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After following the "affiliate" forum, and reading post's by rfung and the like about their progress and earnings in the "affiliate world", i thought i might as well post here about my tale to conquer a niche with a unique directory, with a unique concept.
BackGround Information:
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I'm an "idea" man, with some coding / php experience. I've had this idea for about a year now, and have been working towards getting the site live for about the past 3 months. I've outsourced most content as well as graphics design. This is now all complete - the design of the website, as well as about 30 original articles (between 500->1000 words ). As well as articles, i have about 10-15 other pages of original content - not necessarily articles, but reviews, and other information which would be pertinent to anyone in my niche.
The Realization:
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Origianlly, i was taking a "half-assed" approach - but, i decided I wanted to have something "professional" and official when i go live. Therefore, i scrapped by 2checkout account, and setup a real merchant account. I also registered my business name, opened a business bank account, and have all the background "stuff" mostly taken care off (in this process, i've learned lots about SSL, Audit certificates, and the like). I have also purchased business cards, personalized fax sheets, letter heads, etc which i had designed by a graphic designer.
I also have setup a 1-800 number.
I purchased two scripts to run my directory - which ammounted to about $500.00 (including some customized modifications). I estimate that in startup costs, i have spent approx $1500.00.
The Niche:
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My site will be catered to small-medium business in a certain "niche". There are other directories already in these niche (several) all of which lack and flair, content, or real traffic. However, there is 1 which is a highly targetted, successfully, PPC directory .This will be my main competitor. However, they have recently been banned by google, which makes me feel very confident.
The above site also lacks content. And this is how i plan to differentiate myself. Some clients spend > 10,000 /yr in this niche using the above directory for PPC.
Also, all of these directories in my niche are not well SEO'd. Another "advantage" i believe i may have. Also, all the directories in my niche are inundated with advertisements (by this, i mean each site has about 10-15 banner ad's on each page of one size or another). My directory will be bascally ad-free.
My Directory:
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My directory will be focused around the idea of an information hub. It will include articles, reviews, and other content constantly updated. It will also include a message board, and the such.
Each company who lists with me in the directory will get there own unique page (www.mydomain.com/yourpagename) - and they can customize this with as much or as little info as they like.
How Do You Make Money:
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When deciding how we were going to make this money from this directory it revolved around the following: PPC listing, Monthly Fee's, or content (google ads) based earnings.
In the end, we decided to go with a monthly fee of $30/month for listing in the directory. This will entitle people to be listed in the directory, as well as have there own page as detailed above. All in all, i thought it was a fair amount.
Marketing:
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We are propossing a 90-day free trial when people sign up. That is, when they sign-up, they will provide there CC information with the understanding that if they don't cancel, they will begin a monthly "subscription" of 30/month.
We plan to market it by contacting the users by email (not mass e-mail, but rather personalizing each and every email we sent).
We also have created a Access database of well over 600 companies. This database currently lists some of the companies in the niche. THey were identified because all these companies alreadys spend atleast ~ $200/year advertising on other directories in this niche.
The database consists of the basic contact information for these companies - address, phone, fax. Therefore, i will to contact all 600 via direct mail - and include a brief letter, as well as my business card.
TimeFrame:
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I will attempt to post here at any time progress has been made - i hope for the site to go live within 4-6 weeks, at which point i will begin an SEO and link-building campaign. Look forwarding to following up with ya'll.
Any comemnts regarding the above business plan are appreciated and encouraged.
Cheers!
Sounds like a well thought out plan. However, I've never thought that a "directory as business business plan" that depended on what I call "search engine love" was a particularly good plan for long term success. Your mileage may vary - for awhile. SEs are fickle, witness what just happened to your ex-competition.
Overall it looks good but it has its Achille's heel. Only dropping $1,500 makes it a limited risk.
Think about other sources of traffic than SEs if you want to survive. Think of links as traffic builders, not PageRank builders.
