jumpenjuhosaphat

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Steve Myers

Good question, and here are my results.

I started FastLine Directory which was a HUGE directory, made it about a couple of months ago and advertised it on every forum I could find. I paid softwaresubmit.net to get me listed on over 700,000 search engines and directories "by the way, this works" and was getting over 4,000-5,000 unique hits a day, not bad for a few months.

A few weeks after we made the the directory, we pulled in over $400+ on this directory. We also went from a 2million+ rank on alexa to a 138,000- on alexa within 1 week, "seriously". Right now it's a 59,000 and possibly going down more even though it's shutdown.

Right now it's pulling in over 150,000 hits a week, which is pretty good with it still being shutdown, but it made the money we needed and more

Morale to the story is, advertise your site to directories that are of great quality in content and rank to all major search engines, MSN, Yahoo, & Google. Join DigitalPoints forum, and SitePoint's forum and get your name noticed, then buy that package I told you about for $19.99 and you'll be where we were within a few weeks in rank and bring some income.

I have a lot more to say about what you can do, but I don't want to flood this post.

Best of luck!

jumpenjuhosaphat

No no no, flood the post, that's the kind of answer I was hoping for. How exactly did you make the money, was it from ads or selling links or what? Also, I read that flooding the internet with your link can get you banned from google if it happens to fast. Is there any truth to that at all?

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Steve Myers

Oh yes, this is very true, and you need to be careful not to do it either because all major engines including Google will smack you where you deserve it, and then paste you on the wall with a BANNED sign on your forehead. You should only re-submit your site every 30-60 days, this helps the engines recognize you, keep you listed and fully indexed and your viewers able to find you with your keywords.

Now about the money part you asked, well...it's a long story, but I'll keep it simple. I started out submitting to directories at phplinkdirectory.com/forums - worked my way up the ladder, got promoted to MOD "Steve Myers" and got to know the crew.

I met a good guy, REALLY good guy who owns Alive Web Directory - alivedirectory.com, he and I partnered up, got to know each other, and he delivered me traffic I didn't think any directory owner could do.

Funny thing is, I never submitted to his directory or any directories he owned. I spent HOURS of my life, for 2 weeks submitting to directories, what a nightmare from HELL! it worked though, paid off, and then bought me a decent package from softwaresubmit.net and FastLine Directory moved in the engine world like I had never seen a site move.

within 1 month, or less, we were going to be a PR5 estimated a PR6, yeah, about that, and I made sure that the site was noticed, We had over 300 hits every 10 minutes, w3counter.com - really good software and as soon as we found out that we were making this much money in just a week or two and the traffic was being brought in, we decided to sell it, and use what WE learned from it and build a forum, an SEO forum that is: http://www.optikpoint.com

Reason why we sold it is because we wanted to use what we learned - "when I say we, I mean my developer and advert buddies" to pass it on to other people and teach them how to run a site correctly. It's a win win situation really.

Now back to the story, if you want to get noticed, man you gotta push like a pregnant woman, and I mean really push to make your baby see the world and the world see your baby..kinda funny huh?

Lots of time an dedication was made to that directory of ours, and it was worth every hour and dime we spent on it. Deffinently use your resources, it's worth the bucks and the bucks to come to you

P.S Your sig cracks me up man lol

jumpenjuhosaphat

Thanks for the props on the sig(a jumpenjuhosaphat original). You write pretty well, have you ever thought of writing content?

Anyway, the meat I'm trying to get to is, what is the source of revenue. I have wondered since I saw a free directory for the first time how they could maintain it without any income. Do you start free, then charge for premium placement after you become more established?

Oh, and I'll go sign up on your forum(and I won't charge you 11 cents each post)

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Steve Myers

Thank you for the compliment!

I used to write poetry, and very good at still, but that was a good 4 years back, now I am more into advertising and learning the basic rules of words to use in your post when talking to people "it paid off well I suppose"

I hope to see you on the forum, can't wait to share ideas!!

People start off free, you should always point at a direction where people don't call you the "Money Taker" because one mouth gets to millions over night, I've seen it happen. Most people like to charge right off the bat, and people buy into it if the content and information the owner gives is good, plus the PR and ranking on the web helps as well!

Start off free, and when you get over 200 listed sites in your directory, and you noticed your traffic is doubling "See AWSTATS to view this" then I would say start to charge small this way they don't feel like you're eating their wallets.

Here's a few price plans I would highly recommend to start off.

Sponsored or Featured: $9.99 "Can be either one"
Express Links: $4.99
Express Links with Reciprocal Link: $2.99

Use this as just an example, base it off how many hits you get an hour, day and week, you have to analyze your traffic before you can say "this is the price we need to charge" because it will hurt you if they don't what you provide in your payment options.

Hope this helps!

jumpenjuhosaphat

Thanks for the guidelines, that should help alot. I'm going to get to work on some research on directories. I appreciate all of the help.

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Steve Myers

Glad I could be of some help, if you need anymore help, just send me a PM here or at OptikPoint when you join.