but while I was looking over a new offer to put up I had to think which of the 2 goals above I valued more.
This was while I was considering promoting the 24-7 SMS Club and after a short while I came to the conclusion I would prefer to have a site with content my visitors found useful rather than earn a quick buck here and there!
WordPress is definately my favourite new toy at the moment and I can not for the life of me understand why I did not start using it long before now. In the past I have always opted to develop my own software from scratch, often simply to see if I could manage it but more and more I am finding myself opting for an existing piece of software and just adding a few customisations to meet my requirements, as in the case with WordPress.
Now that I have had a chance to play around with it properly and have a look to see what other people like and dislike about it I have compiled a list of what I consider to be the Top 5 Essential WordPress Plugins. Each of these are listed below and keeping with the spirit of Lots Of Freebies you will find that each of the plugins are absolutely free:-
After recently installing WordPress and quickly getting to grips with the easy to use interface I quickly came to realise that the Articles section of the Lots of Freebies would be dropped in favour of blog entries. For that reason I have converted all the articles to blog entries to ensure they still add valuable content and advice to the websites and I have now removed the articles section.
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I have just come across a blog entry by John Lamerton titled Send Me Free Stuff which has shown me yet another way, that I would never have thought of on my own, of using your website or blog to your advantage. The basic idea behind this was to make a blind request for free stuff to anyone who would be willing to send it to him in return for him writing a blog entry about the product they he received.
Why would anyone send him free stuff? Every company that has their own website is competing against everyone else for search engine rankings… the higher the rankings the more traffic, more sales, more comissions etc but one factor in gaining a better search engine ranking is obtaining backlinks. The company could make their money back many times over if they send out a freebie to someone who then writes about it on a busy blog.
I’m not sure if this would still work now or not… would a high profile blogger be happy with including product advertisements within their blog just for the sake of a few freebies or would they prefer to just stick to their topic of choice?
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