I would like to start a thread where directory owners help each others generate more revenue from their directories. We have all seen the mass amounts of directories out there, but few get really good business. What can be done to boost income of a web directory?
1. Offer "Premium" or "Featured" listings, where a link can be placed above all other free listings within a category. You can charge monthly or annually. I charge annually so it feels more valuable to the buyer. 2. Integrate contextual advertising (Adsense, YPN, Adbrite, etc.). Now, when I mean integrate, I don't mean place the ads off in their own area. Then they just look like ads. Integrate them into the directory results, at the top of the results and the bottom of the results. This makes your directory look like it has more listings and provides the opportunity to get some good clicks. 3. Add TextLinkAds.com to your site. Only until I joined and started getting ad spots filled did I realize the value of this network. This could be an easy $200+ per month if your site is really popular. 4. Ask a site owner who submits their website to link back to you. It may not be of monetary value, but if you get a lot of links pointing to your website, that will increase PR and search results, as well as direct traffic over time. 5. Add Chitika ads. These ads can be very targeted and add images to the sometimes overwhelming amount of text on a page within a directory. 6. Add a newsletter. 7. Create targeted pages of content relevant to your website using RSS feeds. These will get spidered more due to the content changing often. You can also place contextual ads on these pages to take advantage of the free content.
Under $100 since I sold some of my directory's and just got back in the directory business just yesterday
Isn't the question a bit vague. It should be How much does your best directory make you in a month/year. Otherwise statistically it is useless as a 5 year old directory will obviously make more than a 1 yr old.
i'd say offer a limited amount of sitewide links.. make the featured links have some special qualities ... get tons of links with traffic ... don't worry abt the pr, but its just for bragging ... but it does help ... so do the link building and it pays off..
The first option I chose 100 per month and assumed it was clear to everyone that I mean per month on the other options as well.
It is obvious that new directories will make less compared to the well established directories. I have few suggestions! * Lets not create 100s of directories per person. It will help! * Lets stop free for all directories coming .. millions of "free for all" directories are damaging the repuation of all the directories. In few years directory link may become useless in the link building process! * When and where possible use cutom template!
Totally agree. What makes directories link farms in the eyes of the regular web searcher, is the fact that they all look the same. Every directory should also have it's own "flavor". You need to get the impression that the owner of the site actually tries to create something useful.
Looks like I am far from really harnessing the usefulness of link directories. It seem I might be doing something wrong with my site. I don't get what might be expected.
I simply target at ppl from SEs. 95% of customers are business owners. They don't mind paying $10 per month for a PR4 link at all. I do pretty much all what OMI suggested in his post above, reaching close to $700/mo. now, mostly with my single directory. I have not advertised much with my other PR4 directories yet. Without either SEO or PPC, I don't know how a directory owner can earn so much from a single dir.
This is really cracking me up. Nice one Mike. Honestly, now I know who are the people that are seriously promoting their directory and who are the chipitos. People I see at This Thread buying and improving their sites are the ones worth buying links from. Now learning, I try to see the itrader of the owner on how much time, investment and promotions he/she is doing to have a worth of the money to invest. Some qualifications. This is just some.