have launched my fitness directory! any suggestions?

hey all it is official I have launched my new fitness directory.
The domain already carries a pr2 so that is good.
Just wondering if there is anything you all can suggest that needs doing to improve on it?
Also any idea's on how else I may promote it?
I have a few promotional things I am already doing, but there are bound to be many other I haven't heard of

INFORM 4 FREE - Health, Fitness & Weight Loss Directory

 

This site (like your other one) hangs on loading and takes around 15 seconds to complete, I would optimize your images.

 

Oh man, there is no button to submit on http://www.inform4free.com/Submit.html ?

 

The submit button is there at the bottom of the form on the left.

The page seems to load fine when I try it, what browser are you using?

Thanks for the quick responces

 

Like Mikey said it takes an insane amount of time to completely load - Even after the images appear it takes another 5 seconds or so to be able to scroll up and down the page...

The browser I am using is MSN.

 

Oh, found on IE
I used Firefox 3 before.
Just submitted my fitness site

 

It was me that said it and I am using IE7

 

well so far his site has been getting some nice buzz, i think it will load slow in some areas, but all in all the submissions are growing and the blog is getting more and more readers joining the community. Will be a PR 4 next update and then who knows. Ultimately I am really hoping to create a valuable resource, and of course make a few bucks for my effort. I can assure you all that The club crawler and Inform4free will be around for quite some time to come. they are labors of love and I am drunk!hahaha

 

Here are a few suggestions:

1. Right now other webmasters or folks checking it out from this thread might wait the extra few seconds for it to load, but regular surfers won't. You should optimize the images or get rid of them.

2. Don't worry about PR, Google is using PR against webmasters right now and hopefully PR will have a much lesser impact on directories and other sites in the near future.

3. I would not mention PR in your posts because I can promise you that same jealous a$$ will report you to google and make sure you don't receive any page rank.

4. Stay positive and update your blog as often as possible, it will have a positive effect on the directory and your earnings.

good luck

 

the site loads too slow.

 

Congrats! But I am the bearer of some bad news for you.

Last year a huge UK Sports Directory was launched and it got mega media interest, it now has 2 major investors backing the guy who runs it. Everyone goes to it now, so you now have a big problem to overcome.

See this is what happens when people don't do their research - they think "I'll just set up a directory, and it will make millions" - they don't ever check out the competition. Big mistake.

You seriously want to check out what your up against.

 

event king, your post does not really make much sense -- I don't think the OP said anything about making millions and there is nothing wrong with competition. Fitness and health is a huge and growing industry that can support hundreds if not thousands of relevant websites.

 

My quote 'Making millions' - is to show the true reason why directories are set up, and it is to do with making money easily. Unfortunately most won't be around for long unless they have financial backing - thus will sink, as so many new 'businesses' do every single year. Huge and growing industry has nothing to do with this. This is about those who copy others ideas and attempting to succeed doing it - they won't for many reasons.

My point is that this UK sports directory is No1, and is now treated as the best sports and fitness directory around. In fact, it's so established that it's just insane to think any new fitness directory will dethrone them.

Journalists won't touch it, as they've already written about this stuff before and know who the best is - the No1. Plus it will be too difficult to prise visitors away from an already trusted and heavily trafficked site.

 

You are way off-track....do a little research and you will see that there are many huge sites in the same industry. Lots of folks visit multiple sites on the same topic to keep up with their interests.

Not only is your assumption wrong but it also does not make any logical sense, if it did then there would be 500 websites (one 'big' site for each topic) instead of 95 million sites.

 

That's very debatable indeed, and too large a subject matter to go into specifics and then argue every single point. So I'll simplify:

Eg: If my site gets tons of press exposure, then the press will record the story in their newspaper's database. This database is accessible by any journalist worldwide, so the way this works is as follows:

.....since a story has already been published, tons of people check out the site, use it, return to it etc - thus it's often thought of as the main resource there is. Searchers are very loyal to websites that make the press, the original site becomes established very quickly (about 12 months), and it's too tough a job for a webmaster to just come along and get those visitors to use a copycat site. Users of the No1/original site won't move to another replica site, as there's no reason to (they already have the best site at their disposal).

Unless the newcomer site is some massive company with buckets of cash to chuck about, then it will not take over as the No1, either in a searcher's eyes or the media.

 

For a topic like fitness and health you can make a hundred thousand a year easy from being consistently in the top 5 (or even top 10) search for major keywords.

Sure everyone would like to be number 1 but your statement that he should not have bothered with his project because there is already someone 'big' does not make any business sense.

 

I can't believe so many still cling on to such silly talk. Attempting to beat the best in industry for keywords is suicide and the reason is they are too expensive to get the top keywords. My top keywords would cost me £1.50 per click, so I know it's just not as easy as you suggest. There is no new sports directory that will ever make £100,000 per year.

It is bad business to compete with something that's so powerful and that gets £35'000 per year in investment alone! I have knowledge about this UK directory you don't have, so it's pointless you trying to win this argument.

No offense meant, but you are out of your league on this one.

 

Your replies are off topic and it appears you either did not read or understand my reply. Your correct I can't win an arguement with you because your position makes no sense.

 

I never started with the '100 thousand' remark, so you are off topic - not me.