It's been a busy weekend here at Creative Boom. We've been making various updates and improvements to our site, the main addition being a 'Professional' entry option into our popular creative industries directory.
As you know, we've been volunteering our spare time for 18 months to help and support the creative industries throughout the UK. Creative Boom is a lot of hard work and we're doing our best to roll out improvements whenever we get chance.
Our current survey about our magazine has so far had over 430 responses and when we asked you what other things might add value to the site, you suggested lots of features - many of which we've already sorted this weekend or got planned in the pipeline.
One of the things that really stuck out in the survey was the need for 'portfolio' type directory entries - something that you could share and really show off to prospective clients or employers. Many of you said you'd be prepared to pay for enhanced directory listings and so that's what we've had to do.
We naturally want to cover our admin and running costs as well as being able to continue to make improvements elsewhere. Therefore, for a website that currently gets over 60,000 uniques per month, we think a charge of £60 for 12 months for our new 'Professional' entry option is a fair and reasonable way to go. That's just £5 a month.
Although we've had to charge for these extras, we're never going to lose our solid and original ethos of celebrating and supporting the creative industries for free. Because we're always going to keep things free and available to all. It's just that we'll be charging for any 'extras' to help pay for them and fund ongoing improvements on Creative Boom.
Our 'Free Entry' directory option is and always will be 'free' and includes:
- Name of business, website & email address
- Written profile
- One basic image
- The chance to be found both nationally and in your own UK region.
But if you want an enhanced listing, our new 'Professional Entry' option costs £60 for 12 months and will give you the following extras:
- Premium Listing in the Directory
- Higher and enhanced listing in the Search Results, like this example here
- A Carousel Gallery of up to 20 images, showcasing all your latest work
- SEO benefits, providing essential link juice to your own website
- The chance to be regularly featured on Creative Boom's home page
- An area to talk about your latest work or case studies
- Extra contact details, including postal address, phone number and links to social media profiles
- A list of your Services
- Your very own Twitter feed
- The chance to easily 'share' your profile through social media and the Internet.
As you can see, we've tried to create Professional profiles that include everything you need all on one page. We're keeping things clean and simple to provide you with a solid profile on a website that gets over half a million hits every month. Have a look at photographer Matthew Stansfield's Professional listing to see how it looks.
At the moment, you have to contact us to request being added to our 'Professional' directory. In future, we'll be giving you the ability to manage your own profiles without our input. We're just rolling things out bit by bit to ensure we provide the very best website for your needs.
Creative Boom has always been very organic and we've developed things as we've gone along, responding to your specific requirements. Over the next six months, everything will become automated. But for now, we're happy to add you to our exclusive directory and provide management services on your behalf.
If you'd like to 'upgrade' your directory entry to 'Professional', or you'd like to join either of our two options, simply read our 'Join the Directory' page and then email everything we need to directory@creativeboom.co.uk.
Image featured by fashion photographer Matthew Stansfield
