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The longer I stay in a business that requires me to deal with people on a face to face basis the more I begin to realize that Darwin's Theory of Evolution is either based on a false premise or someone changed the game since Darwin died.

I mean how else can you account for the fact that there are so many small business people who somehow manage to survive without having any obvious indication that they have a brain or, if they have one, they ever use it?

One person the other day made such an incredible assertion about web hosting that he literally left me speechless. He told me that hosting for his website should be free and, because it wasn't, he was going to take his website offline.

Now this is a guy who has told me in the past that, over the last few years, he's had quite a bit of work come to him from his website. He also happens to work in quite a competitive industry and it's one that is really booming.

So he's going to take his website offline and do what? Pay hundreds of dollars for short-term advertising in newspapers or thousands of dollars for even shorter-term television advertising?

Where's the sense in that?

But let's not kid ourselves ... if you think that guy is dumb then you're just as dumb if you're trying to make money here without spending any money. But why should you spend money when there is so much free stuff available?

Sure you can find plenty of free content from sponsors and you can even find free hosting but how is that really going to work for you?

If you want to engage people with your advertising and get them to head over to your sponsors you're not going to have much luck in attracting them in the first place if all you're showing them is stuff they have already seen.

When you use content that your sponsors provide then you are doing exactly what hundreds of others are doing. One glimpse at the first image on your site and they will know that they have seen it all before and they're gone ... hitting the back button to look for content they haven't seen. They're gone before you have a hope of engaging them with your marketing and they won't be back ... and not too many link lists and TGPs will list your sites and galleries when you rely on free content.

And why, when paid hosting is so cheap, would you want to use free hosting. There is no such thing as free hosting ... there is always a cost that someone has to pay ... so don't be fooled into thinking that you can build your fortune on free hosting.

Before you rush in to sign up for it, and waste your time building a site on free hosting, read the terms of service. Tucked away in the fine print ... that fine print that no one wants to read ... will be the cost that you have to pay for that hosting.

Quite often the cost of your free hosting is giving up the best advertising spots to the free host ... who may well use those spots to market the same sponsor you are trying to promote.

Getting your sites listed on the lists and TGPs that can send you real traffic can also be a problem if you're using a free host. There have been so many issues over the years with sites on free hosts that none of the people who have the traffic you need will touch them.

Free software is another issue for this industry. Here, people love free, or pirated, software and sometimes that free software is ideal for beginners. It actually does what it promises to do but sooner rather than later you will want it to do more and that's when you've got to bite the bullet and start paying for software.

Often, when you do start paying for software, you will notice that it works just that little bit better than the free options. It's easier to use, it's faster, it has more options, it delivers a better finished product and you'll wonder why you ever wasted your time on free stuff.

And that's how it is with hosting and images too. Paid hosting not only gives you the freedom to promote who you want to promote but it also gives you the chance to get listed on the bigger TGPs and link lists that wouldn't touch you when you were using free content and on a free host.

Buying image sets and video clips ... and not relying on free images ... will pull in more surfers as they realize that you want to show them content that they haven't seen before. The more time they are exposed to the content on your free sites or galleries the more they are exposed and tempted by your marketing.

So why would you bother with free stuff ... even if you're just starting out? If you really want to succeed, then be prepared to pay to play because it is the only way to be serious in in the serious business of making money.

Free anything always looks tempting but it simply does not deliver the outcomes you want.