“It will get stolen!”

“Somebody will just copy it!”

“It’ll just end up on some pirate site!”

How many times have you heard this? I’m sure that if you have put anything online then you’ve probably had at least one person tell you this. The unfortunate truth is that they could be right!

This is still no reason to not have a website or to do business on the internet. If you are a person, a small business or an organisation that is using a website for promotion, then you want to make your information as unrestricted to your visitors as possible.

Every step and every obstacle that you put in their way, in order to protect your “content”, is just going to piss off your visitors – or your potential customers – to the point that they are going to go elsewhere.

Set it Free!

Your main focus when creating a website is to give people a single hub for your business. If you want to start hiding it away and locking it up, then nobody – and I mean nobody – is going to find your website useful. If they can find it at all.

People who are going to take the information that you are providing and pass it along might actually be doing you a favour. If your information keeps getting passed around then more and more people may find it useful and follow it back to its source.

Another thing to remember is that most of those people downloading from pirate sites are not your customer anyway. They download because they can! If they were forced to pay or go without, then they would probably not pay.

Remember that today’s internet is a social place. A place where people share things that are interesting. A place where new ideas and new information can spread freely.

Not Everyone is a Thief!

How many times have you gone to a movie and were forced to sit through an advertisement telling you not to pirate movies? I’ll guess, every time you go to a movie theatre!

The people sitting in the movie theatre watching the movie are not the people the movie industry needs to be worrying about. Those people probably even overpaid for their popcorn. Wouldn’t a better approach be to run an ad thanking all of the people in the theatre for parting with their hard earned money?

This is what you should be doing! You should be thanking everyone that visits your site, signs up for your mailing list or leaves a comment. Forget about all the other people that are being opportunistic.

Make it Easy!

Selling products on the internet is easy and buying should be too. There are many online shopping cart systems that can plug into a website seamlessly. If performing one or two clicks results in a purchase then this is the way it should be done.

There is a certain domain registrar, whom I won’t name here, that I recommend not using. The reason? They make it damn near impossible to just register a domain. Every time you “proceed to checkout” they intercept you with an up sell page. They make it difficult to give them money.

Extra obstacles means people go elsewhere!

Stop Worrying!

By now you may have noticed an excessive use of exclamation marks throughout this post. They are intentional. There are going to be things about being on the internet that you can control and then there are going to be things that you can’t.

Focus on what you can control and don’t worry about those things that you can’t!

__________

Image Credit: cc licensed flickr photo shared by loop_oh

• Share

Share This

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

About the author

Matt
I'm Matt and I share how to build an internet presence through internet business, social marketing, lifestyle design and productivity tools. While here, read about me to learn my story or find out how you can hire me.

Related Posts

Better to Build a Business or Invest in Stocks?

There are many roads to wealth, freedom and happiness. Recently I was having drinks with friends and we began discussing the different roads that we each have been exploring. The conversation was mainly between myself...

What is Economy 2.0?

We've all heard that the world is changing but, now more than ever, it is changing at an exponential rate. I don't even think it matters anymore if you have a formal education at a fancy school or are self-taught off of Lynda.com....

The Consultant’s Dilemma

I have been spending an growing amount of time lately consulting on blogging, WordPress and new media. I use the term consulting in the loosest sense since I am not getting paid for it. Maybe I should be. I can't remember...