SEO consulting king, Aaron Wall wrote an incisive post about how the Obama Administration is now taking it’s first steps at demolishing e-commerce. Just a few weeks ago, the US government created a cars.gov domain.

You have probably heard of cars.com. If not, I’m sure that you can imagine that such a domain name comes at a high premium. Ranking well for a keyword like “Cars” is quite lucrative for web based business. In fact, most companies that own such premium domains will also purchase related domains, such as the .net, .org, and .us version. They do this to capture mistypes from direct traffic, and to prevent competitors from piggybacking off of their brand recognition.

Google. inherently credits .gov domains as trustworthy and authoritative. In fact, it’s built right into the algorithm. When Google. sees a .gov domain, it automatically ranks it high in the search results. But owners of premium domain names can not do anything to compete with the potential of a domain name that matches theirs exactly, but has a .gov domain. This is because private citizens and private industries can not purchase a .gov domain. Only the government can do that.

In just a few short weeks since it’s creation, cars.gov ranks second for the term cars, as seen in this screenshot.

Cars.gov can automatically rank for a term that would cost the average Internet marketing firm thousands, or even millions of dollars to compete. In fact, that’s exactly what they did. Within two weeks of creating the cars.gov domain, Google was ranking it on the first page of search results for the keyword cars. Additionally, the cars.gov cash for clunkers program gets free advertising from Toyota, Nissan, auto dealerships, and any auto related advertising where automakers and auto dealers are using the government program to attempt to drive up sales. This is not competing in the marketplace. This is anticompetitive.

So, we have had the Bush stimulus 1 and the Obama stimulus 2 plunge the country into record setting trillion dollar deficits, and nothing to show for it but an economy that is circling the drain. We have a tax cheat as treasury secretary, and a cabinet full of crooks and criminals. President Obama has hijacked the auto industry and the banking industry, with hopes of also hijacking the health care industry. This administration also hopes to micromanage all of our lives with it global warming hoax tax and regulations.

Now, President Obama and the rest of his crooked cronies are taking their first measures at undercutting the Internet marketplace.

It’s difficult enough for a home based business start up to compete in the cutthroat environment of Internet commerce without having the US government to compete with. I wonder, with this administration’s obvious contempt for private industry, how long will it be before the US government says, “Sorry cars.com, but your domain unfairly competes with ours,” and just take the domain.

Don’t think that will ever happen? Don’t ever underestimate an administration that thinks “I’m from the government and I”m here to help” is a comforting sentiment.

I’m going to have to sell a lot of Barack Obama Collectible Million Dollar Bills to stay afloat. The funny money you’ll find on the other end of that Amazon affiliate link is worth about 5 cents, which is about how much the US Dollar will be worth in 6 months. And I was saving up for that unicorn Obama promised but never delivered. Damn.

I’m scrapping plans to buy unicorn.com because Obama will just start unicorn.gov and screw me.

I’m sure I’ll be fine, though. The government just arrived and they’re here to help.

Giving things away for free can be a valuable tool to promote your business. You can use it as bait, to attract prospective clients. You can use it to funnel people to a sales page, or affiliate commission. “Free” can be linkbait to help you rank higher for a keyword, thus funneling more targeted traffic toward yourself and your business. Free content can help you build credibility or authority in a niche to build your brand. There are many uses for “free” that are worthwhile and beneficial to you and your business.

What “free” is not is a business model. Somewhere you need to draw the line. There is a point where the ROI (return on investment) of “free” begins to hurt your business rather than help it. This is a lesson that some bloggers I read seem to be either learning, re-learning, or just being reminded of.

Grizzly, who gives away an unbelievable amount of free information got disgusted by the response he got from some individuals when he issued a call to action in response to a big Site Build It! fiasco. Many individuals that demanded he hold their hands and walk them through how to make a website and make money from it responded to his call to action by telling how wrong he was to do so. He finally felt the need to vent, and write a rant about how people don’t appreciate free Internet Marketing advice.

Now, I don’t think that Grizzly is just learning this lesson. I think it is more of a rude slap to remind him of something that he knows, but somehow slipped under the radar for a while.

Justin Briggs, a Search Engine Optimization engineer, points out how he made a great Grizzly Wordpress theme, and one user didn’t seem to appreciate the time and effort that Justin put into it. At least one person did not appreciate the value of “free.” He also points out a quote from Arron Wall that really gets to the heart of the issue. People that want something for free, and only for free, do not value you or your time. They don’t have any value for YOU at all. They only value themselves, and they don’t care how much money or time you lose in the process of giving them what they feel they are entitled to.

Paul tells us about how he used a site as a case study, and as a result of his benevolence, he lost the site and it’s income. He won’t be giving away free information anymore. I remember seeing an exchange somewhere, and I don’t remember where it was, or who were the participants. One person said that he was not worried about his site. Google has better things to do than to review his site. Another responded, “But 10,000 assholes on Digital Point don’t.” That’s pretty much the point. Vic points out how even if you get approved after the process, it still costs you money.

This really stuck with me, because these are the very same people that Arron Wall refers to as not having any intrinsic value for your time. These are the 10,000 assholes on Digital Point that get sites deindexed, because they have no sense of how to actually make it in Internet Marketing, so whenever they come across anyone having any degree of success, they feel the need to tear them down, and bring that person down to their level.

The 10,000 assholes on Digital Point take and take and take, because they feel they are entitled. They only see not making money as a legitimate business model. If you make money, they want to know your secret (which is probably not a secret, but rather hard work) and they demand you give it to them for free.

If you have the audacity to ask for financial compensation, then these 10,000 assholes on Digital Point realize that they have just discovered a “spammer.” No shit. That’s their limited, narrow, pathetic, absurd view of making money online. If you want to charge for your time, you are a spammer. So, it stands to reason that a “spammer” should be reported.

My father owns a retail store. It’s a physical store, not an Internet retailer. From time to time they give away something for free. This is done with the strategy of promoting the business. Often it will be something like T shirts with the business name on them. Sometimes it will be something of greater value in some sort of contest. Other times it is something small an inexpensive that is okay to do for promotional purposes, but they don’t give away the inventory for free. Free is not a business model.

By extension, Grizzly gives away a lot of information for free. This is fine. It funnels traffic to him, and builds authority. One commenter on Justin’s post, Patrick, observed that he would be willing to pay $100 bucks an hour or more to pick Grizzly’s brain. You need to draw the line between free content and free consulting. Once you start holding hands, you need to either cite your hourly rate, or refer (with affiliate link) to someone that does charge a rate if you don’t want to do the consulting yourself. Either way, you are compensated without spending hours re-answering the same n00b questions over and over again.

Create an FAQ page with all the beginner questions. Make all the questions point with anchored links to where those questions are answered. When a question is asked the answer is a link to the FAQ. If the person wants more than that, then it is time to charge or attempt to earn an affiliate commission. If the person doesn’t value your time enough to pay for it, then perhaps that person doesn’t value his own time either. In that case, good luck finding all that “free” information out there.

After 6 months of attempting to separate the good advice from the bullshit and scams, and you haven’t earned a dime, you’ll learn that your time is valuable too. I have paid people for their time, precisely because I value MY time. I didn’t want to spend 6 months filtering out bullshit. I wanted good advice, and I wanted it now, because I realized the value of my own time. I realized that what I can learn in a few minutes of having it handed to me will save me hours of time filtering bullshit.

Free is a good promotional tool, but never forget that you are running a business. Don’t give away the inventory. 10,000 assholes on Digital Point will only screw you over for it.

I’ve always wanted to have my own home based business. Even as a young child, I did not like being told what to do. Even then, I always wanted to stubbornly do things my own way. If I was told to do something a certain way, I would find a different way to do it, and have my own subtle, or sometimes not so subtle rebellion against authority.

I can’t stand having someone looking over my shoulder and telling me I can’t go get a cup of coffee because it’s not break time. Then having a boss chastize me for taking an unapproved break when I know damn well that I am doing more than my fair share to bailout less competent employees that are either too stupid or too lazy to do their jobs properly. I got sick of being told to do some useless, pointless busy work bullshit, just because I was on the clock and the company doesn’t feel like it’s right to pay me to be there unless I’m doing something tangentially and vaguely resembling work.

I remember as a teenager I worked in a pizza place, and one day it was so slow that there really was nothing to do. So, my boss decided that we all needed to do something to justify our being there. He decided that we had to clean behind the refrigerator, and all other sorts of idiotic places that really had nothing at all to do with making and serving pizzas. This is the sort of thing that you can expect to do when you work for someone else. I personally don’t see what the difference is to pay an employee to do something moronic and useless, or just let them have a little free time on the payroll. The employees are being paid the same either way. In both cases, the employees aren’t doing anything useful, and their pay is the same. Why?

Wouldn’t it be better to pay employees based on output, not on hours logged? Of course it would. Oh, they’ll tell you that is why one person gets a raise and another doesn’t. They’ll BS you and say that the harder you work the more you will get paid, but then when the time comes, the slackers get a 2% raise, and you worked your ass off for a whopping 3% raise. Whoo hoo. Why even bother to work hard? All it really does is screw you.

I was always good at my job, and all that meant was I had more to do. Some other loser would fiddle around for 20 minutes trying to figure out something so basic a monkey could do it, and then I would have to step in and take up the slack. 2 and half minutes later, I’m done. So, after a few times of this, I just automatically get the job, while the other worthless waste of life yaks on his cell phone.

Well, screw that. It’s no wonder I hate being told what to do. It’s no wonder because they’re really just out to use you and throw you away. So that is why I want to have a home based business. You’re reasons may vary, but I’m not a slacker. I do what I need to do, when I need it to be done.

I had a strategy of getting my work done fast, so that then I could spend a few minutes reading, typing out an idea, or just relaxing. Guess how that panned out? I got screwed. That’s how it worked out. I would be better off taking 4 times as long to do everything than I was being competent and efficient at my job. It sucks.

With a home business, I am the boss. No one tells me what to do. It’s all on me. And if there is really nothing to do, I’m not going to do anything. It’s all on me. If I don’t do enough, then I don’t make money. My business doesn’t grow, and I’m only screwing myself. If I work hard, do the dirty work, and put in the effort to make my home business successful, then I get to reap the benefits. I don’t have to answer to anyone. I know full well that if I get in the right state of mind that I can get in the zone and hammer out whatever needs to be done.

Do you think I’m in the right state of mind while the boss is harassing me about getting a cup of coffee? Here’s a hint. If I can’t get teh cup of coffee I want, my mind is on the damn cup of coffee I want, not on my work. Being relaxed and enjoying what you do makes you more productive, but GiantMegaCorp just wants mindless drones to do what they say when they say, and if your not being productive enough, they respond by cracking the whip, not by telling you to take a few minutes to relax and get into a happier state of mind.

Now, with my home based business, no one tells me what to do. If finding out what it will cost to get a repair done on my home is my priority in life at that moment, I can do it, and I don’t have to sit there and explain that it’s important, while the company says I should take care of it on my own time. I would, dumbasses, but I have this little conflict where the contractor works the same freaking hours I do. Duh.

If there’s a snow day, and my step daughter has school, I don’t need to scramble around to find someone to watch her because I don’t have vacation time to take because it’s December and I don’t have any time left. I don’t have to do anything, because I’m home anyway. We call that pajama day. We love pajama day. Maybe a little too much. If I need to do something in the morning, I can make up the time whenever the hell I want, if it’s even necessary to make up the time. Good luck with trying to put in an extra half hour at 11:30 at night at your day job. Ain’t gonna happen.

I didn’t have flexible hours at the punch a time clock day job. I was always under scrutiny from my overlords. They invariably always have some stupid thing or another to nitpick about. Well, I don’t mind my own nitpicking. My sense of tweaking something until it is just right is something I rather enjoy, but if doing something a certain way is stupid, then that’s what it is. Stupid. Do you think that matters to some big corporation? Nope. In fact, the more stupid it is, the more likely they want it done that way.

Here’s an example. One company I worked for seemed to think that if the employees did something, then it didn’t cost any money. Instead of having jobs done by the manufacturer, they would send it to us, and have us do the custom work. It could take 3 people 8 hours each, for a total of 24 man hours of labor, but hey, at least they didn’t have to pay the 150 bucks to have it done before it got shipped. Much better to wind up paying 350 dollars in our own labor.

I’m certainly glad to finally be the one calling the shots. I’m happy to make my own schedule, and more than anything, I am thrilled to make my own destiny. I know that not everything will always work out the way I thought it would, but there are plenty of ways to make money. One thing I have learned in my time at this Interwebtube thing is that you really need to just go for it. Stop overthinking everything and just build whatever pops into your head. Do it the way that seems intuitively right. Do it the way that seems intuitively wrong. Do both.

I have to laugh sometimes when I see blogger noobs asking questions about “Should I do this and then blah blah blah, and when should I add whatever or should I blah blah blah. whatever.Then you see responses like “Yes, You should do this first, then do that.”

NO! The correct answer is to do all of those things. Anyhoo. I seem to have strayed a little in the wanderings of my mind. The main point here is that when you have your own biz, you get to make the rules, and then break them. In fact, when it comes to home business, you need to break the rules if you want to get ahead. That’s why corporate world sucks. Breaking the rules gets you unemployed. In my biz, breaking the rules is how to learn what works.