Solution for software and growth strategy outlined below.
I personally have never built a directory website before but there are many successful business models for niche directories that I have witnessed from other’s people’s account and stories in their pursuits.
Having done extensive research into the engineering of how something like that would operate on a technical scale, I’ve discovered that brilliant directories is a great software to achieve success with.
I joined their facebook group after researching the product in my journey of gathering as much information around the idea as possible.
Searching the group using keywords like “strategy”, “success”, “growth”, etc I was able to get a detailed personal accounts of people using the software for their online business.
As an exclusively online service, the software that you set up your business on will determine your level of success.
However, as powerful as a tool might be it is only as good as the person is at using it to it’s ptential.
There are important strategies that need to be executed in order to make your online directory website stand out on the internet more than just having the right software to do it.
Marketing strategy to attract an audience and retain membership as well as an overall value proposition that is worth paying a monthly subscription for are paramount to all else.
Case study attached below:
Here are some case studies I found that prove to be extremely valuable for this endeavor.
It’s a software called BrilliantDirectories which is what I was going to use for my own project based on seeing other people’s success with it.
The Facebook Group has a lot of amazing content around how people use the software and the strategies they used to grow their business.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/BrilliantDirectories/
Here are some great posts from someone who saw an immense success:
This is his website:
https://www.talkinghealthtech.com/
Here is a link to his profile so that you can see all of his posts inside of the group, lots of valuable information to learn from:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/160070904703747/user/678647399/
Here is a thread of people discussing how a new directory website on the internet can outcompete and become profitable against the big players like Angie’s List, Yelp, Trip Advisor, Zillow, etc
https://www.facebook.com/groups/BrilliantDirectories/permalink/560708961306604/
It’s all about the value add, here is a websites from that thread people posted that were doing really well:
https://www.approvedroofers.co.uk/
The ApprovedRoofers website is very successful because they had a strong value proposition that they could charge a membership for and developed an entire marketing strategy to promote their services.
Here is their video ad:
Apparently it generates about £3000 a week from it in his first year in:
They made another website using the template of the first one:
https://www.approvedlandscapers.co.uk/
Their case study seems very similar to what you are trying to do with multiple sister websites so that is certainly valuable to learn from.
In all cases, a directory website on it’s own will not stand out against the competition without a unique value proposition or a strong marketing strategy:
A directory cannot just exist and expect to make money. There are multiple levels of marketing that need to be done.
There are also additional ways that a directory website can generate revenue beyond just memberships.
Here are some ways we can generate revenue from this directory website:
- offer premium ad space on the site for listed businesses
- benefit of promoting your own business in premium ad spaces for free
- charge to write blog posts and articles, even offer to do videos for the right price
- sell an additional backlinking service on top of the content produced
- sell a “professional accreditation” where a business pays a hefty fee to be “reviewed” and then they achieve a higher tier membership rank
- think “ANGIES LIST CERTIFIED” or “BBB” or “ALIBABA GOLD”
- requires manual approval and review, hard to qualify for
- gives it more value and means something if it is difficult to achieve
- offer other services that those business would need to grow their online presence:
- website design
- seo
- social media
- video production
- business software
- digital ads
- graphic design
- branding
- logos
- local mailers
- flyers
- banners
- signs
- partner up with other verticals to generate affiliated revenue referring customers and user bases to each other
- accountants and lawyers have a lot of overlap, there are other professions that can overlap too
- offer to promote to your social media audience across FB, IG, Twitter, Youtube, etc
- the bigger the audience the better
- requires strong social media strategy
I’m sure there are other ideas I have not included.
Brilliant Directories software seems to be a great platform to use for this project.
The software is about $145/mo or you can get a discount with the annual at $950/year.
We have all the blueprints for success.
Now it just comes down to execution.
Data entry, web design, system automation, marketing, emails, FB Groups, advertising, video, social media, local ads, networking, upsells, and so much more.
This can grow into something huge if done right.
And I know we can do it right.
Here is what I discovered:
Glossary – capture keywords for any and every term in your industry
Marketplace – host all the products that anyone can purchase in your industry
Directory – list all the business that operate in your industry
Blog – create content around topics in your industry
Resources – valuable tools or high quality content produced for a certain persona
Video – produce consumable video content on YouTube to offer services for business
EEAT
Expertise
Experience
Authority
Trust
