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Can anyone give me an approximate idea of hours per annum involved in running a directory (small, niche market, maximum 3,000 entries)?
Design, hosting… issues are not necessary.
TIA
Rich
Let's start with Chicago's 23 points:
2. How much money do I want to make? How many listings at what price will that require.
about £400 / year to start with just to pay the hosting and buy my GF a little gift :) - requires 20 listings@ £10 (which seems more than feseable)
3. Do you want to run 1 directory or many. Do you want to run freestanding directories or a topic directory hub with niche pages that you target for seo.
topic directory - originally 1 topic but with possibility of a VERY wide range of other cat that will make it better. Will be only UK based to start with but might become worldwide once all the sub cat have been implemented.
4. What is the nature of the GEO or VERT that I want to compete within. What is the search volume for related keywords. What is the bidding pressure like. Can you afford PPC or is this an optimization only proposition. Can you acheive a page 1 SERP (prefferably 1-5)for the most competitive keyword for the directory(ies).5. DIRECTORIES ARE ABOUT KEYWORDS! Pick only the top target keywords to go after- I generally only do one with a mind on plural/sing. In all cases this keyword selection dominates the marketplace (80%+of total keyword universe)
search volume: ~ 10000 during the past 2 months, no bidding pressure, no ppc, should be no1 for all specific search (kwd kwd and kwd kwd kwd) after optimisation. Top kwds easy to target sing and plural.
6. Determine if there are other competitors in lets call it your SEGMENT(Segment=director focus + keyword focus). If so how are they arranged? What will be you competitive advantages? And differentiating factors. What do they charge? Is it worth going after.
Nope there's none - hopefully it will remain like that for the next year or so to give me the time to become well known.
7. Determine what the ROI is for a company on your directory, relative to the traffic you will get, given the companies revenue structure, the amount of companies on your directory, and the amount the pay for a listing.
Don't know quite how to do that - I haven't got any insider knowledge of the field I'm going into yet
8. Determine if you want the client to control the listing or you. And if its the client, determine how much quality control you want.
I want the control of the directory, if they want to amend something on their 'profile' they send me an email and we will modify it within 24 hours. will give them good image of us.
9. In my experience, SMALL BUSINESS- with a service orientation EATS THIS UP. Decide what your customer looks like from a predispositional standpoint-ie where else do they have to buy great advertising- how savvy are they on-line - determine if they have the predispositions to buy before you build anything.
quite knowledgeable people - up market - with quite a lot of money - will join affiliate program related to the topic after couple of month and if it works fine, will do ecommerce site to sell them the same products.
10. Decide if you will let prospects and clients see site traffic and click data.
Yes, I was thinking of emailling them the number of visit for the directory, the number of visitor that view their profile and the number that went to see their site. BUT HOW TO DO IT do you have any good tracking system to advise me?
11. Decide how you will track renewals if time sensitive
Create an application that will email me all the 'profile' that will expire in the 20 days. then I call them, should be ok to start, then email and/or phone call to try to sell them more products ;)
12. Pre-populate the site so as to discourage negative results prior to it being adequately filled. Let users try it for free for a week. This works too, guys, because my customer GET CUSTOMERS.
Yep free trial for 6 months then very small fee for all of them and bigger fee for sponsorized profile: 2 max per kwords to create the 'need'.
13. Put yourself in a search engine user/prospects shoes and ASK yourself- If i typed keyword phrase into a search engine and arrived at your directory site- AM I FOR SURE getting what I am looking for? Is it really helpful - more than a link? If you answer no, then start over.
will design the site to give info on the profile, with contact numbers and logo/pic and link to website. sponsorized profile more prominent and at the top
14. CONCENTRATE ON SEO- THIS IS CRITICAL - If you want to be the top directory and charge- THEN YOU NEED TO BE THE TOP. People love to pay when they know they are working with the best (at least for the keyword phrase). Other directories will come and go around you, stick to SEO and everything take care of itself.
Will do
15. Decide on billing- monthly, upfront, checks, merchant account (automation is key, so to is auto monthly bill features).
Will think of the different possible options from standing order to credit cards payment etc...
16. CREATE A CONTINGENCY PLAN IN THE EVENT THAT SOMETHING WITH GOOGLE GOES WRONG. You have paying clients and they expect something- if something goes wrong you must be prepared to do one of many options- such as buy CPCs, give gaurantees to clients- create a new marketing buy (i have a few in place we go down and i would say- look here and look there- and look here- google will be back- you want to leave- oh really - and lose your position for this price- knowing we are the best-blah blah-blah)
Will do in time
17. BE READY TO CHANGE
I AM ;) I haven't started the design yet I already thiink about the ways and markets to expand the directory.
18. Believe in your value by answering the questions above and convey that to your clients.19. Dedicate yourself to making sales over the phone- show the client the serp (dont just go to the URL)
I thought of personnaly contacting every one of them after the initial free period, over the phone to give them the stats etc...
20. Decide if you will provide other content/resources besides the paid listings.21. Decide on whether you site can cultivate other revenue streams - one example of what we do is have one special offer box (premium) the rest of the ads can't be salesy, must be descriptive
Yes definitely, thought of columnist, articles gifts and affiliate-ecommerce etc... related to the topic
22. Dont create a directory focusing on 1-3 keyword phrases with a total search volume of 200 searches per month and think you will make 30 clients happy. Work the equation, there are unbelievable gems out there.
10000+ searches for the last 2 months should do the trick
23. Be fearless and just DO IT.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I AM AND I WILL DO IT!
Chicago and others do you see any point that I might overseen, or where you think something better could be done?
Have you some info on how to track the clicks?
Also what programming language do you guys recommend ASP, CGI-perl, PHP?
Thanks for this great thread
Leo
would you offer an example or two of online niche directories that you'd consider exemplary? you mentioned that your company runs one, would you be willing to reveal url? in private mail, perhaps?
thanks in advance!
leanweb
