Besides the obvious... (like the following) Page rank submission quality Look What are the building blocks to make real money off a directory? I think I have some good niche sites (see my attorney link directory below) but my submission volume is very poor. Any ideas to build a "good" directory that might actually provide enough income to fill a tooth? Is anyone on the planet making over $1,000 a month on a directory or are we all starving? If yes, tell us your success story... and advice.
Does it have to be true or can i make it all up? lol A good directory? one thats looked after i guess, gets new sites added, affordable, loads quickly, minimal downtime, working categories, gives refunds, answers questions as quickly as possible.
Fundamentally, the building blocks of a good directory are the same as all sites — provide useful info or a useful service to visitors. Lately, I've been trying to round out our offerings by providing reviews of featured links — in addition to adding a blog to the site (in order to make it a little more sticky). Of course, all of these things have been done and I'm not breaking new ground here. However, I try to separate myself from the rest by offering quality — quality links and quality reviews. And users and submitters have responded well — google analytics reported a 46% increase in visits month-over-month.
I think there are 2 sets of criteria 1. What makes a good directory in the eyes of a customer? 2. What makes a good directory in the eyyes of the search engines?
. That's it, in a nutshell. But just any service will not do, and a mistake many will make time after time. Remember what you are running, a directory...... Presumably people go to a directory either when a big search engine lets them down, or to get hard to find information. They won't go to one to post to blogs. There are blog sites for that purpose. Try and determine what a user does and why they do it, don't take stupid risks because you don't know what to do next. Something I learnt many years ago. People go to search engines to search, not to hope the engine has it's own blog to post to.
I'm not providing a blog service, merely supplementing "featured links" with a review that is posted to a blog that is branded in the same manner as the directory itself. It's just a value-add that I feel doesn't detract, but rather supplements, the function of the site. It doesn't hurt that Google loves blogs and their spiders suck 'em up nice and quickly. Hence, it's just another way to appeal to visitors.
The determining factor for a directories value for many years has been based on the quality and size of its database. Page Rank and link sales have of course blinded many as to what makes a quality directory over the past few years however. Most directories are not making over $100 a month let alone $1000 but long well established directories easily make $1000+ a day. Putting a lot of money into well planned marketing and branding of a directory is one of the major keys to it's success.
A directory of any kind, by it's nature must be a resource of good quality content for the user. Besides that make it easy to use and navigate, visually attractive, fast-loading and user-friendly.
Pagerank does not a great directory make. Conversely, a great directory usually means that it'll attract good pagerank.
Agreed with totally. The above is a recipe for the following: Bad or untargeted quality content Added content without the user in mind A directory built for PR selling Will be penalised quickly by Google Not taken seriously by important circles Barely able to survive in the long-term Driven by adsense earnings A waste of time Only appeal to webmasters, free link hunters and spammers Ultimately lead to a crap resource A directory built with pagerank in mind, should be the furthest thing from everyone's mind. Directories built to sell adsense come next, and anything non-unique is third in my list to become another member of the 'me too' club.