Populating a Directory?

Any tips and suggestion?

[ideavirus]

hello,

What is the best mothod(s) to populate a directory pertaining to a single topic, i mean a vertiscal directory and not something like yahoo, which means everything to everyone.

Thanks for any help.

Cheers

[victor]

You either have to find sites and put them in -- that means being an expert in the field.

Or you have to market your directory as irresistable so that the whole vertical market comes running to beg for a listing.

To start a directory, consider pooulating it with data from DMOZ. Hop over to their site for their simple and free terms and conditions for using their RDF file.

[ibiza]

My directory will open in a few months. Even though it's free, I'll be doing a lot of cold calling to local businesses to get it populated.

[caine]

I'm thinking off creating a directory though the business model is completely different than what you'se guys are suggesting. It would include alot of free-bies, that i would include myself - with targetted companies, that need the representation becuase everyone else has it!

[Woz]

Populating a directory is a Catch 22 situation:-
1) People want to see that a directory has good ranking/exposure before submitting, especially if submission requires payment, BUT
2) You won't get good ranking/exposure with an empty directory.

You need to populate the directory first and get the traffic before expecting submissions. You could use DMOZ as a starting point, but then you are using data that many others also use. I prefer to populate by Sweat of the Brow, that is, spending hours following links and searching for good sites to include. Then, as the directory grows, SE listings will grow, traffic will grow, and so on.

Similar to the old Wood and Fire story, you need to chop the wood and feed the fire to get the heat.

Also, set yourself a target population (say 1000 listings or whatever is relevant to you topic) before going live. There is nothing worse than clicking through a new directory only to see "Sites Listed = 0" at every category.

On a similar track, I would think very carefuly about the hierarchial structures and categorical cross references before starting to populate. You need to get the balance right between where topics should be in the tree and where people expect them to be. For example, Computers should be a sub-category of Technology with is under Science, and so on. But people expect it to be a top level topic due to its current relevancy and conditioning from previous directories such as Yahoo and DMOZ.

Get the structures right, go out and find the content, and just keep doing it.

Onya
Woz

[mack]

What I would do is to assemble your categories and fill each cat with enough good resourses to make them usable. From there on you will find a high percentage will be user/site owner contributed.

Mack.

[ideavirus]

Thank you everyone for the suggestions!

I already have one directory , and i had to manually populate it before taking live. Had around 22 categories and i did it manually each cat having atleast 15 links, while some, i managed to add more.

This time around, i am planning to launch a directory and finding it a bit difficult to populate b'cos most of the sites in that area do not have about us pages. Coming up with a description for each site myself can be really time consuming, but yes can be very valuable in the long run.

DMOZ dump is sure an alternative, but i somehow don't feel like having duplicated content.

Initially all the listings to any category will be free. later paid listings with a different look and with more options to them will be offered.

Thank you for any further suggestions.

Cheers

[too much information]

One approach I have tried is to allow free additions to your directory, then go search for sites that allow you to add your link to their site.

When these sites ask for the recip. link location give them your directory page and follow up with an e-mail explaining that you think they could write a better description of their page than you could.

So far this has worked fairly well for me, my directory is growing and so is my incomming link count. ;)