Author Archives: eDirectory Team

Webinar: Tips for Creating a Killer Home Page

Posted on

Tips for Creating a Killer Home Page

This blog post was updated on Nov 6th, 2024.

In our latest webinar, “How to Create a Killer Home Page,” we delved into why a powerful, well-designed homepage is essential for online directories. A strong homepage not only captures users’ attention but also guides them seamlessly to explore your offerings. Here, we’ll go over the key takeaways on designing an effective homepage, from understanding user data to choosing the right elements and getting inspired by popular homepage styles.

1. Why is the Home Page So Important?

Your homepage is the first point of interaction for most visitors, and it sets the tone for your entire website. A successful homepage should communicate your site’s purpose, highlight its key features, and provide an intuitive path for users to find what they’re looking for. It’s the start of their journey, and making it effective can mean the difference between high engagement and a quick exit.

2. Collect and Analyze Data

Before diving into design, it’s essential to understand what users need. By collecting and analyzing data, you can gain insights into:

  • What Users Are Looking For: Identify popular search terms and content categories.
  • Where They’re Clicking: Pinpoint high-interest areas on your homepage to enhance user flow.
  • Where They’re Dropping Off: Recognize points of friction to optimize user engagement.
  • What You Want Them to See and Click On: Define priorities so you can direct attention to important elements.

With a data-informed approach, your homepage can become a responsive, user-centric space that effectively addresses visitor needs.

3. Formulate Hypotheses

Once you have the data, it’s time to ask key questions to form improvement hypotheses:

  • Do I Have Enough Content? Ensure that users have access to enough information without overwhelming them.
  • Is My Content Curated Effectively? Focus on quality and relevance, highlighting your best and most valuable content.
  • Am I Showcasing the Best I Have? Prioritize premium content, popular listings, or high-value offers.
  • Is It Easy to Search? An effective search bar can dramatically improve user experience.
  • Does Navigation Assist Users? Good navigation is crucial to help users find what they need effortlessly.

Each of these questions can lead to specific adjustments that enhance your homepage’s clarity and usability.

Webinar: Tips for Creating a Killer Home Page

4. Key Elements: What and Where

Positioning is vital for a successful homepage. Consider what elements are crucial to your directory:

  • Location Features: If locations are relevant, showcase them prominently for easy access.
  • Most Valuable Modules: Highlight core features like listings, deals, or a mix of both based on your site’s primary offerings.
  • Combination Opportunities: Blend elements where possible to offer a rich and cohesive browsing experience.

By prioritizing the most impactful modules, you provide clear, direct paths for users to explore your content.

5. Understanding Page Editor Widgets

Our webinar highlighted several key widgets you can leverage to create a comprehensive homepage layout:

  • Header Widgets: Essential for establishing branding and site identity.
  • Search Widgets: Make it easy for users to start their journey.
  • Card Widgets: Perfect for showcasing featured listings or services.
  • Banner Ads Widgets: Useful for promoting offers or ads.
  • Events Widgets: Ideal for directories featuring events and local happenings.
  • Content Widgets (Blog/Article/Custom Content): Adds depth with additional resources and insights.
  • Engagement Widgets (Newsletter/Lead Form): Encourage interaction and sign-ups.
  • Footer: Essential for site navigation, contact info, and links to key resources.

Each widget serves a specific purpose, allowing you to structure your homepage effectively to engage users at every step.

6. Four Homepage Styles to Get Inspired

Finally, we discussed four homepage styles that can inspire:

  • Minimalist: Clean and uncluttered, focusing on essentials only.
  • Short and To The Point: Direct users’ attention to key calls to action.
  • Featured Advertisers: Perfect for directories with sponsored listings, emphasizing partners and advertisers.
  • Full Page: A bold, immersive style that uses the entire screen, ideal for visually-driven directories.

Each style has its appeal, so choose the one that best aligns with your brand and audience preferences.

Conclusion

Creating a killer homepage involves balancing content, usability, and design. By understanding user behavior, hypothesizing improvements, and using the right widgets and styles, you can create a homepage that not only attracts but also retains users. Try implementing these tips and watch how they transform your directory’s homepage into a high-performing asset.

USEFUL LINKS AND TOOLS MENTIONED IN THE WEBINAR:

*We are not affiliated, associated, authorized, endorsed by, or in any way officially connected to the tools and sites mentioned in the webinar.

This session was recorded on November 6th, 2024.

Want more tips? Shoot us a note at .

Edirectory Free guided demo

Webinar: Keyword Research for Online Directories

Posted on

Keyword Research for Online Directories

Following our recent webinar, we discussed the critical role of keyword strategy in boosting the visibility and success of online directories. If you missed the session, here’s a recap of the key takeaways, from understanding keyword types and search intent to conducting effective keyword research for your directory.

What is Keyword Research?

Keyword research involves identifying search queries or terms that users enter into search engines. This process is essential for creating content that aligns with what people are searching for and optimizing your web pages for higher rankings on search engines.

For online directories, keyword research can be the game-changer that helps you attract your target audience. Whether you’re optimizing listings, blog posts, or custom pages, understanding the right keywords ensures your site is visible to those looking for relevant information.

Types of Keywords and Search Intent

During the webinar, we explored two major types of keywords:

  • Head keywords: Broad and far-reaching, often highly competitive.
  • Long-tail keywords: More specific combinations of terms, usually containing three or more words, which are typically easier to rank for and highly targeted.

Additionally, we discussed the four types of search intent:

  • Informational: The user is seeking knowledge (e.g., “How to start a directory website”).
  • Navigational: The user is looking for a specific page or website (e.g., “eDirectory login”).
  • Commercial: The user is exploring options before making a purchase (e.g., “best directory software”).
  • Transactional: The user is ready to complete a purchase (e.g., “buy directory platform”).

For online directories, informational and commercial search intents are the most relevant. People often search for information about specific categories or local listings, making it essential to target long-tail keywords to attract the right traffic.

Webinar: Keyword Research for Online Directories

Keyword Research for Online Directories

Keyword research is especially important for online directories, as these platforms usually target niche audiences. By combining long-tail keywords with your listings’ categories, subcategories, locations, and custom pages, you can tailor your content to the specific needs of your audience.

For example, if your directory lists local businesses in a specific city, targeting a keyword like “best coffee shops in [City]” is a perfect long-tail search query. By addressing specific user queries, directories can rank higher for searches relevant to their audience, increasing both traffic and engagement.

How to Run Keyword Research for Online Directories

The webinar also covered the practical steps for running an effective keyword research process. You will need:

  1. A spreadsheet to organize your keywords and track their performance.
  2. Access to SEO tools such as SEMrush, MOZ, Ubersuggest, Ahrefs, or Google Search Console.

These tools will help you identify keyword volumes, competition levels, and search intent. For online directories, it’s essential to focus on long-tail keywords that relate directly to your niche and target audience.

Conclusion

Keyword research is an essential component of optimizing online directories. By focusing on the right types of keywords and understanding search intent, directory owners can ensure that their listings and content align with what users are searching for. Utilizing SEO tools and targeting long-tail keywords will not only boost visibility but also bring in more targeted traffic, leading to higher conversions.

Be sure to check out the recording of our webinar to dive deeper into these strategies and start implementing them for your directory today!

USEFUL LINKS AND TOOLS MENTIONED IN THE WEBINAR

*We are not affiliated, associated, authorized, endorsed by, or in any way officially connected to the tools and sites mentioned in the webinar.

This session was recorded on October 9th, 2024.

Want more tips? Shoot us a note at marketing@eDirectory.com and don’t forget to join our Facebook group.

eDirectory Facebook Group

 

Webinar: Benefits of Creating a Niche Directory

Posted on

Benefits of Creating a Niche Directory

Building a niche directory can prove to be a very profitable venture indeed! With dedicated focus, a niche website is easier to launch and quick to attract paying advertisers, build community members and become profitable faster than other types of directories.

A niche website can be based on a specific subject, industry or region. The secret behind this business model is knowledge of your niche and an understanding of your target advertisers and readers. Your website content needs to be viewed as useful to attract readership and your advertising plans need to create a solution to a perceived problem or challenge your advertisers may be facing.

Webinar: Benefits of Creating a Niche Directory

Niche Directory Market Size

Rather than casting a huge national or global net trying to encompass anyone and everyone, niche websites allow you to focus your energies on one particular market and subject and do it well!

  • Start out small – walk before you run and allow yourself to make your mistakes when you’re small so that you can get organized for success as you eventually grow
  • Focus on a smaller market that will give you more precise targeting options and better chances to achieve greater ROI on your investments
  • Create important partnerships early on that will create more opportunities down the road

Niche Directory Identity

It’s very difficult to be all things to all people. Honing in on your brand voice and identity unique to your niche is key early on.

  • Position yourself as an expert here becoming a key resource to a select group
  • Once your identity has been realized, this will help make generating content more consistent
  • Building on authority breeds trust which will help with growing your credibility

Niche Directory Location

If you can, start in one specific location or region and then begin to expand your reach once you have a good handle on your new business and better understand the needs of your community.

  • Master your back yard first – prove the concept where it is easiest to relate, travel, or be more proactive
  • Niche prospects will be in a more definable location across the web as well, as subscribers and consumers of industry or trade publications, geographic areas, or online groups or communities are in one “place” since it is a niche, it is easier to get yourself noticed

By building a niche directory website, you become a one-stop shop for bringing your community together and growing your online directory revenue goals. Focus on adding value, curating your niche community, and listening to their feedback as it will help you reach your goals more quickly.

*We are not affiliated, associated, authorized, endorsed by, or in any way officially connected to the tools and sites mentioned in the webinar.

This session was recorded on May 15th, 2024.

Want more tips? Shoot us a note at .

Edirectory Free guided demo

Market Your Directory Site with these 8 ideas in 2024

Posted on

Market Your Directory Site with these 8 ideas

“If you build it, they will come.”

Not so fast.

This well-loved quote is a bit of a fallacy, especially when it comes to how to market an online directory.

Because the truth is, once you’ve built a directory website, you’ll need to promote it. (Don’t worry, both building your directory project and marketing it can be easy and fun.)

Because once you learn how to market an online directory like a pro, you’ll be getting your business out in front of not just more eyes, but the right, relevant eyes.

Meaning, promoting an online directory can help get more leads. 

Marketing an online directory is essential – It’s as equally important as the building phase of the project.

So, let’s dive in to how to advertise a directory site and proclaim, “If you build it, then market it, they will come.”

What Makes a Good Business Directory?

Gone are the days of waiting for a giant yellow book to be tossed onto your doorstep for you to access a decent business directory. Today, good directories are not only digital, but they also look (and work) amazing.

And while everyone’s business directory is different, there are a few key elements that many good online directories share:

  • A blog with relevant content to draw in more traffic.
  • An option for visitors to sign up for your email list so you can market to your subscribers.
  • High-quality, visually appealing, and organized listings that are easy to navigate.
  • Online payment provider integrations so you can make sales online.
  • A self-service sponsor area that lets advertisers create and manage their own listings, so you save time while offering them flexibility.
  • A banner system for directory owners to earn revenue through advertising space on your website.
  • SEO-optimized content to help your listings and website show up higher in search rankings.
  • A membership website integration to accept recurring revenue for things like exclusive members-only content.

So now that you’ve got an idea of some basics to making a business directory good, let’s see how to market an online directory (now that you know yours is great).

Make sure to check out how to create a directory website if yours isn’t set up yet.

How to Market an Online Directory (8 Tips)

If you’ve already published your website, but you’re still asking yourself how to market an online directory, this post will help.

Let’s go ahead and check out the top ways to market an online directory.

1. Populate Your Listings

It’s going to be hard to sell your directory to advertisers before it’s fully developed.

Once you’ve got a directory website up, it can be tempting to start reaching out to potential sponsors immediately. But before you do that, you’ll need to build some of your directory yourself. After all, a local business directory that has no listings won’t get much attention.

It’s best practice to always show leads a fully functional, populated directory. This will help tell a story to your lead about how your directory site can help bring more visibility to their business.

So, filling it with data yourself not only makes your site look professional, but it can also bring in more traffic, which is super important. Because without website traffic, your directory has no value to someone who may be interested in paying to be listed there.

Sure, it takes a bit of elbow grease to populate listings yourself as you build your online directory, but it’s absolutely worth the time. Your content and listings are the heart of your directory site. Without them, it’s nearly impossible to achieve organic growth through search engines.

2. Use Social Media

Social media is a great platform to market an online directory. This is because no matter your niche, your target audience is definitely using social media (and they’re ready to engage with you on those platforms).

People love interacting with brands on social media. Which is awesome, because not only does it build brand awareness and bring you more website traffic, but it also develops trust while getting your directory’s name out there.

For example, hashtags are an excellent tool to help generate some quick and easy interactions and visibility. You can use hashtags on most social media channels like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Brands using hashtags see an average of a 50% increase in engagement, too.

Some examples of this could be a recipe or cooking directory asking people to post photos of what they’ve prepared with hashtag “#itswhatsfordinner”. Or a golf course directory asking players to tweet photos of their clubs and equipment with the hashtag “#inmybag”. You can then re-share these posts on your own social media (a wonderful source of user-generated content). Plus, to make the most of these hashtagged posts, eDirectory lets you connect your Twitter feed to your directory website and automatically display your feed to your website visitors.

Don’t forget the power of advertising your sales, contests, and promotions via your social media channels too. People who follow you are ready and willing to hear what’s going on with your brand, so tap into that.

3. Run a “Best of” Contest

Another popular way to market an online directory is to hold a contest that asks people to vote on their favorite businesses in your niche.

For example, a local parenting directory could run an annual contest that honors businesses in the community by asking visitors to nominate the “Best Swim Class”, “Best Playground”, or “Best Kid-Friendly Restaurant”. You could pick and announce winners yourself, or you can have website visitors nominate businesses for you.

Image Source: cherryvalley.macaronikid.com

It may take more work, but having the public vote is fantastic for business growth because:

  • Businesses will share the contest with their customers by word of mouth and invite them to vote.
  • You can see more traffic as voters visit your website.
  • Your brand will get more exposure as people share the contest on social media asking for votes.
  • You can grow your email list by asking for the email address of everyone who votes.
  • Your other listings will get exposure and notoriety if they’re “nominated” in a certain category, building trust with your sponsors and authority for your directory website.

And building trust is incredibly important to make sales. Why? Well, trust is now the 2nd most important factor people take into consideration before making a purchase, just after price.

So just like in these online directory advertising examples, lean into the interests of your target audience. Choose categories by selecting the restaurants, businesses, people, or locations that fit your industry best.

4. Use Google Ads

When using Google Ads to promote an online directory, it’s important to understand the power of keyword targeting. By choosing the right keywords, you can make sure your ads are shown to the right people, who are searching for the type of products or services your directory offers. Google Ads also allows you to set your customized budget, so you can control your expenses and ensure that you never pay more than your monthly cap.

Another great feature of Google Ads is the ability to display ads to people searching in a specific location. For local search site owners, this can be a game changer as it enables them to reach a more targeted audience and drive traffic to their site. By choosing a specific location, you can ensure that your ads are only shown to people who are in your area, which can help increase the chances of getting conversions and growing your business.

Google Ads also gives you the ability to control what’s shown based on the time of day searched, which can be useful for businesses that are open at specific hours or for those that offer time-sensitive promotions. This way, you can make sure that your ads are only shown to people who are searching for your products or services when you’re open for business.

In conclusion, Google Ads is a powerful tool for promoting an online directory and driving traffic to your site. By using the targeting options available, you can reach a more qualified audience, get more site traffic, and increase conversions. Don’t forget to take advantage of the $100 credit offered by Google to start a new account, which can help you get started with advertising at a lower cost.

Start Your Online Directory

5. Trade Free Advertising

If paying for advertising is out of your budget, or you’d like to learn how to promote an online directory for free, bartering can be a solid option.

You’ve got a fantastic resource for offering free ads right on your directory website. In the same banner area where you can place Google Adsense ads that earn you revenue, a good directory website software will give you the power to place your own ads there as well. That way, you can sell or trade that ad space.

Here are some great trades to ask for when offering free ad space on your website. Ask for:

  • A day where you can hand out branded promotional materials at their location.
  • To be mentioned on their social media channels.
  • A link on their website to yours.

…and there are plenty of other creative ways to go about bartering.

The important piece is to remember to use the space you have available on your website to your advantage. You’ll likely be surprised how bartering leads you to new opportunities, connections, and growth for your business. Bartering isn’t exclusive to local directories, but if you’re wondering how to start a local business directory, this type of promotion can be extremely effective.

Offering free ads is a fantastic way to you leverage your community to create content for you.

6. Write Blog Posts for Other Sites

Guest blogging is a powerful tool to consider mastering when learning how to advertise an online directory. Creating good content takes a lot of focus, so the idea of writing posts to give to someone else’s website for free can seem counterintuitive at first. But truthfully, not as many business owners and entrepreneurs take advantage of guest blogging opportunities as often as they should.

Guest blogging is a great way to:

  • Get traffic to your website by getting in front of a new audience.
  • Build a strong reputation with search engines that helps you rank higher.
  • Find leads that are already visiting sites within your industry and expressing interest.
  • Gain authority by sharing your subject matter expertise.
  • Build relationships with other thought leaders in your field.

Guest blogging is not unlike “product placement” in the entertainment industry. Leads are made aware of your existence through another medium, which just happens to be someone else’s blog. It’s a popular method, with the average blogger writing 1-5 guest posts per month.

Image Source: Referral Rock

Some people find guest posting outreach daunting, but it’s actually standard practice these days. Many website owners are looking to consistently publish new content, so offering a guest post can be a welcome offer that some site owners will be happy to accept and publish your post. Just don’t forget the important of sending over a high-quality piece of content that’s helpful and not full of self-promotion so they’ll actually want to publish your piece.

Simply set up a technique to repeat for finding sites you want to guest post on and reach out to them offering a unique and relevant post just for their site.

7. Email Your Subscribers

Email marketing has an astounding ROI of 4200%. Meaning, for every $1 spent, $42 is earned. With numbers like that, it’s easy to see why email is one of the most powerful ways to drive engagement for your business.

Promoting your online directory through your email can be done in lots of ways, but here are some popular methods:

  • Send out promotional emails letting people know about timely events, exclusive content, or deals and offers (great for direct response advertising).
  • Send an informative, helpful, weekly newsletter that doesn’t sell anything so that it builds trust (to help get those promotional emails to convert).
  • Segment your list so you can send different emails with customized content to your customers vs members vs leads.
  • Promote your “Best of” contest before, during, and after it runs.
  • Create multiple drip campaigns that automatically send a series of pre-built emails. Popular drip campaigns include nurturing leads, onboarding, and recommendations.
  • Set up automated renewal reminders so listing owners are automatically notified when their listings are expiring, saving you time and money.

 

8. Provide Door Stickers to Storefront Customers

Printing and giving stickers to those listed in your directory is an exceptional marketing tactic if you’re running a local directory site. In an increasingly digital world, this tactic is a great way to get a step ahead of the competition.

Large directory websites like Yelp use this tactic often –  you’ve probably seen a Yelp sticker on the door of a local restaurant, inviting you to rate them. This is a fantastic way to market an online business directory by building awareness and driving website traffic.

Additionally, sending promotional materials is a perfect conversation starter or icebreaker for businesses that aren’t listed on your site just yet (bringing you more leads).

Get the Tools to Promote Your Online Directory

Hopefully, this post on how to market an online directory has given you some excellent and effective promotion ideas for your own project.

We know business directory advertising is no small feat. That’s why many successful directory sites use software like eDirectory to help them get there.

eDirectory is the most complete directory website builder available. It’s an easy-to-use software that offers every tool you need to build, manage, and promote a successful directory site, and plenty of extra perks. The robust feature list includes some fantastic tools to help you market your online directory like:

 

  • Beautiful Listings: Easily create professional directory listings with images, video, and coupons inside a beginner-friendly and intuitive interface.

 

    • Flexible Customization: Customize your pages to meet your project’s exact needs. Use a visual editor to build different types of category templates for every listing type imaginable.

 

  • Social Media Integration: Seamlessly integrate with the most popular social media platforms and encourage advertisers to promote their own listings with social sharing links. Plus, display your Twitter feed directly on your website in just a few clicks. 

 

    • Events Page: A stunning page to display and promote upcoming events for your directory.
    • Advertiser + Member Dashboards: Let your advertisers and members create, edit, and control their own profiles.
    • Membership Site Capabilities: Create member profiles and tap into the power of recurring payments by repeating collecting dues.

 

  • Google Maps Integration: Watch pins automatically appear on an interactive map as new listings are added.
  • Renewal Reminders: Automate your payment collection process by notifying listing owners when their expiration dates are approaching.
  • Deals and Offers: Drive business to your advertisers by letting them create their own coupons and offers, right from their listings. Activate the power of viral sharing when someone redeems an offer on Facebook and shares the deal to their feed.
  • Banner System: Sell or barter banner space in a variety of areas, with granular control over where they show up. Plus, a Google Adsense integration to further monetize your traffic through ads.
  • Online Payments: Securely accept payment over your website via PayPal or credit cards, and even set up automatic recurring payments.
  • Blog: An easy-to-use, built-in Blog Module that lets you create beautiful content to drive traffic and sales.
  • App Builder: Create your own app with no-coding knowledge directly through the site manager’s mobile application builder. Modernize your brand by going mobile and get your app to show up in Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store for extra visibility and awareness.
  • SEO Center: Control every aspect of your site’s SEO with Titles, Meta, and your own keywords. Set rules for pages, use keyword-optimized URLs, and sitemap generation.

…and so much more.

With eDirectory, you’ll have everything you need to create and grow an information-packed, interactive directory and membership website.

So don’t wait!

Sign up for an eDirectory demo today to start promoting your online directory project right away.

Join the eDirectory Facebook Group

How to Create a Directory Website in 8 Steps

Posted on

How to create a directory website: essential tips to launch a successful directory

how to create a directory websiteTo create a directory website, follow these:

  1. Choose the type of directory you will launch.
  2. Sign up for any eDirectory plan
  3. Define your Top Level and Sub-Level Categories
  4. Create your Membership Levels or Pricing Plan options
  5. Create or import your first listings
  6. Create quality content
  7. Optimize and publicize
  8. Include new features

1. Choose the type of directory you will launch.

The great thing is, a directory website can be launched for almost any industry or purpose with an opportunity for members to add all kinds of great content like videos, articles, special deals, and photo galleries. There are several ways to create a directory website that you can choose from. The most common ones are local business directories, professional service provider directories, and membership directories or association websites. To make it easier, you can start in the area that you have the most experience in or the location where you are residing. For example, if your city does not have a strong local business or tourism guide, you have a good opportunity to create an online community that generates recurring revenue. If you are a special service provider, you can create a directory for your industry, starting with you and your colleagues and ultimately making some money from your competitors while featuring your business at the same time. Or perhaps choose an interest or topic that you are passionate about and create a national or international directory website or membership community around that. There’s room for a lot of innovation with the online directory business plan.

2. Choose the technology partner for your directory software

There are several different approaches here. You can, for example, hire a developer and a web designer to build your own directory script, yet the chances are they will most likely use an inexpensive off-the-shelf product that they charge you a lot of money to maintain. Worse yet, they disappear or get a bigger job and you’re left behind with a directory solution you can’t use. Another approach is that can go with a low-cost high-maintenance option like a WordPress directory theme and WordPress directory plug-in. They still require you to have someone with technical knowledge on your payroll to maintain. Also, the difficulty to build a directory with WordPress is that WordPress was not built for directories, it was made for publishing blogs, so you’ll have to invest a lot of time patching various components together and it is not best suited to scale for a powerful directory solution. With eDirectory, you can create your professional directory website quickly and easily. The monthly plans make it affordable to start quickly with all the essential features for a successful directory website right where you need them so you can focus on the directory business plan rather than back-end maintenance.

3. Define your Top Level and Sub-Level Categories

A directory website is really just a large amount of information (business listings or member profiles) that is highly organized for visitors to search, browse, and connect. With top levels and perhaps various sub-levels of categories for visitors to search through, online directory websites allow users to find what they are looking for quickly and easily. If you need general business categories, eDirectory will provide them free of charge. You can also add them manually. 25 top-level categories with an average of 10 sub-levels for each is generally sufficient, yet with eDirectory you can go down to 5 sub-sub levels for a very granular search experience. Your members or business listing owners can also be charged to appear in more categories, which in essence creates more visibility and this impressions, and conversion. This is another great way to build a “ladder” with your pricing levels to encourage the sales of your most premium membership level, by limiting the number of categories your directory website listing owners will appear in.

4. Create your Membership Levels or Pricing Plan options

Early on the name of the game is to get people to join your online community website, so a Free membership level is highly recommended. Free members add a ton of value early on as they will contribute content (although limited), provide invaluable feedback, share their listing to their social media, and may upgrade to a paid listing down the road if you really give them some quality attention from the beginning. With setting up the remainder of your pricing levels, make sure to have the top level get everything under the sun to really encourage purchase, even do some promotional discounts on the first 100 paid sign-ups with 20-50% off, perhaps even free banner ads for a month or two. With the pricing level(s) in the middle, make sure they get enough to warrant the price they’re paying for yet to limit or restrict the most valuable directory website features, so maybe they can only add 1 special “deal” to your deals engine for example. Do some testing knowing that nothing is set in stone and that you can adapt your directory website pricing and update your directory business plan as you learn and grow.

eDirectory Facebook Group

5. Create or import your first listings

If you have a list of businesses or members to import, that’s great! With the eDirectory.com directory solution, all you need to do is use the import template and you’re ready to go. You can also add a few listings manually for businesses or members you hope will join. Start including several listings and gradually add more. You can start with a goal to include, for example, 10 listings per day. Once members join, encourage them to share their listings to social media to gain more visibility to your directory website. As your online community starts to grow and get noticed by people, they will come to you and create their own listings by themselves. Until you reach that point, you need to assert by yourself or hire someone to do it for you, if you plan to scrape a few public sites for example. In this other blog post, we shared a few other marketing ideas as well.

6. Create quality content

Publishing and curating high-quality content is an important factor to bring new and qualified visitors to your site. If you have a local directory, talk about what makes that local directory business unique and highlight its qualities. Think about what type of content would be useful to your readers and write it down, schedule based on priority, and get started with a content-creation schedule for your directory website that you are comfortable with, like 1-2 hours per week for example. You can also invite and encourage contributors and members to add content to your online community website. If you have an online directory website for specialized dentists for example, they usually will be happy to contribute valuable content to your directory solution so they can start to be seen as authority on that subject, showcase their practice, and help visitors get to know them a bit better before making the connection; all of which helps bring them more views and traffic.

7. Optimize and publicize

Once you start the process of quality content and attracting target customers, keep it going by consistently asking yourself these questions:

* How can I make my directory website so appealing that members will visit and want to join my online community and contribute content as a paying member? Take the lead!  Build a directory website you would want to join.  With our easy directory software at eDirectory, you can get started right away on adding all kinds of great content like blog posts, articles, industry or local events, even classified ads that can be used for all kinds of purposes like jobs, business opportunities, and even products to be showcased on your directory website.  

* How can I make sure that the listings have enough depth to ensure a high utilization for directory website visitors? Listings with just title and phone number are less attractive and useful than listings with photos, videos, maps, deals, classifieds, and descriptions. Invite every new member to create content, talk about their mission/vision, and share a video about themselves and what they do.

* How can I monetize my directory? Online directory websites have many ways of generating revenue, which really adds to your directory business plan. The model is so successful because once you have a large captive audience, it creates many more opportunities to generate revenue like with membership dues every month or year, leads you sell to your members, affiliate links to other ecommerce products or services, banner ads you sell to publishers and members, sponsored social media posts, donations, and you can also connect a storefront to your online directory website with the new eDirectory Storefront MOD.

* What type of content will bring more visitors? There are always opportunities for content creation with a potential to bring a lot of visitors to your website. Find out who the other players in your industry are as far as direct and indirect competitors, complimentary service providers, industry publications, forums, portals, and even social media groups. Get inspired by what works well for others and even what may NOT work well for your brand or community (sometimes it makes things a lot easier to get started when you at least know what to focus on).

 

8. Include new features

Treat every new member and newsletter subscriber early on as GOLD! Ask them what they’d like to see available to them on your site as far as any new features or functionalities. Try to truly identify what your niche can be with this as well. You will learn this by making an effort to connect and ask questions. You may be surprised by what you learn and it could create new opportunities for your online directory website. As you start to grow the directory website builder in you, you might find it useful to add a Community Forum, integrate with services like Infusionsoft or Salesforce, or perhaps connect an eDirectory storefront in the MOD Store. All these services can provide the perfect environment for growing your business.

These are a few tips to help you to create a directory website. Contact us if you have any questions and we will make sure you have a dedicated account executive to answer all your important questions before getting started.

Take a Guided Tour of eDirectory

Edirectory Free guided demo

Webinar: Agency Services to Increase Revenue

Posted on

Agency Services to Increase Revenue

When running a classifieds website or an online business directory, there are several types of services you could offer as a way to generate extra revenue. Acting like a small marketing agency or publisher, your sponsors could benefit from a professional take on areas they might be lacking, such as good photos, SEO, content creation, etc.

These are strategies especially important when you have just released your classifieds website, which can take some time to get traction and take off. These agency services are a very helpful way to generate revenue while building content and traffic.

If you are able to offer a good service experience, it is more likely that sponsors will stick to your online business directory. Be sure to know your clients and their pains, providing the solution for their business weaknesses.

And the easiest part is that you can bill these services directly inside the listing itself. Making it a smooth process with minimum friction.

In this webinar our CEO James Chubb shows how to offer agency services as a way to build additional revenue. He discusses different offerings, how to price them, and execute the services.

Agency Services to Increase Revenue

A few ideas of agency services

  • Website & Email hosting
  • Create newsletters for clients
  • Make videos and photos (food, real estate, cars, events)
  • SEO services
  • Manage paid ads such as Google ads and Facebook
  • Content writing for blogs

Useful links and tools mentioned in the webinar:

*We are not affiliated, associated, authorized, endorsed by, or in any way officially connected to the tools and sites mentioned in the webinar.

This session was recorded on June 29th, 2022.

Want more tips? Shoot us a note at .

 

eDirectory Facebook Group

eDirectory vs WordPress Directory Plugins

Posted on

eDirectory vs wordpress directory plugins

eDirectory vs WordPress Directory Plugins & Themes: what is the best solution?

As you begin to plan and research creating and building a profitable online directory-based website, you will find that there are a few options for you and may wonder – ‘what is the best solution for me?’

If you are contemplating using WordPress directory plugins and themes, there are some pros and cons to consider.

eDirectory Wedding business directory Theme

You can use WordPress for an institutional brochure-type of website, your personal blog, e-commerce, and of course, for directory-based websites such as Yellow Pages, Local Search Site, Classified Ads Portals, and more. If you are not minimum skilled in Webdesign, it can be a daunting task.

eDirectory is a platform specifically designed for building and managing directory-based websites. The skilled development team has thought through all of the details needed to build a fully-functional website. Once you sign-up for eDirectory, your new website is ready for you to configure according to your business model. No coding or design knowledge is required.

To create a good-looking and reliable directory-based website using WordPress directory plugins, there’s a lot more than just starting adding content to it.

If you are new to using WordPress, there may be a bit of a learning curve. Although getting started with WordPress has a relatively low cost as an open-source code, building on the website begins to add up and create a lot of moving parts. Many of the reliable WordPress themes are offered at a premium price – the same is to be said for plug-ins.

eDirectory VS WordPress

Here are the basic steps to creating a WordPress-powered Online Directory

Hosting

What an easy start! There are several companies out there providing low-cost hosting for WordPress websites. Pricing will vary according to the resources offered by each company/plan.

Server Configuration

Not all companies will deliver the server ready to host your project, in many cases you’ll need to do it yourself. Some important things to consider in this step:

  • Will you need Cpanel or WHM to manage the server?
  • Can you scale storage, bandwidth, and performance?
  • Is it ready for email services?
  • Can it handle safety backups?
  • How many security levels does it have to protect your data?
  • Does it provide an SSL security certificate?
  • What’s the system library version recommended?
  • What is the policy to update the library for PHP, Java, and other modules?

WordPress Installation

As an open-source simply head to their official website and with a few clicks you can download their code. Assuming you have your server already configured, there are plenty of tutorials available to guide you with this installation.

Directory Theme/Template/Plugin research

Here’s what you need to look for when choosing the right WordPress directory plugins/template/theme:

  • Is it compatible with the core version of WordPress?
  • When was the last update?
  • Is there any support or guidance?
  • Is it for Business Listing only?
  • Can you create custom fields for Listings?
  • Does it include Classifieds too?
  • Does it include Events and Recurring Events?
  • Does it come with its own Banner Ads manager?
  • Can business/members post deals and offers?
  • Does it support online recurring payments?
  • Does it automate the billing procedures?
  • Does it include a portal for the advertiser to post and manage their content?
  • How many pre-built pages come ready?
  • Is it drag-and-drop?
  • What is the page builder? Elementor, Gutenberg or Divi?
  • Can users bookmark their favorites and have a public profile?
  • Can you create discount codes and free trials?
  • Does it have a Claim This Listing feature?
  • Does it come with pre-built email templates?
  • How does it handle the Categories Tree?
  • Does it allow for subcategories?

Additional Plugins

As WordPress is just the core application, many of the basic features for directory-based websites are achieved by adding plugins developed by the community. The Plugins will vary according to the needs you already know (and some will rise along the way). Don’t forget to check on each Plugin if they are compatible with the version of WordPress and with the version of the theme – these issues can break your site. The most common WordPress Directory Plugins sites are:

  • Yoast SEO
  • Google Analytics
  • Google Tag Manager
  • Google Maps
  • Google Recaptcha
  • Payment Gateways (Paypal, Stripe, etc)
  • Contact Forms
  • Dynamic Calendar Widgets
  • Bulk Importing tool
  • Exporting tool
  • Image sliders and Carousel
  • Rating and Reviews
  • Newsletter widget
  • GDPR active consent
  • Facebook comments
  • Social Login by Facebook, Gmail, and Apple ID

Installation and Setup

Once you have the site, the theme, and the plugins installed. It’s time to activate everything and start configuring the basics to be sure the plugins won’t conflict with each other and won’t break your site.

eDirectory vs wordpress directory plugins

While you are still considering what theme to use and the collection of Plugins you’ll need to start your idea, an average eDirectory user is already working on the new site and will be launching it soon.

Top 5 reasons to consider eDirectory over WordPress Directory Plugins

1. Support

With eDirectory, you have a TEAM of over 50 techs, reps, and customer success agents to make sure you have the greatest opportunities for success – whether that means scheduling a training session or getting some help with how it all works. No need to chase down a developer or have staff on payroll for basic maintenance or consultation.

2. Product

With WordPress, you may end up with a sort of Frankenstein website with lots of controlled moving parts by various 3rd party developers that may or may not keep current with the constant security updates of an open-source platform like WordPress, meaning you could go weeks with broken items on the page with no sign of help in sight. So in the end, just to make things work, you may bog down your site and find yourself trying to piece things together with bandaids, duct tape, and hot glue.

3. Scalability

Many people launch with WordPress for the low sticker price, but once your clients start gaining traction with WordPress and eventually grow out of it, clients experience high-switching costs to a platform better suited for growth and scalability like eDirectory.com. Many clients experience extended delays and issues with migrating data, service interruptions, customer dissatisfaction from a broken site, and overall growing pains that can easily be avoided by launching with eDirectory from the get-go. So, for clients with serious revenue goals and long-term growth plans, and fewer headaches so they can focus on activities that add value rather than operational development, clients choose eDirectory.

4. Credibility

Visitors can spot a WordPress site from a mile away. There’s nothing special about a $99 theme that makes your brand look credible. With eDirectory.com, our clients LOVE the integrated app builder, all the essentials under one roof like payment processing, hosting, and member management. And your online community will appreciate all of the features you’re able to provide with our fully-integrated online directory solution to provide a one-stop shop for growing your revenue goals. When people see you have an unbranded mobile app, they know you’ve invested and are serious.

5. Growth & Custom Development

As your online community grows and you start to receive actionable feedback, you might find there are features or functionalities unique to your community that you need to keep growing and adding value to your brand. With WordPress, you may encounter the same Frankenstein scenario that makes it more difficult to keep it all together without a full-time developer at an average hourly rate of $100 per hour. We have an entire department of custom development services to add what’s most important to your expansion plans.

Wrapping up

eDirectory offers a stable, secure hosted solution so you can rest assured your investment is in good hands. With so many built-in features and functionality, the website need not get ‘bloated’ with additional plug-ins and scripts.

By choosing eDirectory as your directory platform, you can be up and running AND generate revenue quickly and easily.

To help you get started, contact an account executive to discuss your needs and ask about our onboarding plans to help you get the jump on your new venture!

Edirectory Free guided demo

Listing Templates – Get accurate with your audience

Posted on

Listing Templates are one of the most important features of online directories. The business listing is a concise online profile of your business information, including your name, address, and phone number. When a business directory has active listings, it means that the website is able to generate revenue and can grow exponentially.

Users can manage virtually every aspect of their listing templates with eDirectory, making it a versatile tool. For each category of your online directory, you can create different listing templates, which can be segmented or based on your website’s levels.

Listing templates allow you to create listings with different fields and design features even in the same niche, for example: if you operate a restaurant business directory, you can create templates for premium restaurants, fast food establishments, coffee shops, and any other business type in your industry.

In this Webinar, our marketing manager Emerson Travaglini shows how to create rich listings that give your directory a differential in an era of commoditized data. We hope you enjoy it!

Listing Templates – Get accurate with your audience

This session was recorded on July, 27th 2022.

request a Demo of eDirectory

Building and Monetizing your Database

Posted on

Building and Monetizing your Database is one of the possible revenue streams for online directory owners. The listing database is the heart of your directory business.

On this Webinar with eDirectory CEO James Chubb, learn how to set goals for breadth and depth in your initial data set, and strategies on how to monetize your database.

This session took place on May 26th, 2021.

Check our webinar schedule at https://www.edirectory.com/webinars/.

Monetization Tools for Online Directories

Posted on

Monetization Tools for Online Directories

Monetization tools for online directories

Creating an online directory brings an amazing opportunity to generate a recurring revenue stream. From using the built-in payment tools that eDirectory provides, to offering links to 3rd party affiliate products and services – when it comes to monetizing your website, opportunity abounds!

This Webinar will examine some effective ways of monetizing your directory site. Offering listings and advertisements to businesses and other strategies that make your directory more visible and, more importantly, generate income.

This session took place on May 12th, 2021.

Check our webinar schedule at https://www.edirectory.com/webinars/.

Learn more about how eDirectory can help you start your new project and begin generating income. Visit our Blog for further information on everything Business Directories.