Paid article directory. A good idea?

I have a weight loss site that ranks high for the most competitive kws of its market. The site has authority and, usually, the articles posted on its associated blog rank naturally if the keywords they target are not too competitive - kinda like a small version of ezine.
I was thinking about adding an article directory where people can publish their articles ( for a small fee) and get a valuable link and traffic, if they are after targeted keywords.

My questions are these:

1. Do you think people will pay a small fee to add their articles?
2. By including this fee, would Google consider this to be a link sale?

Any help much appreciated

 

1. Yes, if you find them and make it tasteful
2. When in doubt, ask the big G direct, they are touchy I hear

 

Ezinearticles is the best article directory but it is free.

Give more freedom such as the ability to add in affiliate links (with nofollow of course), with more tracking such as what search terms is bringing the articles traffic and so on. With these, people might pay because for me, this is what Ezinearticles lack.

 

All suggestions noted, thanks!

 

There are so many free ezines that it can be hard to get it paid, so here is my advice

If you are in a specific market you really need to push the fact that Google will rank pages coming off your site higher if they are in the same "field/sector" since Google will see your page pointing to another page in the same area of expertise, meaning better page rank for them.

For instance

I'm in the cellular industry, if I could convince sites like Expansys-USA.com to advertise their articles then they would be in the same industry, and thus they would benefit from using my site rather than a general ezine, not to mention my visitors would be targeted to their type of information.

Its just how you advertise it, anything is possible, afterall Facebook sold less than 2% of the company to Microsoft for over 1 billion dollars when the site isn't worth $1 billion for 100% of the company

 

Yes, this is exactly what I would use to advertise this article directory especially since it's true and not some words just to sell. Thanks!

 

Here's a very successful paid article directory: http://www.website-articles.net

This directory sells other benfits more than SERPs...which may be the way you should go.

No convincing necessary. Just make it happen. You'll have examples and they will pay.

AL

 

No no Paid article directory is good idea bcz Many High PR Article is Provide Free Service.

 

When I read the title of the thread I thought it meant you were talking about a article directory where the submitter could monetize the page

Only till I read the thread itself I realised it was the other way round.

To be honest I do not think people would pay to submit an article to your directory, not if you market it as a paid directory.

However I have seen many successful sites that sell pages based on keywords and allow the users to add their own content like paid wiki sites.

If I were you I would keep it as a specialist weight loss article directory and then allow users to upgrade to get their article featured on the front page or most traffic'd page.