The online directory website is one of the best profitable business. This is because it is extremely beneficial for the customer as well as the store owners. Here will discuss how to start a directory listing website.
Let’s consider an example of a hyperlocal business directory
Suppose a customer is looking for a good place for dinner, so instead of going everywhere they have to just select the local food directory and check out all the restaurant listed there.
As a directory website, there are lots of categories, it automatically helps you to improve the visibility of your website.
Suppose on your website there is a directory “Italian food in New York” then there can be lots of website listing on your directory like “Italian food“, “Best Italian Food“, “Italian food in New York“.
Therefore, your website covers a large group of keywords and this improves your website visibility in organic search.
Let’s have a look, on some successful directory website
Yellow pages:- YP.com provided the largest variety of industries. 60 million people visit YP.com every month, 91 % of whom contact a business within 24 hours.
yp.com
Yelp:- Yelp is a popular directory website for the restaurant, cafes, bars, etc. As of September 2018, the site claims 171 million reviews and 69 million monthly desktop users.
Yelp.com
How to start a directory listing website?
Here are a few steps you can follow for the directory listing website.
Select Appropriate platform
For creating a directory listing website you have to choose the platform which should be robust, scalable and offers basic functionality needed to create a directory listing website.
Nowadays, there are lots of platforms like OpenCart, Bagisto, Magento, PrestaShop, WooCommerce, etc amongst which you can make your decision.
We recommend you to create a directory website with bagisto. There are multiple reasons for select Bagisto.
- It’s free:- Bagisto is an opensource eCommerce platform built on the best php framework that is Laravel. You have to only pay for hosting services and domain. You don’t have to pay every month just to keep your website live.
- Easy Customization:- It is an opensource platform, and the most important thing with bagisto is built on Laravel. Laravel is the most popular php framework, which has elegant syntax.
- It’s easy to find help:- A community of developers, testers, Business developers provide help and support through the forum, blog, ticket System, social media, etc.
Purchase Domain
Choosing the right domain is important for branding and marketing for the website. You have to make sure while choosing a domain that will be fit for your business.
Choose Proper Web Hosting
When you have successfully created the e-commerce website you need to make it visible with web hosting services. You can select one from lots of web hosting services like AWS, Google Cloud, etc. You can even use a VPS hosting for your website.
Monetize your directory website
yelp.com
There are several ways to monetize your directory website. Let’s have look on a few strategies
- Charge for Listing:- The best way to monetize your directory website is a charge for listing. Listing can be anything like the hotel, restaurant, property, event, etc. You can charge a monthly fee per listing, this will help to create recurring revenue.
- Premium listing:- Another way to create revenue is to sell premium listing. Premium listing can include extra content, images, social media links and lots more. Listing of the site on the top of the page can also generate a higher fee.
- Paid Claims for listings:- The site which is already listed on your directory website, can be allowed to claim for the ownership of their listings on your site. Once ownership granted, they can edit their listing and can add more detail.
- Sell advertising space:- Selling advertising space can be a very effective way to monetize your directory website. Sell advertisements can be placed in n any widgetized area throughout your site.
- Hyperlocal directory website:- Create a hyper-local directory website, to increase revenue from local area customers. Hyperlocal marketing is a process where a seller specifically focuses or concentrate all his marketing effort towards a very small area that could be a neighborhood in your city for targeting their prospective customers in a particular geography.
By using Laravel Multi-Vendor Marketplace, you can easily set up your directory website. You can customise your direcory website.
That’s all about how to start the directory website, any issue please raise a ticket on bagisto.uvdesk.com
