I own a directory and I am so tired of adding in all the dang listings. There has to be an easier way. My directory is local based and has not started making any money yet. Does anyone else have a local directory? Do you earn with it?
You probably have to get out there and knock on doors and start selling some advertising. Look up localist in NZ and check out what they are doing.
Cold calling or going door to door until you get some real traffic. Once you get a good name, people will start calling you to get listed.
Having a directory is means lot of work but you have to invest if you want to earn. Can you please tell us more about directory? You might be able to monetize it right now, let us know more details and together we will find a solution.
you need to add lot of original and useful content to your directory. Then only it will do well. My pr5 directory www.mastbusiness.com is making good money now. Lot of google organic and direct visitors. You can check my site and make something like this.
may be your wasting your time, You have good earing pottial with your local listing website.Now a days getting listed on the first page of google and getting targeted traffic is becoming hard.But if you can get on to the first page of google for local biz and contact local biz owners and provide them targeted traffic and leads. So you could earn huge monthly repeated earnings from local biz owners. Hope this simple idea reveal all!!
Everyone thus far is right on target. It takes time, work, and dedication. Google wants CONTENT so create some interesting and informative Articles at your site as well for google and your readers to benefit from. Do some local Door knocking on businesses and be prepared to SHOW them what you have and HOW it can benefit them.
directories is not where you can really make money. Believe me, you can deliver pizza and earn more in less time. If you tired, just create algorithm to auto-approve, and review only ones that not meet your auto criteria.
probably you should have read one of those sticky post "why you should not start a directory " . Its tiresome and you won't get anything until you try hard. Really !
We've been running niche/local/general web directories for the best part of a decade and based on this experience, I can see where you're coming from. Are the submissions you receive relevant/genuine? (I guess there would be at least some amount of spam submissions.) If you do receive qualified submissions, I'd say that is a good sign already. If this is the case, how about offering paid/premium listings? You can say something like: Free submissions may take up to 10/12 weeks (or whatever) before getting reviewed/approved. Paid submissions will be reviewed within 2/3 business days (or whatever). HTH
Running a directory is a thankless job. If you got into it thinking you were going to generate tons of revenue, then you most likely should not be doing it at all.
Correct Mia. It can be very very profitable however (look at the online Yellow pages for example) but takes a LOT of work, time, and $$$$ to get it kicked off. The main problem really is informing clients as to WHY they need it in the first place when there is facebook, Twitter, etc... That is the hardest part.. I do however invite anyone who does this sort of thing to add your services to Our Directory as it is Google friendly 100%... it may serve you well but only if you list it under the Bronze or Gold service plan. Send me an email from our site and I will give you a Discount code to use for either a Free or seriously reduced price just for reading this.. Visit my profile page for the site. Simple... Then in about 3 days to maybe a week or two you tell me if it works as expected, or not so much (it really does)...
You are bound to make some money at some point. I found my hotel destination on a random directory in a Google Search. I'm curious as to how long you've been at it.? Are you enthused about the location you're creating the directory on?
HMMmmm. I just had a brain fart. I wonder about a possiblity of 2 or more like minded souls (IE Directory owners) helping to promote each others services. Is it possible?
I acually changed my business model from directory to rental sites. I am doing much better with this business model. This thread has helped me realize that my directory was simply not working for me. So thanks everyone. As for the rental sites I really enjoy it, because I can create alot of sites for this model. I have created 25 rental sites to start with.
Try to get quality backlinks to your directory. You should be in a position to see better results in the long run.