Everybody realizes how powerful web promotion is nowadays when it comes to popularizing one’s products or services. There are many tools and methods in this aspect, but directory websites play a special role here. They gather top provider names in one place for interested users (potential clients) to search through by either keyword requests or certain parameters (such as location, type of service, company rating, etc.).
Such directories are real online guides for people looking to employ service in various business categories and niches.
Business owners or CEOs or promotional managers pay a good deal of attention to such resources, with them being basically public repositories of all existing and decent market player names. That’s why having your own directory resource is a highly profitable way to cooperate with many companies and entrepreneurs. Making money with a directory website could be your most promising bet when it comes to modern eCommerce.
What is a Directory Website?
Let’s first point out the exact definition of the resources we’re talking about. Directories are basic searching engines, just like Google, that are focused on providing certain names and titles by niche. Thus, you can search for service providers operating particularly in the sector of real estate, retail and wholesale, beauty industry, CTO, restaurant business, and anything else you may need.
This is a very convenient way for users to look up potential service and product suppliers as
a) data on such websites is constantly updated and
b) it is, basically, a 24/7 available guide through pretty much all existing companies out there.
If you plan to build a directory resource of your own, focus on three major features it should have:
main search bar;
search results filtering & sorting parameters;
dedicated user cabinet.
Types of Directory Websites with Examples
Formally, we can define the following major types of directory resources:
Job directory websites
These sites provide sorted out announcement boards with relevant position openings. As a rule, the job website directory listing can be sorted as the user likes – by date, location, company rating, salary size, etc. One of the most renowned examples of such sites is the international service Indeed.
Hotel & restaurant directory websites
A quite commonly used type of resource, especially popular among tourists. These usually allow searching for hotels and restaurants by location and number of stars and store user reviews and ratings for the maximum objective positions in the listing. Yelp is a known instance.
Events directory websites
These help you stay in the know as to the major upcoming events based on their location and date. You can keep in check with concerts, exhibitions, business meetups, and other public events and buy a ticket to them through such sites. A renowned case is Eventbrite.
Local directory websites
This is kind of a virtual analog of Yellow pages in your town. All the info is attached to a certain vicinity or location, with a wide scope of contacts and addresses provided (restaurants, hotels, hospitals, schools, public organizations, etc.). A good example of a local directory website in the market is Yellowpages.
Classifieds directory websites
These are usually C2C platforms where one user can sell or give away their goods to other users. A typical classifieds resource is OLX.
Travel directory websites
Tourism constantly grows in popularity as a niche, mostly due to eCommerce and advanced capabilities involved in the related services. People always look up info online when they need to find a foreign hotel or hostel contacts to book a room. Many startuppers don’t miss the chance to launch their own travel navigating platforms. TripAdvisor is a real pioneer among such services.
Article directory websites
These are all about constantly updated and added up features on various topics – from business and politics to entertainment and global ecology to more niche themes. A really vivid example of an article directory is a well-known Forbes.
Business directory websites
Here, users can find contacts of business entrepreneurs, offline corporate headquarters, and other such data. The search results, as usual, are mostly based on location, business niche, and user rating. An example of this one – bbb.org.
Video directory websites
Perhaps, everyone in the world is familiar with Netflix right now. It collects thousands of original and provided by other studios movies and series available by subscription. This resource went a bit farther than others, however, from the technical perspective. Thus, the search here is optimized based on the AI capabilities, which provides users with utterly personalized recommendations and search results.
Review directory websites
People tend to trust the public opinion of regular users more than what targeted ads are telling them. That’s why feedback-based directories are pretty in demand among the mass consumer rows. Your role model in this aspect should be Angie’s List.
Coupons & deals directory websites
Shopaholics are fast to browse through the pages of Retailmenot and similar services to grab the hottest discounts and the most exciting special offers. These sites help people save on both online and offline shopping, and so will never go out of the spotlight.
Automotive directory websites
This is yet another highly popular niche of listing sites that help connect used car sellers and potential clients. Your resource of such kind is sure to be demanded among users as it lets them save money on affordable vehicle bargains. Cars.com is a great case here.
Contact directory websites
Last but not least, this type of listing sites allows people to find contacts of other people they are looking for if they are available online. Most of such sites are owned by the government, like bristol.ac.uk.
How do Online Directory Websites Make Money?
As a matter of fact, there are several efficient ways of how you can monetize web directories.
Paid listings
This is the most standard method of monetizing such resources that is a perfect fit for small business efforts and startups – company owners who want their establishments to be listed on your site simply pay you either a fixed price or subscription for your services.
Paid banners, featured listings, special places for listings & so on
You can claim additional payments for providing privileges, such as placing the announcements of certain companies at the top of search results or in the special promoted results section.
Advertisements, like Google Ads & such
Many websites also allow using ad banners for additional donations. Taking money for posting advertisements on your resource is one of the oldest and most common ways to profit off of your virtual space.
Extra services, like membership fees
Offer a subscription package that will cover a bunch of privileged opportunities at once – banners and advertisements, top positions, recommendations or even analytics concerning how many views and clicks a certain title gets.
Promotion news & articles
Finally, you can earn money from your directory by creating a separate block with insightful news and articles, getting paid by content marketing-focused companies and placing ads there as well. At the same time, you get a reputable status yourself if truly relevant and useful content is posted in this kind of a blog.
Example Of a Successful World-Class Directory Website
To finish our article off, we’d like to mention one of the most high-quality built and profitable directory resources out there – Tuugo – a worldwide directory platform for businesses and customers alike. It gathers tens of thousands of relevant job offers that bring together employers and potential employees from all over the world. Currently, over 40 million companies from 60 countries employ the site’s services.
Tuugo was created by the MPS company based on the Angular – a renowned framework for the website and web application development that meets all the top modern-day programming requirements.
If you wish that your own, authentic directory site becomes as popular and successful as Tuugo, turn to us! We will create a business directory website that is guaranteed to fit the nuances of your particular business niche at a reasonable cost of project implementation. Feel free to contact us!
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