3 options for a directory..

[draggar]

I'm thinking about putting up a directory site but there are 3 ways to go about it and I'm wondering what may be the best way to go from the start and the thought of expanding it later on.

First is the cheapest and easiest - set up a free directory and put AdSense on the site. This will be fast, easy, and cheap, and get me the most signups but I'll need to keep an eye out for spam as well as abusers.

Second is a paid directory. This may be as easy as the free directory but software that let you take payments are usually not free plus you won't get as many signups (but this may be an easy second step if I also go the first route). Money may be more than the first one, but not much.

Third is a referral service. I've never done one of these and I can imagine it's the hardest option to implement, there is the trust factor (did the person really sign up or just go to their site?), but also has the potential to make the most money from it.

Thoughts on the 3 options or suggestions for other options?

 

[dcristo]

Managing a directory takes a serious amount of time. So taking that into account a free directory really isn't that viable, you definitely won't be making enough from adsense to justify the amount of time you spend approving submissions and deleting the spam.

If you go the paid route, if for whatever reason google decides it doesn't like your site, than you'll get deindexed, lose your PR, etc and there goes your revenue and all the work you've put into promoting it.

I wouldn't waste my time with a directory these days. There are far better ways to make money.

If you are adamant you want to develop a directory, than you should use the PHP Link Directory script it's the best directory script available.

 

[draggar]

What would you suggest for a geo+keyword, then?

 

[dcristo]

I'd try and develop a travel community.

 

[draggar]

That's not always an opton for geo+keyword domains.

 

[dcristo]

PM me the name if you want.

 

[onlinetv]

You are looking for esyndicat.com

 

[draggar]

I've seen eSyndiCat before and it is nice and quite basic (but that could have changed over the past few years). That would be for option #1 and maybe #2 if they added in a paid listings feature.

Edit: I also just recently stopped using a site that had a PHPMyDirectory license so I may be able to use that, too.

 

[Johnn]

Directory listing is the thing of the past:
- It would take too much time to maintain
- No one would pay for directory listing nowadays
- People come to directory to look for info - not buying anything so Adsense would not work (It's not working now anyhow)

 

[draggar]

So if a directory is not the best way to go - what other options are there? Take Boston Plumber for example, you really can't make a travel site on that or a blog about it.

 

[Johnn]

To me you can't really develop geo name like your example and plumber would not care about buying the name since they are always busy and they charge customers a lot. So I would not spend time on these names.

 

[draggar]

Sorry, Boston plumbers would be more accurate.

 

[Johnn]

Sorry, Boston plumbers would be more accurate.

So a couple of plumbers pitch in to buy the name? Visit Boston would make more sense to develop into a website.

I stick with 3 letter names and make easy money without have to pull my hair out!

 

[dcristo]

Tough one to develop and SEO. The first page of G is full of Google Place listings. Also when you look at the domain, I can't really see how a plumber would be interested in it, they'd want the singular version of the domain, which gets more searches. I can see how you wanted to go the directory route.

Honestly what I wold do is produce a quick YT video, get it on the first page for the core keyword with the domain name in the title, try and start ranking for relevant geo keywords. Then once you're getting reasonable traffic charge plumbers an annual fee to have a featured listing or whatever. I don't buy into the plumbers are too busy they don't need more customers argument, look how much their bidding on Adwords.

Sure it will take some work, but if it works, you will make significantly more in the long run, and you can rinse and repeat with other similar geo names.