My directory is very new (see sig.), and I'm spending about three hours a day reviewing submissions, answering e-mails and categorizing articles, and promoting it. I hope to automate the categorizing of articles (don't know how I'm going to do that), and reduce the time a little. Just wondering how much time you are spending each day.
Sorry, my bad. I thought you were asking how to minimise time. (I use phpld and spend about 10 minutes a day)/ Submitted my site.
Directories are very time consuming. Spending a few hours a day on them is really required to keep them well-maintained. The biggest reason I see 90% or more of these newer directories that pop up every day die is because the owner had no idea how much work is required to run a directory. Also, you really have to enjoy what you do to spend that much time on it. If spending hours a day adding categories, adding links, reviewing submissions, etc is nauseating to you, then the directory business isn't right for you.
Actually I really enjoy it, especially the challenge of promoting it. For me it is more of a hobby than anything else.
I've recently bought a domain to launch my directory, but haven't got the time to work on it yet. I have to add the categories, and do a few design changes. Once its online, it will surely be a lot of work. Currently, researching and adding categories takes about 2 hrs every day. Once the directory is online, I can stop working on adding the categories and then work on approving/reviewing the submissions.
I spend about 1 hour on my directories.. Yes,I know there are quite a few good programmers on your forum. I think everything would be okay.
With our team we spend more than a day every day as we support our directories with a sustainable marketing and support program
I spend 5 - 6 hrs on my directories everyday for reviewing submissions, answering e-mails and promoting it.
I used to spend alot of time, especially reviewing submissions. But over time I have written scripts that can strip out a massive ammount of the spam and leave me with very clean data. I guess that is the downside of running a free directory.
About 30 minutes for reviewing submissions. About 3 hours for promotiong, lol. Free advertising can be a pain sometimes...I'll bust my ass for 3 hours to get 5 new links.
It takes about an hour to review 100 submissions. Free submissions take a while, and I am very strict when following my policies. If the submitter can't be bothered to agree to them, the link gets rejected. In the future, I'll ban the more serious ones and share the list as a blacklist.
You definately dont have it worse than I do! Trade places? As far as time to work on my directories... well, I guess I am lucky if I can get 30minutes a day.
To keep a directory with high quality standard you need a person fulltime. I received 2-3 submissions day on my Ask Directory it takes me around 30 minutes for each to review the site, to write a custom review and put it on the right category. Then I spend the rest of the time promoting the site, sometimes it takes me 1 hour or more to get a single good backlink.