Would it be a good idea to just create your own article directory type site, and just build that up instead? Would it be a better investment? You wouldn't have to create tons of blogs on each product because your directory would have lots of categories, just like ezinearticles.. I was thinking about doing this and just writing all the articles myself. That way it would all be unique. Good Idea / Bad idea?
It's not a very good business model, in my opinion. You would be better served by creating authority sites on several subjects and ranking them for good terms. Then they actually get truly organic links.
In the long-term, I'm sure it would be. However, it seems like a lot of work to me. I do know some people who have created their own article directories. I've used them but haven't really gotten any results except for some backlinks from them.
Not really ... Some of the existing directories are already authority sites, hence they're well seen by all the search engines.. you can rank your articles a lot easier than you would do with your newly launched directory. Al.
Think about what it would look like from Google's point of view. On one side they've got EZA, a huge well known long term site with 2 million pages indexed. On the other, they've got a 50 page site which they can't classify because all the pages are about different topics. Building an article directory takes a long time to establish the authority and page rank that make article directories worthwhile. Think about it - you only submit to high PR directories... because of their high PR. Without that high PR they're useless. So unless you want to invest a year or so in growing a PR4-5+, don't bother starting your own directory.
All your posts sound like you are just having fun and just curious to know what people think (no offense) I do understand what you are saying there and I myself have a site with multiple categories and decent traffic. If you want to make an article directory, try build one related to a certain niche such as travel, health, gaming, etc. There are LOTS OF affiliate programs and sub niches inside travel, health, gaming, finance, shopping niches. Continue working on the article directory for around a year and by that time, you will have a lot of high quality links & high PR. By then, your article directory will have gone viral and you will see an increasing number of people submitting content to it. You can easily make $100 per day just via adsense in that case. Nice idea, huh? If you use a common script such as Article Dashboard or ArticleMS, you may even become popular within 6 months because all the article submitter software developers will see your site (Considering you manage to get the authority by building high quality links). Or you can even contact them to get your site included in their software. A few months back, I was even considering to hire an extra employee to manage and promote a niche article directory but I never managed to get that project live because of time constraint and the other sites I have. Good luck for your idea! It will work only if you take action
if you can manage and if you can afford the cost and has time to screen all sites submitted, then its a good idea to own one.
This is pretty much what I did when I just started out. I would have the master post on my blog and EZA would be one of the sources that would link back to it. Sure the EZA article didnt get found, sure it took 2 months for my blog to get PR2, but after that things would rank pretty well naturally and with a bit of backlinking very well. It may be harder from one perspective as the directory will have better rank overall and give you an immediate boost. However from another angle if it is even a mildly competitive niche you will be competing with other people actually on the article directory. I know that competing with a pro article marketer who is going to backlink the aritcle a lot he will replace mine for the same keywords - this obviously can't happen on my own blog/directory and so I would appear alongside my rival still instead of him replacing me..
Not really - just throw up a simple wordpress blog... thats all you need really... Then if (read WHEN) the site starts gaining PR (in a month or so..?), getting traffic then you can make it look a bit nicer, throw an opt-in form / popup on there and start collecting emails, and 2-3 months later you have a pr2-3 site with 50+ articles on it getting 300? 500+? maybe more? hits a day and 500-1000 subscribers... also as mentioned above your articles can rank ALONGSIDE rival EZA articles rather than competing with them / being replaced by them.... you have a real asset! All you have done differently is posted the master article to your own blog rather than EZA, and used EZA and the other sources you normally use to backlink to your EZA article to link to your blog instead. If you don't do this and just use EZA as normal then in 3 months time you still don't have your own niche domain / hub (the blog could become more than just a blog if you wanted), you don't have a list, you might be making sales and getting traffic if you ranked your articles well enough, but you are only getting a, 20%, 30% click through to your landing page - that other 70-80% is leaving the page, clicking through to other articles, or making money for EZA by clicking their adwords ads...
It depends on your vision. If you want to build a better than Ezine directory, why not. But if your aim is to create a directory to help you promote other products or websites, there my dear I'm afraid you could be missing something big time.
I think it's safe to say that having a good-ranking article on another authority site, is as much an asset, as having one on your own domain. In theory you feel like you "own it" when it's on your own site, in reality the two are pretty much the same, aside from the adsense on ezinearticles for example, which will still distract maybe 10% of all visitors.
Hmm, I think theres more than just the "feeling of owning it" - so you say youll lost 10% to adsense and thats it... how about: Youre not competing with other authors for the same keywords - if I write an article on "fast weight loss" and get it ranked and you come along a month later and do some better backlinking and seo then you replace me. If it was on my own blog we would still appear along side each other in Google - each site, i.e. Ezine Articles will only have 1 listing in Google so will display its best / most SEOd article. Losing another 10% (?) to clicks to "Other related articles" by your rivals. Only being allowed 2 links Only being allowed your links at the bottom of the article Not being able to internally link with keywords in your articles to other articles and get a good internal linking structure going Only being allowed three keywords in your links Not being allowed to use images Being monitored for spelling mistakes Sometimes having articles pulled up without proper explanation Being at the general mercy of policy changes Not being able to put an opt-in on your pages to collect leads and grow your list. I have no cares about "feeling like I own it". I fully admit my "directory" is just a blog. It is not a site I love, am proud of, it is even a little junky / spammy (some low quality articles on there, and some that I paid cheap prices to be written), and I don't even show it to people. But within 3-4 months it was PR2, and now gets 700+ visits a day and sends people on to my sites, build my lists, and acts as a great seo tool to get things indexed, give an seo boost to new pages etc. It might not look great, I couldn't care less about feelings of ownership - it works, period... very well... Once you stop posting to Ezine Articles then SEO or not there are just so many other factors and if you neglect to do anything for 6 months you will be getting dramatically less traffic. My "directory" too will suffer from lack of updates / new incoming links, but not nearly as badly - these last 6 months I have barely touched it and it is still positioned really well... it is established.
I say no to own article directories if it has PR less than 4 . Because i am promoting products and it should happen fast not to struggle only to market my site. In other directories they have a high pr so making to first page would be easy for low competition keywords.
Creating your own directory would still be so much work and the existing directories have already established their presence online. A new directory may still take a few months before it would get a higher number and decent amount of traffic.
not good idea. it is best that you will build your website and get links from the exsisting article directories.
In the short term it is better to use existing, established authority sites. However, in the long term, it is much better to develop your own article directory and build it up to become an authority site in that niche. The best mix is therefore to do both. Use existing article directories to get the traffic to your site quicker and also build your own article directory site.
A simple question with no "direct" answer. If you build your own article directory and you manage to get visitors and make it a success, you will do great. But you need to work hard because you will be competing against huge articles directories like ezinearticles and the like. On the other hand, you can write articles and submit them to already established directories for an almost guarantee flow of visitors. Both aproaches can yield results, but one is far more difficult then the other (and with a greater reward of course)