Tips for directory owners.

After browsing thorough hundreds, if not thousands of directories, and submitting my sites to many (paid directories) these are some of the things I've noticed. If you read through this post, I am sure that you will have much more success with your directory. I know that not everyone will agree with me, so I would like to stress that these are only my thoughts and suggestions, and this is how I felt while submitting to directories. If something like this has been posted recently, sorry for brining this up again, but I really need to say this because I am very dissapointed with what I saw.

BTW. English is not my native language so bear with me

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.
http://www.top100bloggers.com/directory - a perfect example of nice PR directory where admin was too lazy to add more 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.

DO not have a guidelines page that is too long - just like this post

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. Heck, look me up and I will be the first to submit to your directory, if you did most of the things that I listed above.

Right now there are only 40-50 directories, out of almost 5,000 out there that I have submitted to.

I spent around $2000 submitting several sites. And I am still looking for quality directories to submit to.
If, after reading this post, you feel that you have a quality directory that I might be interested in, please let me know and I will gladly submit many sites to it, if I already haven't

 

If english is not your native language then perhaps you should teach english as you're pretty good at it. The tips you made is certainly a handfull of good tips in which I will give you a green rep for that, I will keep that in mind as I am going into transation of being a serious directory owner/administrator/editor...Thanks for your tip.

 

thank you sharing of this excellent tips.

 

Agreed, but PHPLD doesn't have more pricing options.

 

yes but there is a mod so that you can add more including 2co.com

 

thanks a lot. excellent tips that i have been searching for. Tips not to have too many directories, tips how important pr6+ directories, your search for quality directories, creating sub categories etc all will help me.

I m like wwws , trying to be serious with directory

 

what a great lesson, velocity! I was thinking about free submission. If we dont allow free submission, how can we bring in more people to our site?

 

Hi guys,

I'm very glad that you are finding my post useful. Hopefully there will be many good directories coming out soon.

@wwws
Thanks

@jetbrains
This is not a big deal, it is just a suggestion. There are many more important things than that. I was just trying to list everything I could think of, because I just finished my big directory submission campaign.
But even that, as mentioned in this thread, can be achieved with mods.

@toby
I never did any research on this, but I can tell you how I found directories I have submitted to.
Make sure you submit to all directory lists. These are free. You can also do some advertising on these.
Like directorycritic, web-directories.ws, and many others.
You can also post occasionally in Solicitations & Announcements, and maybe in link sales (not sure if it's allowed for directories, but I have seen many offers there). I've found many directories that way.
Include your link in the signature and list your pr (if its high enough to attract attention), and purchase some signatures from other members that have many posts.

I believe that by offering free submissions you are not attracting the right people anyway.
I actually don't want directory to have free submission. I want paid directory without free submissions because that translates into more PR juice for paid submissions

I would also like to hear some other suggestions that could be added to the list, as I have probably missed something out.

 

Thanks Velocity!
Im slowly planning my directory, and your post has helped point me in the right direction.
Green coming your way bro!
DD
P.S - your english is better than mine lol

 

Feedback from someone who uses directories is always helpful, thanks.

I don't quite agree with the 'get your PageRank up to 6' part. Maybe in the long run PR6 should be a target but I think quality directories can provide a powerful backlink with a PR4 homepage and PR3 inner pages.

 

Also have moneybook,egold and stormpay

 

But what if you are NOT selling links to your directory and they are Free? What then, should one piss about getting a 'HIGH PR' just to appease the people to whom you are providing a free service?

Whilst I agree with a lot of what you say, i MUST disagree with you when you say that the days of traffic from directories are gone. I have a couple of directories that are niche, and they send thousands of visitors to the sites in the directory DAILY!

If what you are saying is that you wish to increase your own PR then I agree, but for example, one geographic niche directory I have gets about 1000 uniques per day, and most of these visitors leave to a site that is included. The directory has a PR4.

Like everything in life, I think what you do and what is acceptable depends on what it is you are trying to achieve long term.

 

@old welsh guy
I have made these tips for people who want to make money from their directories and who want to be serious about their directories. Not for someone who wants to have a free directory

Also, I have a sponsored link at BOTW, top category. I got maybe 1-2 visitors this month. DMOZ - pretty much the same situation. I have a lin on over 100 quality directories, and no traffic to speak of. There will always be a few exceptions, like your directory, but generally directories provide no traffic.

@mistermix

I am not saying that PR4 directory cannot provide a good link. It really depends on the website I would submit. For example, PR 4 usually does not work for my finance site, because those categories are usually crowded.
But for my recycling website it can work, because those categories are more or less empty.

But again, I am talking to people who want to make money off their directories. How much money can you make with PR4 directory? Not much, thats for sure.

 

i have a directory which is 1 month old and i just made it paid only www.gprdir.com because people just don`t read guidlines.

but i am going to put lot into this site with 80% of money made being put back into advertising

 

This is really interesting, hearing from the submitters perspective.

I agree with almost all, except the emphasis on PR, I think PR is worthless and even deceiving, I am most worried with uniqueness and quality of my content than with PR.

Most directories are nothing more than “human scrapers” and are getting devaluted now and more in the future.

Ok, you have PR7 and all your content is equal to 1,000 more directories, what is your authority?

Also last updates the PR is really messed up.
For example my Ask Directory sitemap page is PR5 and my home is only PR4, also I have PR4 and PR5 detail pages, tell me how many directories you know with PR5 detail pages?

And if you speak PR, IMOH is more important the PR of the page your link is on than the homepage PR.

Thanks for all your feedback

 

You guys are getting too specific. Of course that category PR is more important than home page PR. But directory with higher home page PR will usually have higher inner pages PR. And of course that there are exceptions to everything, and I don't want anyone to take this personally. I am speaking generally here and what is the case 99% of the time.
And if you read my post more carefully, first thing that I mentioned about PR is that it tells me that you are more serious about your directory because you have put more time and money into it. There are many other things I check besides PR.
But, if you want to hear something from the submitters perspective, know that we, the submitters, are primarily worried about PR. trust me!

edit: Just found another thing. It's pretty small, but can be annoying. Make sure all links in the submission page open as new windows.
I was just submitting at map100 and their submission rules open in the same page. This can be annoying if the text that was filled in disappears after going back.

 

The directory in my signature has PR on most of its link detail pages

 

These are some great tips, especially since they are given by an active submitter. Rep added.

 

Good tips, Thanks for the effort of puttiing these comments togeather

 

Rubbish that your English "is not your native tongue"!


Now that I have your attention I want to thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and recommendations. They're very helpful for a newbie like myself!

I've checked out a lot of directories and obviously some are more useful than others for visitors and site owners. Mine are new, but gaining traffic and traction as I pick up more submissions and visitors as I move forward.

I hope to grow them in a balanced fashion with the value being there for BOTH visitors AND site owners as # of quality links, visitors, and PR all grow. It's a daunting task, but I'm taking a VERY long term view and that keeps me plugging away.

Thanks again for your post!

David
dadz.com
momz.com