What would it take for you guys to pay for access to an article directory?

by pheonix44

Posted: 13 years ago 6 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

I have had this idea for a long time, but I do not know what to do in order to give myself the best chance to make money. If there was an article directory that had high standards and other extras, what would it take for you to pay a monthly fee for it?

It would not be alot of money, but I just would like to know what type of features would people need in order to shell out cash for access to a private directory?

#access #article #directory #guys #pay

Alexa Smith Banned 13 years ago

It's something I'd happily pay for, and a reasonable price, too, provided that it functioned well as a directory, in other words it's where webmasters and ezine compilers go to look up and source freely available content for their sites.

For my own business (all of my niches), only EZA really fits that bill. And a new one clearly can't, by definition, because it takes a lot of time for a directory's reputation to become well enough established for that to happen.

But if I could find another one of which that's true, then yes: I'd happily pay to use it.

I suspect very few people (if anyone) will pay to use a new directory for its own traffic and/or its own backlinks.

And clearly almost no serious article marketer is going to pay to use an article directory which requires "unique content", because we won't give "initial indexation rights" to someone else's site rather than to our own. It's absolutely fundamental to publish articles on our own sites first and have them indexed there, for all the reasons explained here by so many successful pro's.

In short, for article marketers, I suggest it's simply not about "what features" are offered: it's about whether it can serve their purposes as a directory (i.e. people actually use it, and it works for the purpose for which directories exist: suitable articles get syndicated).

If only there were some way to guarantee that the article-stock really would be widely re-published ... we'd all pay for that, wouldn't we?
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Karen Barr 13 years ago

The content would have to be guaranteed exclusive, which would mean the owner would have to come up with a way of not just copyscaping articles on submission, but also intermittently checking on them after they were published.

Human-checked submissions by people with a high standard of English (or whatever language is submitted.)

An agreement that articles can only be reprinted by a maximum number of people...
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- JohnMcCabe 13 years ago
  
  At this point, I wouldn't pay a monthly subscription to an article directory as a publisher. I might, however, be quite willing to pay ala carte for content I can republish.
  
  As a writer and distributor of content, I would need to be convinced that serious publishers actually used the directory, and that contributors' articles were being syndicated. At that point, it's a no-brainer if the value proposition is right.
  
  Hope that helps...
  
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WilliamBerg 13 years ago

I agree that all articles in the directory would need to be unique. They would also need to be well categorized, well written and well indexed.

The directory itself would need to be high PR with a good link profile.
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- Alexa Smith Banned 13 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by WilliamBerg
  
  The directory itself would need to be high PR
  
  That might be asking rather a lot, William: even in EZA (as in every other directory) articles are published on PR-0 pages. The "PR" of an article directory is only the PR of its home page, which isn't where our articles go. Websites don't "have page rank": only pages have page rank.
  
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  myob 13 years ago
  
  Call me a cynic, but having such high standards with unspecified questionable "other extras" is certainly a lofty goal, however, in practical terms you will most likely have to do a delicate balancing act between business needs, features, and acceptance standards. In addition, article directories have sustained a bad rap in general. In this context another new article directory will have some straining credibility and longevity perception issues to overcome particularly on a membership model. Notoriously, membership sites are prone to have very short life spans of under 6 months. Without knowing your experience, these among others are some very high hurdles to overcome in reference to myriads of other article directories with very common glaring deficiencies.
  
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