From free to paid

When the PR of the free dir gets higher, how to switch from free to paid without loosing visitors? Most of the visitors are from free directory lists.

 

Well keep free open also do not go totally paid just after the pr updates.

 

So you are saying if you have higher PR you automatically get more featured links (paid) links and you can keep regular links free? Or maybe require reciprocal?

 

let the free stay as it is, and start some featured and premium links,

make the free submissions time more than it is, like 8000+ in queue etc.

 

The quality of those traffic are not any good. Ask yourself, how can you benefit from those visitors, do you have ads and are they clicking on the ads? If the answere is no, then you have nothing to lose.

Would you rather get 150 unique visitors coming from poor traffic or 20 unique visitors who might otherwise buy a featured link or click on one of your ads.

20 sounds reasonable

The list that you talk about are only good for one thing and that is backlinks. A list with a pr is even better. Other than that you'll be enslaving for nothing, they'll come and use their software to submit to the TOp categories and are too lazy to scrool down to find the appropriate categories.

Don't worry about losing what you never got and concentrate on finding quality traffic.

 

You can give basic regular listing as free..
And give some extra features for paid listings like 5 deep links , or featured etc.

 

actually, i wld prefer to go with the 100% conversion into paid rather than keep a mixture of both. Unless you are a really recognized and strong directory, I suspect that most visitors will just go for the free submissions, and wait patiently. You cld hold a promotion, like 50% discount for the 1st 7-days before conversion, which will also give you promotion and attract customers to list quickly.

This will give you a good head start into paid submissions

 

Thanks for all the ideas! wwws, I do get some adsense income, somewhere in the 30$/month range.

 

I nominate this for the thread of the month contest , sorry can’t give you more reputation.

I would say even further, I prefer traffic from 1 paying customer than 3,000 freebies from directories list.

 

Great information. Thanks for sharing it. I'd agree that a handful of quality traffic is better than a lot of traffic that won't generate you any revenue.

 

BTW I see some PR0 directories that are paid only. How does that works

 

You'll probably see your submissions drop wayyy down at first but after time if it becomes a well known directory with a decent price then you'll be fine.

 

I'm thinking I'm going to have to update, or at least re-check all the prices after the PR change for my web Directory list...

 

i updated recently, its good to have paid version, has lot good features

 

I think 'cos you're establishing your standard. Look at this http://www.bigweblinks.com/

 

Standard? Like this directory is "quality and paid" from the beginning?

 

I agree, it makes approving links much much easier.

 

I agree with this 100%!

Listings have always been set apart in this manner on my directory. To tell you the truth, the free listings in my directory are a great selling point for paid listings as the paid listings get top category position, best PR and a few other little bells and whistles.

It works for List My Niche

 

Ok dudes topic is not about switching the software from free to paid, its about making directory paid from free.

Cheers

 

I did the following : I kept olso free option

It's clear if a free directory turns only to paid it will lose traffic and it's nothing you can do to keap things the same ....

You know people love free stuff