With templates available, you can easily create your own article directory. This could be for your specific niche or for a general directory that covers all topics. I did just that just 2 months ago. I came across a WordPress article directory theme for just $65. I decided to give it a try.
I converted one of my existing WordPress blogs that had a name that seemed perfect for a directory. This is a site that I had neglected and was getting almost no traffic. The site is featured-articles.com. I installed the template system which was pretty easy to do and followed their set-up instructions. I kept their standard design… at least for now.
I decided to make mine a general, full spectrum, article directory. You could just as easily make yours focused on your market niche. I went to Dmoz.org and several major article directories to see what I wanted to use for categories.
I set-up my criteria for accepting articles. This will be a subject of a later post.
I started this on a Saturday afternoon. By the end of the weekend I had an operating article directory using no special developer skills. Now I had an article directory… now I needed articles and visitors.
I found there is an active blogging community discussing how to do article marketing. I found recent blog posts and began commenting on them. Almost immediately visitor traffic and articles began coming in.
After 2 months the site has moved from the almost 20 articles that I “seeded” it with to over 280 articles from over 100 articles. Visitor traffic continues to increase every week.
I do reject quite a few articles for poor grammar, obviously spun articles, etc. But I do get more than 50% that are good quality, original (or mostly original) articles. I installed the Copyscape plug in that allows me to determine if an article is original with a click.
The one caution that I will give is that it takes a time commitment to stay up with reviewing and approving articles. You will notice that my postings here have been spotty for the past 2-3 weeks, this has been a result of my focus on the article directory site. I continue to streamline the approval process to keep quality up and minimize the amount of time that it takes.
