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There are so many article directories around. Ezinearticles.com and a few others have grown quite big. Who owns the them? Did you know, it is people like you and me? Not multi-million dollar companies. Why do they own them? Because, not only are they profitable by themselves, but also silently help their owners significantly in their SEO efforts.
So, why don’t you own one too?
What are the benefits of owning an article directory?
You’ll own a site that will soon have lots of content, attain a high PR, and SEs would love it (as they love article directories). The article directory would, by itself, generate additional sales for your own/ affiliate products, and at least a small (yet decent) adsense (and perhaps Amazon) income. If your article directory focuses on your ‘niche’ and word gets around, you’ll soon get popular in your niche as most people operating in your niche would try to post their articles there. They will source articles from your directory, linking to it. You’ll get to know the ‘goings on’ in your niche better.
Now, instead of the article directory being hosted separately under a new domain name, if you make it part of your main business domain (like in my case; my article directory is at: http://www.1clickarticlemarketing.com/directory/ , within my own main domain viz. http://www.1clickarticlemarketing.com/ ), you can exploit the large volume of content, higher PR ranking, traffic, and the popularity of your article directory within your niche, all for your site too.
In fact, you should also consider incorporating a blog, list-building and a forum within the same domain where you have your article directory, monetizing everything appropriately, and maximizing the domain’s value for you. Each of these elements will help the other elements. Synergy at its highest!
Here are a few things you should know, to be an article directory owner:
1. There are free article directory scripts available, and there are paid ones. There are also service providers who will create one for you. I propose to create free article directories for my clients.
2. It’s better to own a niche article directory, hoping to become the (or at least a) leader in the niche, rather than a generic article directory.
3. It’s better to own fewer article directories (preferably just one) and build it well, than create many, and struggle with their maintenance. If you operate in many niches, and believe you can manage many, you could own one for every niche.
4. Create keyword-rich category names, preferably similar to the ones in popular directories like ezinearticles.com. But if yours is a super-niche, you should consider creating your own set of categories, based mainly on your keyword research.
5. Pre-populated article directories won’t help you much, as all the content in them will be duplicate. However, pre-populating with your own articles is a good idea.
6. Find a way of getting lots of articles submitted to it regularly, without your effort. For my clients, I propose to add the names of their article directories to my list of article directories to which I’ll submit regularly. So, they’re assured a certain volume of submissions (assuming there are other clients who submit articles in those niches. I expect almost all my clients to benefit from this).
7. Unless at least 25% of these articles are unique, your directory’s PR and SE ranking won’t improve. This is likely to be the biggest challenge you’ll have very little control over. My customers will be at an advantage here because all my submissions will be unique, since I follow a ‘unique articles’ submission strategy (as you may have read from the other pages of this blog). This is a service for which my customers won’t have to pay me.
8. If you are pre-populating with your own articles, and if you have re-created these articles, you should strongly consider posting a unique version in your directory.
9. If yours is a niche directory, identify good articles from the other popular directories and post them in your directories (making sure you comply with their rules; typically, you may have to post them without alteration of the content, resource box, etc., giving a Source Link to that directory, limiting such re-prints to the number they specify (about 25 typically per source directory).
10. Remember to create links to your site/ blog/ sales page appropriately. Text links work better than banners.
11. You have to scrutinize and approve articles; else you may end up with a lot of junk and spam messages in disguise. You have to allocate time for this, at least once a week. I can also offer this as a paid service, if anyone is interested.
12. Do SEO like you do for any other site.
13. It could never hurt to request popular writers (in your niche) to write a few articles for your directory exclusively. Inform members of Warrior Forum and other such forums, and service providers submitting to article directories. Promote your directory in every way possible, not only to prospective article authors, but also to your target audience, wherever possible.
14. Though your host may periodically backup your site content, back up your article directory regularly, in your own interest, for the mere ease of restoring later, if required.
Some day, if at all you decide to sell your site, you’ll realize how much this article directory gets additionally valued (apart from the indirect benefits it would have already fetched your main site, in terms of traffic and SE ranking).
