Should I create a directory?

To use on existing site, or create a new site.

[TimmyMagic]

Hi,

I have a niche website which sells widgets. It is a commercial website. Within this niche is a whole lot of people who provide services, e.g. widget service providers. Some of these widget service providers also sell widgets, but mostly they are regional and deal with people one to one in their office. So they're not direct competition on the whole.

Anyway, I have long been thinking of creating a new website which would be a directory of widget service providers. This directory would be split into regions (e.g. US states, UK counties).

The idea was to create this site, build up a useful listing and hopefully get the widget providers to link to this directory too. Then eventually I would advertise my commercial site via this directory.

But now I have been thinking, 'why don't I just create this directory on the commercial site'. That way I would offer a service to the widget providers and hopefully get lots of links to the commercial site, rather than just one link from my own directory site.

I would like to know if anyone else has done either option and whether you found it successful and worth the effort? My concern is that the widget providers would not want to link to the commercial website, but overall maybe this would be better.

Tim

[piatkow]

It depends very much on the niche I think.

I have used this model for a music magazine site and build a strong body of back links from artists and venues but a very poor response from music stores. From other comments about linking I think the music business is probably abnormally cooperative in this area.

[TimmyMagic]

Thanks for your reply. I've decided I'm going to do both. I'm going to create a new site which will be a directory of everything in the industry. And for the commercial site I'm going to have just a directory for the 'widget service providers'.

I've actually just registered the domain for the new site.

[purplesoda]

good luck on your new venture of directory site! :) you should be able to see if there is really a need for widget directory by then.

[wheel]

>>>My concern is that the widget providers would not want to link to the commercial website, but overall maybe this would be better.

I'm no directory expert, but I while ago I did a directory on a subdomain of one of my sites. I was careful about using custom software, and making the site as SEO friendly as I could. In terms of my listings:
- they're free
- I don't ask or require reciprocal links. I built some of my own backlinks to the site to get it going.
- I hand manage every submissions. I have a list of requirements like 'must have address and phone listed on website' to keep out affiliates and the flybynighters.

I built this simply as another place for folks in my industry to get another free SEO friendly backlink. And it does that.

However yesterday I got a call from a fellow looking to pay me for a listing. It turns out he's made two sales this year from his listing - roughly $2000 total. So surprisingly to me it's actually turned from an SEO tool into a valid directory for consumers and companies. I could probalby promote it a bit more and actually charge for the listings at this point.