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I have an idea for a directory. It'll be much like a chamber of commerce directory with one-time paid inclusion. It'll be directed towards a paticular nation-wde group that I happen to be a member of. Basically a business exchange in a fraternal-type environment. Similar directories offer an annual fee which I hate. Guessed what it is yet?
Anyway... I even have spiffy domain name that I think will work well.
-What does it take to get something like this off the ground?
-What level of webmaster does it take?
-What resources should I get my hands in order to do this?
Thanks!
-Eric
Ska
The really nice thing is that you can play around with it and change things if you don't like them. In this way you get to see how the site was made and can learn PHP, CSS, HTML, and SQL if you want to.
I would like to suggest you consider NOT charging a fee for listings. Why? Well, it's really hard to get a DIR going if you don't have listings. Who wants to pay when there is no content and no traffic...? If you make the fee really low, then you will get people, but it will make the process of getting content slower.
So how do you have a directory that's not a charity? Easy. Advertising. Sign up for Google AdSense and as your site gets more content and traffic, it should generate some money for you. How much depends on how good your site is and how much traffic you get. But rather than a one-time fee, your site will continue to generate income long after you have every Chamber listed...
Not charging a fee and having a nice site means you will have a big advantage over the other sites.
Contact me if you want to know what script I use.
Similar directories offer an annual fee which I hate.
Once you discover how much time is involved maintaining a quality directory, and the ongoing expenses associated with it (hosting, server management, etc since as a novice you will need to contract that out) you will realize that an annual fee is not a bad thing, unless of course your directory isnt worth the money.
But the expense does not have to be very much. I have two reseller accounts with two different companies and one is $20 a month and the other is $10 a month. I have over ten sites on each and the service and uptime has been very good. The drive space and bandwith are plenty for my needs and I've never gone over what they provide.
The hardest thing for me was to use MySQL for the first time to get things configured. It took a few emails, but I was able to get through it.
I have all 500 pages very well optimized for thousands of keyword phrases.
It has only been online for 4 months and will most likely take another 4 or 5 more months before I can hope to start selling links on it.
The reason I mention mine is that I've been doing SEO work for about 5 years and no matter how good you are, you still have to wait a while before you have enough age behind your website before it will start listing well. You also do need a number of links as well, but not all at once.
Yet, it still earns me about £10 per day.
Not enough to retire on but maybe a good indication of things to come when it gets let out the sandbox.
FREE sells everytime.
I use some very cheap ppc to encourage people to submit their sites. It's all very simple and easy to maintain.
I still have no clients/customers to argue with. I don't have to chase up payments or e-mail clients. I just rely on people finding my aff stuff or adsense for the income.
Ska
I guess it depends on what your goals are with the site. Do you think you'll be able to make "real" money that way? And if so, do you want to rely on Adsense for a large part of your income? Probably not a good idea. On the other hand, if you had 1 or 2 affiliate listings at the top of EVERY category, that could be interesting. Of course, I think everyone will agree that it's generally easier to make money with a directory by charging webmasters for listings vs. getting enough real traffic to make money via the listings. Right?
Exactly!
I have the top 8 results seeded with 50% affiliate links and 50% submitted links.
I think a one off annual payment of say $25 is a good idea. But! I prefer to have a continuous revenue stream. There will come a point where you run out of submissions so your income will top out. Free listings will encourage more users to add their sites thus populating the directory. It may be easier to make money by charging for listings but in the long term I think the aff stuff will prove more viable as a source of income.
Say you have 1000 paid listings at $25 a listing. Annually you have an income of $25k Cool I suppose but that is where it stops. If I can make $100 per day from adsense and aff programs then I gross $36500 pa. Thats a little better. That would be assuming 4 sales/leads per day in my field. I think that is quite low and I am aiming for a minimum of 8 leads/sales per day. Therefore $73000pa.
I dunno, maybe i'm babbling but have you tried getting people to pay for listings? It is a lot harder than getting some surfer to fill in an application for car insurance which is worth $25 to me.
Ska
You hit the nail on the head tho. You said if a directory is of high quality. There are 1000's of directories out there but few are good enough to pay for listings. Why should a directory pass PR?
Surely the people submitting their sites want qualified traffic not PR. Sure, links are great for serps but a one page site for CowboyBuilders(example) is never gonna rank and needs to buy their traffic from somewhere.
I think we should agree to agree and agree to disagree. There are many ways to make a living and everybody has their own opinion on how that should be done.
a one page site for CowboyBuilders(example) is never gonna rank
Why is that? You can get any single page to rank well with proper SEO (mainly links of course)
It's not easy.
Ska
What are your experiences of getting people to pay for directory listings. I am always keen to hear how other people make their sites work.
Ska
In MY experience they won't and don't
1000 x $25 = $25,000
so if you get 10,000 x $25 you will earn $ 250,000
sorry to disappoint you but its not that easy
14 months ago I used to give free submissions and was getting between 400 - 500 per month, it does not seem like much work only doing about 18 submissions per day but they don't get submitted evenly and not all submission have carried out what you asked for with your guide lines with the title, description etc so you either reject it or edit it yourself, when you start to edit titles and descriptions this starts to take up your time.
The final straw for me was when I got 70 spam submissions in a morning and I then spent the rest of the day changing all my submission pages to charge a fee just to stop this crap being submitted.
I don't get lots of submissions but the sites what are submitted now have followed the submission guide lines, now don't get me wrong I still love doing what I do as much as the first day I started but don't think for one minute having your own directory will make you rich over night, its more for the love of doing something in a niche you enjoy
I am just trying to get my point of view across. I have been an affiliate for a few years now and I know the score as well as anyone. This is my first long term project. I have done the black hat stuff. Cloaking and Redirects get on my nerves now. I am sick of building sites that profit for a month and then get banned. I do not expect to get rich overnight. In fact I am hoping to provide a useful resource. We all have different ideas and goals and this forum is a great place to air your views and share ideas. What works for one may not work for another. It's down to working with your own experiences. I have a new directory that is still a little sparse. I can't get paid submissions at the moment. Would you submit your site to a directory with no PR and only a couple of hundred listings? I would think not. Sure, when the directory is doing what it is supposed to I may charge for premium listings but til then I don't think the directory is worth paying to submit to. In the meantime I will happily filter links and edit titles and descriptions. It helps me to understand how my directory works and also allows me to optimise pages better. None of my links are live until I say so. That is one of the cool features of my directory CP. I can bulk edit pending submissions.
Anyway, like I said it's horses for courses in this world. If you don't mind stickying me your URL I'd love to see how other people are running their stuff.
Ta
Ska
I only ask because you say "I don't see why it would be hard to get webmasters to pay $25 per year". That sort of suggests that you are guessing. Thats like me saying who will win the next world cup. I can make an educated guess but it would still be a guess.
Directories are new to me and I am willing to learn from my mistakes and expert guidance from fellow posters who really know the answers.
So with all due respect I am after advice and guidance based on experience not guesswork. Therefore my posts in this thread stem from my real life experiences and not from what I think might be the best route to take.
Ska
I'd rather get paid for the content, since the content is on-going and submission fees are one-time. Also, not charging a fee means I can sell or shut down the site whenever I want. I have few obligations to anyone. I don't even ask for people's email address when they submit. Sometimes I wish I could market to them via email, but it makes everything so much simpler.
I get lots of spam also. Most people (if they are people...) don't read the rules at all. I love the ones that do and often accept their listings right away.
The script I use has an IP banning option, and when I get repeat offenders or other nastyness, I just block their IP address and generally am not bothered again. Let me know if you want to know what script we use. I'm not an affiliate or connected with the company in any way.
Now, about the comment that no one would want to submit to a directory that's new with no PR? Heck yes! I love submitting to new directories. Why? Becuase if I submit to them and they build up their content, they are going to get some PR and should do pretty well if they keep at it. Then I have listings where few others have and more links than others have.
Many directory owners seem to think they provide all the value and charge fees or display an attitude. SEOs feel they should not bother submitting to sites that have no PR, bad design, few listings, or are just very new.
Both attitudes are stupid, in my opinion. Both have value, and both have much to gained by working with the other side. Site owners need content, SEOs (most) have content. SEOs need places to submit to get links/traffic. When you let advertisers pay the expenses, to me it's a beautiful thing.
So if you have a directory, free or fee, please contact me. We maintain a submission list that we publish on a special site and include as many sites as we hear about. We not only publish the list, but let you download it in 7 different formats, including ASCII-delimited text, to use as you like.
We have started an organization to encourage SEOs and SE/DIR owners to start working together more and not work against each other. If you would like to know what we are doing, please contact me.
Thank You! I was beginning to doubt my cunning plans.
Ska
I have a niche directory. I offer 3 options, paid, reciprocal, and free. The paid is a one time $25 and the free submission states that it will take 30 days to list. The free ones attract a lot of spam.
My submission stats are approximately 50% reciprocal, 10% paid, and 40% free.
