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How to comply with the European General Data Protection Act (GDPR)

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The General Data Protection Act (GDPR) is considered to be the most significant piece of European data protection legislation to be introduced in the European Union (EU) in 20 years and will replace the 1995 Data Protection Directive. The GDPR enhances EU individuals’ privacy rights and places significantly enhanced obligations on organizations handling data.

The new regulation goes into effect on May 25, 2018.

The GDPR regulates the processing of a data subject’s personal data in the European Union including its collection, storage and transfer or use. The GDPR gives data subjects more rights and control over their data by regulating how you should handle and store any personal data they collect.

Every website that collects, stores and handle European citizen’s data will have to comply. But what does that mean?

Basically, you’ll have to update your privacy policy and place a cookie consent disclaimer in your website.

How to (re)write my Privacy Policy?

As every online directory is unique, there’s not a standard template to copy. Besides the information you already have there, the privacy notice should address the following to sufficiently inform the data subject:

  • Who is collecting the data?
  • What data is being collected?
  • What is the legal basis for processing the data?
  • Will the data be shared with any third parties?
  • How will the information be used?
  • How long will the data be stored for?
  • What rights does the data subject have?
  • How can the data subject raise a complaint?

The best tools we find to help our users are Terms Feed and Iubenda. The final text will depend on how many tools you have installed in your site like Google Analytics, CRMs, Facebook Pixels, Hotjar, LiveChat, etc.

 Data Controller and Data Processor

One thing that you have to highlight in your new Privacy Policy is who handles data.

A Data Controller represents the entity that determines the purposes, conditions and means of the processing of personal data: the Directory owner (you)

If you host your online directory with us so we are the Data Processor. If you host anywhere else, your or the hosting provider is your Data Processor.

Be sure to use the right Data Processor when updating your Privacy Policy.

 How to place a cookie consent disclaimer in my online directory?

One way is to use paid tools like OneTrust.com, Cookiebot.com and others. But there are open source options like Cookie Consent by Insites and Silktide. Just place their scripts using Google Tag Manager.

To learn how to install the Cookie Consent Disclaimer by Insites, read this article here.

Alternatively, you can embed one of the numerous 3rd party widgets, or if you have the owned license you can develop custom code.

Contact eDirectory support at support.edirectory.com if you have questions or problems.

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*We take great care in providing information to you, but please be aware of the fact that this blog post can not be considered a substitute for professional legal advice.

5 ways to Monetize your Online Directory Website

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Photo credit: free pictures of money via Visualhunt / CC BY

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!

Here are a few ideas of how to get started making money with your website:

Paid Listings on Your Directory

Directory owners can easily create their own plans and pricing for listings across their directory. Use eDirectory’s powerful built-in tools to create up to 4 different listing levels. From simple text listings that can be offered inexpensively, to offering showcase listings which are premium listings designed to be an SEO-friendly micro-site featuring details of the business, image gallery, video, lead capture forms and more. These showcase listing can be priced at a premium based on the size of your audience, niche market and location.

Offer fully-managed or self-service advertising and make it easy for interested advertisers to sign up on your website. eDirectory’s platform tools make this easy to set up and display on your website.

See Pricing Listings, Banners and More for a Directory Site

paid listing directory website

Paid Banner Advertising and Sponsorship

Banner ad space on a popular website can be sold as prime real estate at a premium rate.  eDirectory’s full-featured banner system allows site managers to easily offer self-service banner ad sales as well as fully managed accounts. Display banners on a home page are of high value or select categories, modules (events, articles…) or locations. Enhance your banner advertising functionality with the Geo-Targeted Banner Ad modification tool from the Mod Store and which will add even more value and put location-specific advertisements in front of your site visitors

directory website advertising

Sell Leads

What’s more valuable that a hot lead? Selling leads may take a bit more work but the pay-off is worth it especially for high-traffic, niche directory websites. By creating general lead capture forms on your website as well as lead capture forms on premium listings, interested visitors can request more information or request a quote.  In turn, the site manager can then offer to sell per lead or offer a subscription to a lead generation pool.

Monetize with Google Adsense

You want to monetize your website with Google Adsense to increase the bottom line for your directory website.  Google Adsense uses search technology to place ads on websites based on keywords and content of the website.  This can be a great way to produce extra income as the ads displayed will be very relevant to your visitors and Google will be sure to display the highest paying ads.

Google makes the process quite simple – once you sign up for a free Google Adsense account, you will complete the forms and be supplied with some HTML code to add to their websites.

directory website revenue

Affiliate Offers

Marketing with affiliate offers is a very effective way to monetize your website traffic. It allows you to present your visitors with relevant offers for products or services that they are likely to be interested in. For instance, if you have a niche directory website about skiing, find an affiliate offer that would be of interest to your visitors, such as air travel (think Expedia…) hotels and lodging, skis and snowboards or skiwear.

How this works – you would place a supplied banner or text link on your website that contained your affiliate link and directed the visitor to the offer. If they sign up for the offer, you’d earn an affiliate referral payment or commission.

Check with your current preferred vendors or partners to see if they offer an affiliate program. To research additional options, please see the large affiliate providers such as Share-a-sale.com, CJ.com (Commission Junction), Rakuten LinkShare, AvantLink or Amazon Associates.

Social Media Mentions

If you have worked hard to build a huge following on social media – why not capitalize on that and offer your advertisers a way to ride your coattails.  You can price out what you would charge your advertisers and sponsors to post messages promoting their products, services or specials at a premium price!

Content is still king.  To add value to your website and to increase your monetization options, be sure to create great quality content that will drive traffic and lead visitors to your website… and keep them coming back!