Feedback is Appreciated

[bestcorp]

Hey all, I just launched a new article directory with the ability to give authors a 50% revenue share built right in. I want to know what you guys think of the site and if there is anything I can do to improve it. I want to make it as profitable as possible for all parties involved.

Here's the website: Free Article Directory

Thanks in advance.

 

[bobsoap]

From the site:
...your ad is rotated 50/50 with ours...

All sites I know about that have this business model say the same but keep a nice 90-100% of their own ads showing. What are you doing to earn the trust of the people you want to contribue? I think that's important.

The design is standard, nothing special but ok for a directory. It's not bad at all for that purpose. The only thing I am missing is a logo where you now use inline Arial. I'm saying this because if you want your site to stand out, and be frequented by people, you need to have an identity.

But that's just me

 

[bestcorp]

Hey Bob, thanks for the feedback. To address your question, the rotation of ads is handled on the back end and it is set to rotate once every 2 page views for all content produced by an author and also on their author bio page. If you don't believe me you can check it out yourself. We are trying to make this site grow and become hugely successful and we can't do that without content. Also, I have been in the business long enough to know that screwing people won't get you anywhere.

Now as far as a logo goes, I agree with you and that is why I have been searching for a designer to get something nice done for me. I have contacted a few designers but none of them seem to have a decent idea for the logo. From your sig I see you do some pretty good stuff, if you want to PM me maybe we can discuss something. Thanks again for the feedback, any others?

 

[d60eba]

I second the need for a logo! In fact, I'd go even further and suggest a full custom header and some customisations (esp. images) elsewhere too. At the moment it looks a little bit too much like a spam article directory.

Also, I noticed the category pages (E.g /categories/Writing-and-Speaking/) have the same Meta Description as the homepage which won't look great in the SERPS.

I also noticed the AdSense - just one block, great! EzineArticles have 7 Adsense blocks so if you can find different - less ugly - ways to monetize all the better. However, will one block pull in much cash?

Cheers,

Leon

 

[bestcorp]

He Leon thanks for the good feedback. To address your design issues, I already have a few people working on a new logo so that should be addressed shortly. Also, this is by no means a spam directory, we will work very hard to keep this bad boy very far from being that. All articles will be monitored and approved manually by the editorial staff. Also, yes, one of our goals is to minimize ads to keep the user experience higher while still pulling in money with better placed ads. There should be 2 ad blocks in most pages. Thanks for the feedback and I do hope you consider joining and submitting articles. I will begin a pretty hefty adwords campaign in order to make sure we get good traffic right from the start.