This weekend I have been selling site-wide links on my article directory. I priced them well and had my hands bitten off. This is great, but running an article directory built on a custom script written by myself requires a lot of work, not least because I have to sift through all the submissions and only accept the quality articles that people publish. I even improve the formatting of some of them. For this I charge 50 cent per article, which can contain three links. What I find strange is that since I started charging for the time it takes me to manage the articles, hardly anybody has paid up and YET people will happily pay for one site-wide link when they could be getting three links for 50 cents embedded in related copy... I do appreciate people buying sponsored links but for me it's a lot more hard work managing the submissions, and that is where I'd like to earn a bit of revenue. Thoughts?
I think people tend to be used to the idea of using free article submission services which is why they might be tentative to pay for one, especially if it's new. On the flip side, people are used to paying for text links. Additionally, people may feel that the effort it takes to write an article is their form of "payment" - just a thought. On the other hand, making people pay is going to drastically cut down the amount of work you'll have to do as only better, less spammy submissions will pay the fee. Also, people who want to republish the articles will appreciate the fact that someone considers their article so good, they'd pay (even a small amount) to have it added. Changing from a free model to a paid one might be a lengthy transition but in the end might be worth it. Do you make people register before submitting? Why not let people have 5 free article submissions then start paying? If they see results they'll be willing to pay.
it's a good idea - currently you must register to submit but that's only because i want to hinder spam submissions and capture some data. having a bespoke script is both a blessing and a curse as it means i can never leave it alone but really should because i don't have much free time at all to work on it! in fact managing submissions is a job in itself. thanks for your response, i may look at allowing 5 free submissions if i get chance, but there are other things that need doing before that.