I agree with Bruce

[netclick]

I saw one of your other posts saying that you just do 1 year subsc. in your directories. I agree, just keep it simple is the best way.

I have 2 types of listings: FREE and PAID over 360 days.

I have paypal subscriptions activated only. Is this correct if I want recurring billing every 12 months?

thanks

[FSGDAG]

If you have the paypal subscription gateway activated, then yes, it will do recurring billing for the amount of time specified.

I also agree about keeping it simple when it comes to Premium and Sponsored listing time periods. I have FREE, Premium, and Sponsored. Premium and Sponsored listings are 1 year and thats it.

[Bruceper]

Holy crap, that doesn't happen often lol

Seriously now, I've found it's the easiest way to go. And for most directories I keep the pricing low just to appear more attractive. Of course it doesnt always work, but you gotta keep trying.

[netclick]

What is the difference between your categories?
I made mine like this:
Free:
Title:
Details:
Phone:

Premium:
Free:
Title:
Details:
Phone:
URL:
Imagelogo)

So they only see their logo and URL if they pay.

[netclick]

Listening to people that are already successful in their fields makes sense to me. I don't understand why a lot of people want to do "what they would do" as opposed to "what is proven"

[Bruceper]

Honestly it all depends on what type of directory it is.

Lets take for example a legal type directory.

Free Listings
Title
Url
Description
Category
Additional Category 1
Additional Category 2
Contact Name
Email
Keywords
Reciprocal URL

Paid Listings Only
Logo
Phone
Fax
Emergency Phone
Address
City
State/Province
Zip/Postal Code
Image 1
Image 2

So there's a lot of benefit for a paid listing. With that directory I have noticed a LOT of submissions from what appears to be a submission company. I gather this because almost every submission has a @gmail.com address. I would say 1 out of 10 submissions actually use the email address of the firm.

On this directory I actually have two paid listing options (I'm not sure why). Six months for $30 and 1 year for $50.

I know part of the problem for this directory is that it is what I would consider, large. There are 3083 categories and 24287 listings. If you take a look, most of the listings are in at least two categories, sometimes all 3. I sometimes think it would be better (revenue wise) to specialize in categories like I do for most of my directories.

There are many specialist lawyers who have submitted to the directory such as DUI lawyers, Intellectual Property lawyers and even one that specializes in child pornography law.

For example if you search for "dui" there are 157 listings. Yes that would make a very small directory, but if you can get listed high in google then it could end up making a lot of money.

I'm sure I don't need to tell this to everyone, but some people just don't understand that a small directory can make a heck of a lot more money than some huge monster with 500,000 listings.

One other thing I thought of doing, is also to sell the database. The site has good rankings and excellent traffic and gets submissions almost daily. If I set a date, copied the database, cut it up and then waited a bit, I could sell the database to people who wanted a copycat of my site. But, since my site continually gets submissions and I wouldn't sell the DB for probably a month, my site would still have more listings than theirs.

That's only a possibility. Yes I've thought of it, but I'm probably not going to do it.

[Bruceper]

Just for kicks I'm trying an experiment with that site. Hopefully I'll remember this thread and let you know how it goes.

[FSGDAG]

Listening to people that are already successful in their fields makes sense to me. I don't understand why a lot of people want to do "what they would do" as opposed to "what is proven"

I know what you mean NetClick, but at the same time, if we all just did the same thing because it was 'proven', it would be pretty boring

In my opinion, you take what is 'proven' and if you have an idea to expand on it, then go for it. If the idea fails, you can always go back to the proven method. But I really think those that succeed are those that try to expand on what others have done.