Should I charge or keep it free???...

Hi,

I have recently launched a brand new uk based online business directory http://www.BusinessAdsLocal.com and have promoted it by offering any business that joins before 1st August a free listing for life.

I was planning to charge businesses circa £10 a month thereafter but am unsure whether this will kill the site or not?

Having been in sales for over 16 years I am conscious of building value into a product. If I offer my site to anyone for free is this not devaluing my site???

The take up has been very good so far and the site is shooting up the Alexa.com ratings. If I start charging businesses will they pay?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in anticipation

Kevin

Re : Should I charge or keep it free???

Obviously you must do what you feel best for your business, as a general rule I think it is hard to get people to pay when a service is new and has little take-up - things become much more attractive once the site is busy and full of listings that creates more perceived value so perhaps get the bulk first then charge later

Hope this helps

Sasha

Re : Should I charge or keep it free???

Hi Kevin,

I listed my company on your site a few days ago and was grateful of the space you had provided for a FREE listing. Many sites offer a FREE option, reciprocal link or paid listings for various budgets. The FREE options differ in the amount of information you are allowed to submit. Listing on over 60 FREE sites has helped one client reach the first page on Google. If you can offer a large advertising space, priority listings and superior results in the search engines, this could encourage people to take a paid listing. In my experience, people need to see results first.

Ian
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Ian Slave to Design T: 01782 221130 E: info@slavetodesign.com Http;//www.slavetodesign.com

Re : Should I charge or keep it free???

Just to echo the other sentiments here - I would recommend keeping it free until you get it nice and busy, then it will be much more likely to get money.

Most people who try charging too early, I believe, find they just stop their resource being used at all.

Lianne

Re : Should I charge or keep it free???

Hi Kevin

What did you decide to do in the end?

Tim

Re : Should I charge or keep it free???

Hi Kevin - I would also recommend it'd be best to keep something like this free until the take-up levels reach a healthy threshold.

Chris

Re : Should I charge or keep it free???

Offering stuff for free is definitely like most people have said an excellent method, people love free stuff. That is IF you can get past the "yeah but whats the catch" worry on most peoples minds or the "it cant be free" or "nothings free".

Not only does it also give you a warm fuzzy feeling but it also shows you are not all about take, take, take.
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Re : Should I charge or keep it free???

Just to play devils advocate if something is free it can be hard to then switch it to paid as people have learnt to expect that they can get it for free it can be a bit of culture shock to move to paying!

Lianne

Re : Should I charge or keep it free???

Theres always people out there that will pay. I would think about making the price a little less steep, but I agree that you dont want to be a free site as it does not make good business sense.

Re : Should I charge or keep it free???

Hi everyone,

I decided to accept an offer from an ex work colleague to come in as a business partner and have spent a great deal of time and money enhancing BusinessAdsLocal.com

We also switched the site to a paid for service with mixed results. The site's growth has slowed but is steady. We've offered 3 levels of advetising from a standard listing (which includes unlimited text, images and link to websites) to Featured Plus which includes a featured listing and banners on each page of the site. Prices start from £10 a month and rise to £20 a month for everything.

We are now investing in a new product to help market the website. http://www.theadbin.co.uk is the website that will give you more info.

Essentially we plan to install a few hundred Adbins around East Anglia and will advertise BusinessAdsLocal.com on each bin. This should help raise the profile of the website and, at the same time, increase our revenues from the sale of advertising space on each Adbin.

Thanks for all your comments on here and keep them coming!

Kevin

http://www.lkm-media.com

Re : Should I charge or keep it free???

If you can see traffic being redirected to certain sites, say to them you are going to charge for the listing. who wants to miss out on business?

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Web Efforts - internet marketing
www.webefforts.co.uk

Re : Should I charge or keep it free???

Hi Kevin

Keep us posted on how things go Particularly interested in how the transition to a paid model develops over time...

Dan
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