How to Build a Directory Website: Essential Tips for Starting a Successful Directory
To create a directory website, do the following:
- Choose the type of directory you want to start.
- Sign up for any eDirectory plan
- Define your top level and subcategories
- Create your membership tiers or pricing plan options
- Create or import your first entries
- Create quality content
- Optimize and publish
- Include new features
1. Choose the type of directory you want to start.
The great thing is that a directory website can be started for almost any industry or purpose, with the ability for members, everyone Add types of great content such as videos, articles, special offers, and photo galleries. There are several ways to create a directory website to choose from. The most common are local business directories, professional service provider directories, and membership directories or association websites. To make it easier, you can start in the area where you have the most experience or where you live. For example, if your city doesn’t have a strong local business or tourism leader, you have a good opportunity to create an online community that generates recurring revenue. If you are a specialty service provider, you can create a directory for your industry, starting with you and your peers and eventually making some money off your competitors while also showcasing your business. Or maybe pick an interest or topic that’s close to your heart and create a national or international directory website or membership community around it. The online directories business plan has room for many innovations.
Reading: How to create a directory on your website
2. Choose the technology partner for your directory software
There are different approaches here. For example, you can hire a developer and a web designer to create your own directory script, but chances are they’re most likely using an inexpensive off-the-shelf product that you charge a lot of money to maintain. Worse, they disappear or get a bigger job and you’re left with a directory solution you can’t use. Another approach is to use a low-cost, high-maintenance option like a WordPress directory theme and WordPress directory plugin. They still require you to have someone with technical knowledge on your payroll to service them. Also, the difficulty with creating a directory with WordPress is that WordPress wasn’t designed for directories, it was designed for publishing blogs. So you have to spend a lot of time putting different components together, and it doesn’t scale best with a powerful directory solution. With eDirectory, you can quickly and easily create your professional directory website. The monthly plans make it affordable to get started quickly with all the essential features for a successful directory website, right where you need them, so you can focus on the directory’s business plan rather than back-end maintenance.
3. Define your top-level and sub-level categories
A directory website is actually just a large body of information (business listings or Member Profiles) that is highly organized for visitors to search, browse, and connect. With top levels and perhaps various sub-levels of categories for visitors to browse, online directory websites allow users to find what they are looking for quickly and easily. If you need general business categories, eDirectory provides them for free. You can also add them manually. 25 top-level categories with an average of 10 sub-levels for each is generally sufficient, but with eDirectory you can go down to 5 sub-sub-levels for a very granular search experience. Your members or business listing owners can also be charged for displaying in more categories, which essentially leads to more visibility and those impressions and conversions. This is another great way to build a “ladder” with your price tiers to help sell your premium membership tier by limiting the number of categories your directory website listing owners appear in.
4. Create your membership tiers or options for your pricing plan
In the beginning is the name of the game to get people to join your online community site, so a free membership tier is highly recommended.Free members offer a lot of value early on as they can contribute content (albeit limited), provide invaluable feedback, share their listing on their social media, and later upgrade to a paid listing if you really give them some quality attention in the beginning. When setting up the rest of the pricing tiers, make sure the top tier has everything under the sun to really encourage purchase, and even give some ad discounts on the first 100 paid signups with 20-50% off maybe even free banner ads for a month or two. With the price tier(s) in the middle, make sure they’re getting enough to justify the price they’re paying for while trimming or limiting the most valuable directory website features so they might only get 1 special offer can add to your offer Deals engine for example. Take some tests knowing that nothing is set in stone and that you can adjust your directory website pricing and update your directory business plan as you learn and grow.
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5. Create or import your first entries
If you want to import a list of companies or members, that’s great! With the eDirectory.com directory solution, all you have to do is use the import template and you’re good to go. You can also manually add some listings for companies or members you hope will join. Start recording multiple entries and add more as you go. You can start with a goal that is, for example, 10 entries per day. Once members have joined, encourage them to share their listings on social media to get more visibility for your directory website. As your online community begins to grow and get noticed by people, they will come to you and create their own listings. Until you get to that point, you’ll have to assert yourself or hire someone to do it for you if you plan on scraping a few public websites, for example. In this other blog post, we also shared some other marketing ideas.
6. Create Quality Content
Publishing and curating quality content is an important factor in bringing new and qualified visitors to your website. If you have a local directory, talk about what makes that local directory company unique and highlight its qualities. Think about what type of content would be useful to your readers and write it down, plan it by priority and start with a content creation schedule for your directory website that you are comfortable with, e.g . B. 1-2 hours per week. You can also invite and encourage contributors and members to add content to your online community site. For example, if you have an online directory website for specialty dentists, they will usually be happy to contribute valuable content to your directory solution so they can be considered an authority in the field, showcase their practice, and help visitors get to know them a little better, before you connect; All of this helps them get more views and traffic.
7. Optimize and Publish
Once you’ve started the process of producing quality content and targeting customers, keep it going by consistently asking yourself these questions:
* How can I make my directory website attractive enough for members to visit and join my online community and contribute content as a paying member? Take the lead! Create a directory site to join. With our simple directory software at eDirectory, you can immediately start adding all kinds of great content like blog posts, articles, industry or local events, even classified ads that can be used for all sorts of purposes like jobs, business opportunities, etc. and even products to be featured on your directory website.
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* How can I ensure that the entries have enough depth to ensure high utilization for directory site visitors? Listings with just a title and phone number are less attractive and useful than listings with photos, videos, maps, offers, classifieds and descriptions. Invite each new member to create content, talk about their mission/vision and share a video about themselves and their work.
* How can I monetize my directory? Online directory websites have many revenue generating opportunities that really add to your directory business plan. The model is so successful because once you have a large captive audience, it gives you a lot more opportunities to generate revenue, e.g. sell to publishers and members, sponsored social media posts, donations, and you can use the new eDirectory Storefront MOD also connect a storefront to your online directory website.
* What type of content gets more visitors? There are always opportunities for content creation with the potential to drive a lot of visitors to your site. Find out who the other players in your industry are as far as direct and indirect competitors, free service providers, industry publications, forums, portals and even social media groups. Get inspiration from what works well for others and what might NOT work well for your brand or community (sometimes it makes getting started that much easier if you at least know what to focus on).
8. Integrate new features
Treat every new member and every newsletter subscriber as GOLD early on! Ask them what they would like to see on your site in terms of new features or functionality. Also, really try to identify what your niche may be. You will learn this by making an effort to connect and by asking questions. You will be surprised at what you will learn and it could create new opportunities for your online directory website. As you start expanding the directory website builder in you, you might find it useful to add a community forum, integrate with services like Infusionsoft or Salesforce, or perhaps connect an eDirectory storefront in the MOD Store. All of these services can provide the perfect environment for your business to grow.
These are some tips to help you create a directory website. Contact us if you have any questions and we’ll make sure you have a dedicated Account Manager to answer all your important questions before you get started.
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