I recently purchased a good domain name www.TotalTravelOnline.com and I am thinking of starting a travel directory with it (already have phpLD so no issue there). What should I do in order to get things going? Also, would like some feedback from travel directory owners regarding their experiences in this niche. Thanks.
I don't think the script you've plumped for is particularly going to benefit you with such a great domain name and the potential it holds so will duck out of offering advice unless invited just in case I'm seen as trying over promote our own script. What I will say is that this niche is something yet to be fully exploited.
You can take a peek at my brand new travel directory portal, I used phpld as the base. I don't have much in the way of results yet because my site just went live a few days ago but I can tell you that from my research, travel is a great niche.
Very nice, the only reason I suggested phpld not being the best script for the job in this case is that with ours for example you can list and search using three fields say for example the place being in africa, the area in Africa, then whatever your looking for in that area type thing. With the way most other scripts are set out they can't narrow down searches. Speaking of this jg, hope you don't mind me saying but your search doesn't appear to be working, I used keywords 'Travel Guides' as I saw this in your directory but it showed nothing? http://www.portal4travel.com/index.php?search=travel+guides Maybe just a glitch?
Thanks for the heads-up on the search, I will have my coder check into it. I would be curious to see some travel directories based on phplynx if you can provide some URL's. thanks
I don't have people's permission to post their urls here jg123, most have paid for a linkback removal for the very reason they don't want to be seen to use an inexpensive script for thier directories, and don't want their sites posted here, or at least that's what I'm assuming. I'm also not 100% sure if there are any that use the script for this particular niche of travel as well, I mentioned it because of the poor navigation of phpld at the moment. It's not just about the ability to search, it's about the ability of the script telling the search what not to search as well. @popsbank; You have to classify in a hierarchal structure regardless of what script you use, the limits on most scripts out there at the moment mean you have no choice.
As to the actual questions asked here, I can't speak to the specifics of working in the travel niche but I can talk about niches in general. Any niche directory owner will tell you that both visitors and submissions are almost always lower than on general directories - so be prepared for that. I have two niche sites. On the one I am quite active in several forums on that topic. I get a fairly steady, but small, stream of submissions daily. The other topic is one that interests me but that I have not been active in topical forums. The submissions on that one are less frequent. (That should be changing in the near future.) My advice is to get known on the forums where your target website owners frequent. While DP is great for directory issues, for the most part niche directories do not get as many submissions from the Solicitations section here as the general directories do. I would certainly announce here; just don't expect to get a huge influx of submissions like the general directories do. I would also suggest that you carefully think out your categories prior to officially launching the site. I would suggest you make a spreadsheet or diagram and go through the topics to make sure that your category structure works both for SEO and for human visitors (think about how you search for information rather than how DMOZ or anyone else has their site set up). I would also add the sub-categories as you go rather than making 5 gazillion ones that may never get filled. For example, if I were setting up a travel directory, I would only start with those cities that are most likely to get submissions fairly quickly and wait until submissions come in before adding additional locations. Good luck and I concur that the travel niche is one that you should be able to do well in.
Best bit of information offered on this forum for a long time, well since I started posting. Rep given.