Quhl is Cool!

So when I first spoke with the owner of Quhl, they were just getting started, but it looked promising. Looking again today, the "Quhlness" factor has improved considerably. I love the name, but also the layout has some key elements that help the user to stay. They even have a mascot!

• There is a random website that changes on the left with a thumbnail
• There is a piece of art on the right that you can "Click to Enlarge". Would be nice if you could also "Click to See More" and go deeper into Quhl
• Lots more to do as you scroll down including a Facebook widget and some news type items.

And then they are doing a wonderful job with the detail pages (example). There can be a full page of information about the site including a larger thumb, latest tweets and latest blog entries.

Overall, there is not I can say that they are doing wrong. They are taking advantage of many of phpLD 4.1's latest features, and have done plenty of customization of their own. It is a solid site.

Next steps would be to work on building a following in some way. For example, maybe they want to work on making of the categories a great resource that really captures a niche. Or maybe they want to develop more on the content side such as articles or a blog. Or maybe they could develop better interactivity with something like Disqus.

I think they have a great foundation in place and now they have to think about a direction for growth. That can be challenging, but hopefully they will hit on something and start to develop a user base.

And a last thought...

The word "Quhl" could really be leveraged: quhlness factor, quhl sites, quhler, etc.

Keep going on this site! It is looking great!

Direct My Link

The first thing I saw as I loaded the homepage of Direct My Link was "Booyah". It was a banner on the top right for Groupon. With subdued colors for the directory, the banner really stands out, and I assume is getting clicks.

Knowing what I know about directories, I can see this is clearly a "general" directory. I like the way the left side bar is positioned, as the items in the sidebar are likely to be reviewed. The number of active links is impressive. What I don't find is anything in the left sidebar that stands out that I want to click on next. If you could add a graphic and a link that leads the user deeper in the site, I think that could serve you well. It doesn't have to be about submitting. It could just be an article or something interesting.

I see you are involved with Directory Rank and Vilesilencer and are surely getting lots of submissions from them. I would hope that relationship also brings about some purchased links (don't know, would love to hear your experience).

Glad to see you are using the Facebook Like Button throughout the site. You could probably enhance the look of it, and make that a feature your submitters use more often.

The link detail pages seem a little plain. You could probably make the text a little bigger and more highlight the description, but choose not to show some of the other fields. For example, why do we need to show Link ID? (probably a default phpLD setting that should change too). If nobody is rating the links, maybe try bringing in Disqus, and that way you have Facebook at the top and Disqus at the bottom. That might bring some balance and interactivity.

I think my favorite part is the layout. I can see you are making some money on this one, and if anything I would just look for some ways to add "interestingness" to the site.

Good luck!

AG Dirt Directory

As soon as you load the page, bright colors pop out on AG Dirt, not necessarily in a bad way. What I wasn't clear on is what exactly "AG" means. I assume others may not know either, so you might want to tell them right on the homepage. I'm guessing it is just short for "Agriculture".

I like the welcome message in the beginning. It sets the tone that this is a site that cares. I would like to see a little padding on the left side so the text is centered and not hitting the border (possibly a bad phpLD default issue).

Good to see the Google Friends widget on the sidebar (just friended you by the way). Note the spelling of Friends ("firends"). Might want to fix that.

Once I start scrolling down the page, I'm not so sure there is a link or graphic that speaks to me saying, "You should check this out!". I think a latest article with a graphic could go a long way, or something similar. You surely want people to click deeper into your site. Obviously the items on the sidebar and the categories are such items, but you might want something a little more dramatic for people that need to be told what to do next.

The Feed the World graphic is great. Why not place a little link under that says: "Find Out How to Get Involved".

Because it appears this site is dealing with non-profits and similar, I have a hair-brained idea you might want to try marketing wise. Add a link or an article (especially smaller non-profits), and then send them an email letting them know that you like what they are doing, and if they were willing to contribute an article about what they are doing most recently, you would love to add more to your site about them. Multiply this by a few and you may start to become a portal where people find each other and like to read the latest tidbits.

Good luck!

Vacation Tourism Directory

Because I follow @woofahs on twitter I happen to know that he actually spends time putting together great links in his categories, and writes or otherwise adds worthwhile articles to his directories. This is not somebody sitting back and waiting for links to come to him. He is working on his sites and it shows.

The Vacation Travel Directory is an example of one of his sites, and if you look through it you will quickly find some interesting links and articles. For example, I had never heard of the Maori culture in New Zealand until I happened upon it in this directory.

The layout is nice and easy to follow. Maybe in time you could work with the fonts to bring out the text even more, but I think it is more small stuff that in some cases is open to opinions. For example, if you moved the login and register buttons over to the side bar, it would allow a more of the good content to be seen (believe there is a widget for that). And is the dark background too powerful for the logo? Something you can consider if you like.

On the submit page I would get rid of the free with reciprocal option as it can attract some spammy links. At least keep an eye on what you are getting. Also, I think the Meta Keywords and Description fields are not needed when submitting a link, especially Meta Keywords. Matt Cutts from Google has actually said point blank that google does not even look at that tag.

I think you on the right track, and I wouldn't want to discourage you one bit. In some ways these sites are a diamond in the rough, and it will be nice as people start to discover them. As they do, I hope you will add some interactivity (Disqus?) and start building a following.

Good luck!

Article and Link Directory

Continuing my reviews of directories, the next up is Article and Link Directory. The first thing I will point out is clearly much has been done on this site, and kudos to the creator. The second thing is I don't like light text on a dark background. It is hard for me to read. That said, I still think this is a great directory, and want to give it an honest look.

Design wise, I like the overall layout. There is a lot of content on the homepage, but nothing seems squeezed. The blocks of information work well individually. I would almost say there are too many blocks though from the standpoint of wanting to shape traffic. I think it might be good to create some goals for what you want the traffic to do.

Obviously, you want people to submit links, and that is front and center. But what other "hooks" might there be for people? Do we want them to engage you on twitter? Since this is an article and link directory, do we maybe want to show an article with a nice graphic on the homepage that would lead someone to want to read more? (or maybe a couple of article lead ins with graphics?)

There were also a couple of nice features that I had not seen much: the rss list and the live chat with meebo.

So well done overall, and I hope some of these ideas will help. I apologize for my comment about the light text on dark background, but it does make my head swim a little. I'm sure this is not true for everyone.

Finally, a big thanks to the owner of this directory for their participation on the phpLD forum!

Yazzoo Directory

The first thing that comes to mind for me in the Yazzoo Directory is Yahoo! :) That is partially because I have a directory (not well maintained) called Directhoo.

The layout is very clear and easy to follow and there is a nice Welcome to Yazzoo right on the homepage. It gives you a comfortable feeling from the start. Once I get past that, I am not sure what to do next. I think a nice graphic or an article with a catchy title would be nice to capture the user's attention.

One feature that I didn't know about until I got to the submit page was the availability of social bookmarking links. This is hot stuff right now, and I bet people over on the Warrior Forum might be into directories like this (among other places). I think it would be good to do something to highlight this on the homepage of the site. It is an important feature.

It would be nice if the homepage logo linked to the homepage. That was what I clicked from the submit page to get back, and it "no worky". :)

With some graphics and highlighting some of the key features, I think this site could do well. It would also be interesting to see if there is some area of content that could be developed so that people would start to read a section of it regularly, and maybe even integrate Disqus.

Good Luck! Nice look and plenty of potential here.

Big Beautiful Directory

The Big Beautiful Directory was first reviewed on the phpLD site back in November of 2009. It is a beautiful site that pops out content that you want to view from page one. Now if you are a woman or a man viewing these lingerie model images on page one, I bet one of the most common user behaviors is to click on those images.

Guess what happens when I click? Nothing! My advice would be to have those images lead to something (almost anything on the site). This would probably cut the bounce rate down by 30%.

Good to see they are using thumbnails for sites. This I expect would be important on a site like this and very valuable to the users submitting their listings.

I'm glad to see Google Friend Connect (just connected) and Twitter (just followed) being used. These will become even more important in 2011 as the social battle comes into full war with Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Not sure if this is common but the submit page took a little time for me to load, so might want to check that. I don't like the Free with Reciprocal option if that can be avoided. I think it can attract links that could hurt your rankings over time.

Overall, I was more critical because this is a beautiful site that has a lot of potential, and I hope you will keep making it better!

Directory Cave

Directory Cave was created as a domain on April 13, 2009 and seems to be active in adding links as of January 6, 2011. I looked at the latest links page in the google cache from December 9, 2011 and clearly more links have been added since then. That is a bit of an old cache date, so hopefully google will be back soon to spider. :)

I like the underwater image of the cave at the top. I've always thought underwater caving would be the ultimate adventure. The image seems a little large, but it works well spatially with the Google Adsense next to it, and likely this directory is getting some regular income from the Adsense.

I see they offer Free Links, as well as Free with Reciprocal. I would recommend they turned off Free with Reciprocal as sometimes what happens is you get links from a bunch of low quality sites as a result. I had a directory setup like this a while ago and I felt this might have hurt my rankings. I was never sure, but it is possible this could be a negative factor on rankings if you get too many.

They also offer featured links for $14.95 which includes a thumbnail pic, extra categories and deep links. It's nice to see them offering extra value with the new 4.1 features.

Looking at the footer and sidebar, it appears there are more directories owned by this user (Macon), and surely he has built some steady income by working with multiple directories. For example, I would bet if he sells a link on one directory, he is sure to write the buyer and let them know about the others.

If I were to give advice, probably I would say that it would be nice to have something on the homepage or sidebar that might appeal to an average surfer such as an interesting story, a featured link or similar. This might decrease the bounce rate, and also would be the start of getting some followers of the site (not just submitters).

Good luck with Directory Cave!