Believe it or not, there is money in owning/running an article directory. The key is to niche it out and promote it with the marketing tools made available on the internet today. Here is how I do it with Moxie Drive Expressions:

1. I approve an article, or series of articles on the same niche with a major category like Iphone.

2. I only bookmark a couple of them heavily at the beginning. I call it fishing. I use about 30 "dofollow" bookmarking sites and a few "nofollow" bookmarking sites. This is what I did with my first couple of Iphone download articles in January of 2008. Believe it or not, I do not use Digg or Propeller for Moxie Drive Expressions because of their tendency to ban sites at the blink of an eye. And I just do not like their politics.

3. I use every single word in the article that I think could be included in a search phrase. Use single term keywords when bookmarking for the greatest effect. The search engines worry about putting these together for the long tail phrases that are actually searched for. I do not use any keyword research tools other than Google.

4. I wait for the results to show up in Google Analytics. The articles that peek their little heads up and get the most traffic are in the niches that I pay 20% of my time doing some major bookmarking and blogging to corner the niche and make some decent money with. I do not bookmark everything. Only productive niches. Once I get caught up on the articles that I already have, I just sit back and wait for the next to come in and bookmark it heavily. This is what I did and continue doing with the Iphone niche. Moxie Drive Expressions gets between 400 and 700 visitors a day for Iphone related organic searches.

I have since been fishing in the ipod, movie, music, automotive, computer, health, hobby, makeup and skin care, motorcycle, and the Pets and Animals niches. I discovered a process that works, why not repeat it. Moxie Drive Expressions is also #1 in Google for the keyword phrase free ipod songs, a new niche for Moxie Drive Expressions that I am promoting heavily.

If they are not productive, I either delete the category and all of the articles, or at the least, not pay a lot of attention to it when it comes to my bookmarking efforts. Sorry, I am not in it for the author, I am in it for the income. An article directory has got to support itself somehow. Then I go find another category.

As the articles come in, and the productive ones become obvious, I split off a sub-category with at least 10 related articles, make sure they are all bookmarked, and bookmark the sub-category page as well. I also start a Squidoo page for the subcategory. I may enlist the help of some friends to vote and bookmark the articles. This is not a paid activity, so I offer my PR5 profile in Mixx.com as compensation, but only for those articles that I am interested in.

I do not just go out and bookmark everything under the sun. Do make sure you have either a 728X90, 350X250, or 336X300 Adsense ad placed prominently above the web page fold. Then one at or near the bottom of the article text. These are the most effective placements. I do not mess with the 468X60 as the click thru rate is not very high.

That's it. That is how I make the most money with the Moxie Drive Expressions article directory. Let's just say that I am making enough today to keep the wife satisfied for the time being. I will be satisfied when I reach the 10k mark per month. I can see this happening.

This can be done with a blog or a web page as well.

Simple, huh?

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Niche Marketing With An Article Directory Copyright © 2008

Leonard Bartholomew, aka Bart The Bear, currently works from home full time. He is an expert in the areas of Social Media Marketing, Niche Marketing, and is also the reigning 2008 Social Media Ninja.