Free downloads, the like button and SEO

Hi.
So i have several site im working at the moment. One of my sites is doing well after just 4 months of the site going live. I am getting an average of 60 visitors a day and i have done very little SEO. I have other sites that are not doing so well even though i have been writing lots of content, finding back-links etc.

Im not necessarily going to ask why one site is doing well and the others are not as i appreciate there are many variables. However, i would like to know about one thing specifically…

On the site that is doing well (without SEO) i have download-able products which i am giving away. Can someone advise me on the SEO implications of having free download-able products? What does google make of this? I’m sure it is helping me in some way but im not sure how. Of course it could be due to people naturally linking to my site but i cannot see any evidence of this.

While i am on the subject…
Is there a way of getting a visitor to click the facebook “like” button in order to download a product? Do you think this is slightly black hat? Any thoughts about this?

Thanks

Giving free downloads on your site is always good marketing strategy. You should put things like beautiful images, useful tutorials or information so that people can find it as useful thing. And then you can use social media like Facebook, twitter, social bookmarking and forums for promoting it.

do not force your customers to the like button. If your customers think your content is likable they will definitely press the like button. Concentrate on improving your content. You can put a sign requesting if you like the content of this site press the like button or something like that

Putting free download in your site in order to attract visitors is good, but you should not force anyone to like it. Personally i feel really bad when something like that comes in front of me. So try to avoid that.