Is it just PR or is it Price? Why is the reason for small amount of Submissions?

In the title I almost asked the question. But I will ask in detail because I would like to learn from experienced directory owners.

My Paid Directory ( in the signature) get a total of 100-150 uniques a day. And at least %30 percent of them are targeted visitors because they come from google or yahoo by searching the term "paid directory" or "paid directories"

I get a total of 10 submissions a month for the last 5 months.
I charge $25-$15 for featured and $10-$5 for Regular Submissions.(Permanent Listings)

The question is; I am working hard to maintain my directory but Do I charge too much or is it just the pr(because I have pr0 at the moment), or am I missing something?
Is it going to help if I make the pricing per year instead of permanent and drop the pricing?

Thanks for the help.

 

I don't see any exact answer to your question as it is made up of variables.

What i can say from past ventures is when making changes do not make lots of changes, just make one, eveluate that change and see if it improved your outcome / return / took you to where your heading, then if so make another small change and so on

often by making many changes you can not put a finger on why or what did or did not work.

Taking small steps takes longer but the outcome is better and less frustrating.

As for your prices that must be for you to work with as some owners may have editors and or other staff and in that command a higher price, but ( IMO ) from my angle pr means nothing.

For the record my features will be $52 a year, so your cheaper than i am / will be.

 

From my brief look I think your prices are ok but you should put the details of them right next to the prices:

Featured - Permanent - 24 Hour review (5 additional links) $25

I know you say it up top but folks might not read that and just assume it is 1-year links.

I know this is small thing but you should make your User Menu box the same size as the others, it makes an otherwise attractive page look sloppy.

 

Your price is too high for a pr 0 directory. You should accept sites for free in exchange for back links until your directory gets a pr.

 

For anyone that knows they can check your backlinks and you are well indexed so PR is not really an issue, your site is probably PR4 right now anyways.

Why not have some coupon sales, they are a good promotion tool to get folks knowing your directory.

I am waiting for the 50% off sale later today...

 

Im going to be boastfully honest.

Your site doesn't really strike as professional. Instantly I already know its "JAPD". (just another phpld directory)

The design is cheesy. Its usually the really unique ones that I try submitting to. This tells me the directory has invested lots of $$. Anyone can get a PR4, anyone can get phplinkdirectory, anyone can pay a lousy 100 bucks for a skin or even use a free skin.

Directory owners need step it up. STICK OUT!

 

Some phpLD directories can be really unique and some of them are the popular ones out there.

Not everyone has a name like paiddirectory.com either. Whats your point?

 

The prices are fair enough....
I think its all that PR thing..
BTW- keep working on your directory, you are going good

 

I am the owner of Paidirectory.com and before this "report paid link" crap happened I was doing alright, last month I removed the featured and recip link option from my submit page and am now only charging one price for a lifetime submission, and let me tell you, that helped a lot. Plus people are afraid of paying for links right now!

 

Mate beasfully honest ( you talk crap ), second putting some one down for seeking help and advice shows the shallow gutter rat you are, and the only thing thats cheesy is your cheap comments.

As for $ its not the suit its the way you wear it, this person has done a good job and is prepared to learn and will no doubt over time build a good business and stand proud amongst other directory owners.

Numb Nuts like you need to step down or step out and Go and wave your CRAP STICK in another forum.

edit number 2 to hit my ignore list

 

i think its page rank, you prices are fine. am sure u will get more conversions after the google update, however i really think you should invest in a professional and clean design.

good luck!

 

After SteveNo's post I was expecting to see the same tired default template. I agree with his sentiments about the concept of JAPD - there must be thousands of sites that just use phpLD, the default template and a category dump and think they've worked hard to create a site.

That said, I was pleasantly pleased to see something other than the default template and with a different category structure. Kudos on both! And a clean liquid design is rare to find among directories!

Euew, one biggie I see. You list links to the listings of related sites on the details page - not really impressive from the submitters point of view - the page that's supposed to be all about me and you have to bring up my competitors too?

I'm also a bit confused if you are an article directory or a site directory? Seems like both, yet not. Some 'articles' are so promotional as to be almost pure advertisements and others are actual articles. You might want to reign in on the overly promotional ones.

I think you have a really cool name for a paid directory. Problem is that Google has made paid links into public enemy number one and your name alone would red flag you as a link seller. Using the stylized PR graphic next to each link only makes you seem all the more like you are selling PR juice rather than a review.

I like the work you have already done, but I would definitely drop all the mentions of PR. I would replace the PR graphic with a thumbnail or something else as well.

Good luck, I think you have a great start and with a few tweaks should be humming along in no time.

 

Very well put YMC!!

 

I would get rid of this, and I agree with YMC 100%, get rid of all mentions of PR. The PR update is well overdue and very outdated, and sorting by PR really doesn't favour new websites. And who needs to kickstart their promotions more with directory submissions, than webmasters starting new websites?

The pricing structure is fine, it's not really a barrier. But perhaps a major problem is the fact that your about page says nothing about you, and your contact page has no contact details. So how is someone going to get in touch with you for support if the directory goes down?

 

First of all, Sorry, for the late response, I live in Australia and I just woke up and will be going to work soon.

Thanks to every one with positive or even negative feedback.

I don't want to quarrel with anyone about my directory being a regular directory.

It may be just a regular one for anyone but as I told I am working hard on it, and it is not a directory being created with category and link dumps everyday.

The template design is from Syed and I am happy with the design. But from the feedbacks I get here I may make some changes about the PR thing and replacing them with thumbnails is a good idea.(Thanks)

For the pricing looks like everyone agrees the price is acceptable,BTW, yes this is a PR0 directory but I wouldn't like to make the prices cheaper because they are permanent and submitters link will stay there forever, which means until the directory dies and I won't let it die;even if one day I think of selling it I will make sure someone knows its value buys it, not just anyone who pays. I will consider writing the "Permanent" tag near the prices, thanks for the hint. And yes, it is a good idea to give away 50% off coupon, I think I can do that.

The directory name for me is a unique one for a paid directory and I am sure it is worth something, I also own paiddirectory.net(not developed yet) as well which is in the first page of gg and yh for those terms and I am an amateur domainer so I really care about the names. As you can see my biddirectory is biddirectory.net and photoblog directory is photoblogdirectory.net, but it is not easy to manage 5 directories at the same time so taking me time to develop them. Please do not criticize them or me yet because I am not finished with them.

Edit: About Page on the way, thanks. But the contact page should be working.

 

Well its nothing about how much you charge its all about how known you are or probably your directory is on the net and about the quality of the directory. All you require is first to have a good design, add only good sites, spend some time and money in building some links and then just advertise a bit this is all that is needed for you to be one of the bests.

 

This sums it up nicely. But who are the buyers? There used to be a demand from directory owners "promoting" their sites and buying PR. But that should have all but dried up, leaving us with SEO consultants who I assume must account for the lions share of what's left. I suspect its more a question of who you know rather than what you know and that the players are very uneasy at the moment. They do however need to spread their largesse around as their link building needs to look natural to be natural and what that means you have got to figure out how to attract their attention.

Directory owners need to forget about PR and more importantly those who were and still are dishing out bad advice. Start thinking for yourself and if you recognise that you are working for Google you will be on the right track. Buyers are looking for long term value and all you have to offer them is a back link. The same back link as anyone else. The only difference between them is how long you are going to stick it out. Its not complicated and my advice is not to over capitalise. Rates are going to come crashing down along with some of those big names and if everyones jittery now, wait for the real thing.

 

I wrote a little on this last night and will expand a little but are my thoughts only.

I don't see in general google has a problem with paid links and or any directory in general, be they paid bid or free variants, so long as these directories have one focus the general public, where i do see a problem is those people who create and exploit directories by creating link farms and selling links that sit away in dark corners that are used to create false PR and exposure for the submitter.

And these people in my view will be where the big axe will fall.

From a video yesterday, google set up a system that says if you have more links you must be more popular this combined with the commercial side of the net made people look at paid links to see the business / raise the profile rise up that ladder, and once again nothing wrong with that.

The reason why any upfront directory charging for links is fine is simple, adwords. Adwords in a pure sense is a piad link to a site, so in thoery any site that displays ad words is accepting paid links, so unless google runs double standards and says our paid links are fine but yours are not then this simply can not be a factor in ratings.

Second if i spent 5k on ad words this also falls into double standards if my site was put at the bottom, for buying these links, and i cant see this.

Further to that is bid directories, once again the bid is not there to artificially or be as some mystical pr improver, it simply raises the awarness on that site for the public a bit like front page in a newspaper or 6 o clock news time on TV.

This also applies in google itself where you can run a feature and place you link up the top for a price and again if we don't have double standards everything is ok here.

Further to that google has developed a lot of good tools that aid directory owners and in that there should be a good working relationship between the two and with that the outcome to benifit all.

The million dollar question of where this puts PR, simply who cares while they sort it out but if the above applies i am sure it will settle down and for now the best focus is on your work not worrying about pr as when its sorted those working now will fare ok.

Now where the drama lies for google and all genuine directory owners are with these so called link farms we see popping up, these are like the shady back room people who build 100 directories that are locked away in back room extensions, with no hope of the public viewing them unless they are drunk and fall over one, these often come with a flashy front of house dirrectory that is polished up but is a fake and will often have we will submit to 100 directories and charge you a bucket, yet these directories are all out there back door and uploaded with one button, they take the money n run, this then upsets the natural balance that exisits in googles rakings.I also see these people operating together in the backend where we will load 500 or 1000 with each sharing the part plunder taken from the poor person who thinks they are going to get some good. It would be this section google would be trying to sort and correct.

and it is this section that brings it down for everyone, directory owners, the genuine submission services for directories and so on.

Ok all of this is just thoughts and i may be wrong but there they are anyway.

 

Cutting through all the clouds that we can put here the simple fact is most directories were and are in it for PR value only, now PR value is devalued its only wise to submit to only directories that are tried and tested and been around a long time and or good quality niche directories like YMC's (above) Crafty Tips.

 

More to the point would be to submit to directories that have a reasonable chance of still being around in two years time. There are going to be a few of the old timers who are not going to make the transition from what it was to what it is, here and now.