I have a PR3 photography directory but having a hard time in monetizing it. I accept links as featured for $9.95 & regular for $3.99. But I hardly do get any paid submissions. The second source of Revenue is Adsense. I used get around $40 per month consistently for about 6 to 8 months in 2008. But now the revenue from Adsense is absolutely in single figures due to drop in traffic from google. How do you think I could improve the earnings?
More traffic means more revenue. I'd keep building the Google traffic. Keep adding unique content - more links, more articles. If it's PR3 then you have a lot of room to work with - more backlinks will mean more traffic. Don't focus on PR too much though. After you start getting good traffic to your articles, try affiliate links and banners as well as Adsense. You may get 40 cents per click with Adsense and a 3% CTR. If you used an affiliate program and got $40 per sale/signup or whatever and a 1% conversion rate, it's well worth it
its bad times right now (economically). Most directory's incomes are down. I would simply work on your directory, add more features, and keep improving. It is a good time to put some labor hours into making simple coding and design upgrades.