This interview is with Peter Laws who is the owner of Pedsters-Planet Q. Are you able to give us a short insight into your background? A. I was born on the 7th November 1973. I was born with Cerebral Palsy after a difficult birth. My full name is Peter James Richard Laws, named after my father, Peter Frances Laws. Growing up with a disability can be a challenging experience, but have proven that this isn't the case, I achieved so much in my life, whether it is for myself or for my family. I am unable to speak; this is due to the nature of my disability. Computers helped me to overcome this, and still are to this present day. This is how my fascination for computers started. I was brought a Commodore VIC 20 for my 11th birthday, which was the first major home computer. A few years later, I was brought a Commodore 64 after seeing one at friends. I was amazed at how the games looked. As well as gaming, I tried my hand at game making, with BASIC at first, and then using tools such as Graphic Adventure Creator, 3D Construction Kit, and many more. My big break was when he designed a 14 level shoot-em-up game. While I was at college in 1991, aged 18, studying Business and Information Technology, I programmed this shoot-em-up in his spare time. I needed testers, so I arranged for my Commodore 64 to be rigged up in the colleges refectory for people - mainly male - to play the game for a day. The response was unbelievable, about 98% liked it. Some wanted a copy of the game, but the game wasn't finished and I had big plans for the game. As I received a good response to the game, I decided to make a one level demo and send it to big publishers such as Ocean, Alternative, Domark, and a few others. After I finished college, I brought an Amiga 500+, and took a long break from education. During this time, I started up a Bulletin Board System (BBS) with my trusty 14,000 baud modem called Quantum Leap. People could transfer files from and to my Amiga's 160mb hard drive! (In them days, 520mb sounded a lot). After a year, I brought an Amiga 1200 and a 33,600 modem. Still running my BBS, I went back to college (EnfieldCollege) in 1996 and studied Business for four years, first was the "foundation" level, then the "intermediate" level, and for two years, the "advanced" level. I passed all three courses. I stayed for another two years for an Information Technology course at advanced level. During this course, I brought a PC - 244mhz, 64mb ram, and learnt hardware, networks, software programming and web design. However, I was finding it a strain, what with being in education all my life, I had enough. So I decided to quit the course in 2000.In 2002, with the humble PC, I started a web site called Pedsters Planet. The name is a long story, I was fond of chat rooms from 1999. My chat handle was always Pedro, so one day one of my friends called me Pedster. This gave me the idea of calling the web site after his nickname! I had to buy a faster PC, so that I could improve the web site from just HTML pages. I taught himself PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) and MySQL in just 6 months! You can see the results as most of my sites are PHP driven. In the past two years, I have developed a web site with potential, and established the site in search engines as well as other web sites. I'm aiming for Pedsters Planet to become a big hit in years to come. Q. How did the idea of Pedsters-Planet directory come to you? A. It all started out as a hobby, I didn't actually think of adding a directory Pedsters Planet until after year. The reason that a directory was included, I have seen many others out there, some good, some bad. I saw the great potential of starting a better one, more friendly, well organised and very fast - so I had a go at it. Brought the software, edited it to the way I liked, and bingo. Q. What was your biggest challenge getting the Pedsters-Planet directory to where it is now? A. Competition. Everything in life is a competition. But anything can succeed if you put your mind to it, and plan everything out before jumping in. Q. What promotion methods do you use? A. Mainly forums. These get a wider attention span to web site owners. Pedsters Planet has been included in the major search engines from 2003, this is because of the links that the site has. At first I had to promote it every day, but from the past two years it gets over 50 submissions each day! Q. What are the main points that make Pedsters-Planet directory stand out from all the rest? A. Well, I can not actually say it has unique features from competitors, but I can say that it is well organised and has over 45,000 sites listed in over 4,000 categories. That took years to achieve, which I'm proud of. Also, with over 50 submissions each day, that must say something about the directory. Q. As Pedsters-Planet directory also relies on editors to approve links do you find that it is easier or harder to run the directory? A. It can be, but as I had to remove some that were to lazy, it annoys me that they apply just for the sake of it. But saying that, editors can be very beneficial, especially when you have thousands of categories. I have many good editors, but I could do with more Q. Where would you like to see Pedsters-Planet directory in lets say 10 years time or even 20 years time? A. Still alive for one, but I'm always improving it each week. I hope it can last forever. Q. Who do you think is your direct rival in the directory sector? A. I'd like to say dMoz, but what with I heard about them over the past year, I do not want to be associated with them. The next could be Yahoo, although they are bigger, we have similar categories to them. Q. Have you got any future plan to expand Pedsters-Planet directory features? A. Plenty. I have just added the ability to have paid links, so that sites can be reviewed within 24 to 48 hours. Also, it has its own pending checker - this allows webmasters to check if their sites are approved or still pending. This minimises my time as well as theirs. I have plenty of future ideas, watch this space! Q. In your view what is the biggest challenge for directory owners in this day-an-age? A. Vast competition is the biggest challenge. Q. With many website owners now placing high level's of attention to SEO, do you think that directories will have to evolve to keep up with the changes on the internet? A. As long as the directory is neat and well presented, then the SEO will take care of itself to a degree. Q. What are your top 5 SEO tips for directory owners? A. 1. Do not use sessions, 2. Do not use re-direct links to sites, they will not be count as back-links, 3. Easy navigation to the categories, to the help pages and to the submit url, 4. Have a fast script and server, 5. Be original. Q. With so many directories, what do you see for the future of the industry? A. People can still open niche directories, but the whole directory industry has too much competition – just like search engines.. Q. What do you think are the main key points to a successful directory? A. Planning and originality. Q. In your view what are the benefits (or disadvantages) of running a directory? A. Benefits: Lots of submissions and visitors, can get your directory very established. Disadvantages: Spam sites submitted, editors not doing their jobs. Q. Do you think someone who does not have a lot of skills in web development could make a directory? A. Yes, if they find a good pre-made script that has everything they want. Q Are you able to run a very successful directory and still have a personal life? A: Yes, that is why Pedsters Planet has editors, although Pedsters Planet is not just a directory, it does take up a lot of my time. Q. How do you relax at the end of the day? A. Relax? I have 4 domains to maintain, so relaxing is a perk. But I relax by watching T.V and having pizza. Q. Do you own any other sites or scripts? A. I have 3 other domains to maintain: www.laws-webdesign.co.uk, www.laws-hosting.co.uk, www.peter-laws.co.uk ---------------------------------------------------------- This interview was with Peter Laws owner of http://www.pedsters-planet.co.uk/ From http://www.directory-owners.com/showthread.php?p=3258#post3258