Tips for directory owners.
Ok, first of all, get your PageRank up to 6. In all honesty, how hard is to get PR5? You can purchase one sitewide at PR7 site and get up to 5, or you can spend a couple hundred dollars submitting to high quality directories. (although, I admit, it could be a little harder after the recent PR update, when many dirs lost their PR).
The reason behind this is that permanent directory listing does not mean much, if your PR drops in the future. By having higher PR you are showing me (the submitter) that you are serious about your directory, because you have put some time and money into it. You need to have high PR and professional looking directory if you want people to submit to it.
And let’s be honest, people submit to directories for PR, not for traffic. The days when directories were providing traffic are long gone. Do not brag about your traffic. Work hard, and brag about your PR.
Additionally, people browsing directory lists usually make their way down starting from the higher PR. Stay ahead of the flock and get higher PR. This will get you many more submissions.
I usually start submitting to high PR, high quality directories. And after submitting to these, I will usually have very little money left to submit to lower PR directories. The competition is too big, and I don’t have time to look at many directoires with PR4 and less.
DO NOT require registration. People submitting to directories have already went through hundreds, got frustrated by many things, and the last thing they want is to waste additional time registering.
Only have this available if you have high quality, high PR directory. For those I would definitely take additional time to register.
Do not use default skin! You wouldn’t believe how many of those I have seen! I will not submit to that directory. Heck, you did not even take five minutes to change your skin but you expect people to pay you for submission. There are many free skins out there. It can be done in 10 min, so do it!
BE REALISTIC! Do not charge $24.95 or something like that for PR5 directory. And I have seen tons of these. If you disagree, read number 1 again. You cannot expect to make all money back after ten submissions. This is not realistic.
Do this only if you plan on further improving your PR, so you don’t fill your categories with cheap listings.
Stay focused:
Do not have 5 directories.
You will make much more money from one PR7 directory than from six PR4 directories.
Try to limit the number of directories that you have. It is better to have two high quality PR6 directories than four average PR5 directories.
If you can have 5 PR6 directories, then disregard this suggestion.
While staying focused, keep your front page simple. DO not add news, stock quotes, weather prognosis, or whatever else people are adding to their home pages.
Do not sell sitewide links. If you think your directory will look professional with 20-30 sitewide links at the bottom, think again. Many people will not submit to directories with many sitewide links because this is decreasing PR that is passed to their sites.
I do not submit to categories that at the bottom have links to more pages within that category. It is better to add more subcategories to your category, than to have 5 pages of listings within the same category. So have ENOUGH categories.
Arrange your front page so categories that people submit to the most have a link from the front page. Arrange categories by popularity, not in alphabetical order. This way you will transfer more PR to categories that get more submissions.
DO have more pricing options. I really like how 2yi directory did this.
DO not offer free submissions. Do not even start off with free submissions. Even with long waiting times many people will submit for free. Do not leave them choice. If they like your directory, make them pay, and they will!
If you still want to offer free submissions don’t charge $40 for express submission. I will never pay $40 knowing that there is a free option as well. But $10 I will.
Submit your directory to all directory lists.
Do not offer only paypal as your payment processor. Try to have one more.
2co.com is a good choice for a backup processor.
Try to keep it as simple as possible. And do not reject websites for reasons that are not CLEARLY stated. I got a few rejections on the basis that my website is made for adsense – and I have only 1-2 ads per page. Heck, you can say that for almost any website today. And of course, this happened only with directories that do not offer refund for rejected submissions.
Do not have a submission page that mentions nothing about payment, that transfers to paypal after pressing the submit button.
Do not make me select category at the submission page. Get a better script!
To sum up, I still believe that directories are valuable source of back links. I know of websites that have 90% of backlinks coming from directories, and they still rank very good for competitive keywords.
Work hard on your directory and you will definitely make decent income.
By velocity
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