Online Business Directory

[stephangrobler]

if i offer the service for free, and use the advertisement space for affiliate marketing?

What are the chances of succeeding in something like that?

[squalid]

if i offer the service for free, and use the advertisement space for affiliate marketing?

What are the chances of succeeding in something like that?

i have seen two sites in the UK that work under that basis - as already mentioned, i have also seen about 10 million fail. the ones that work are local and have been set up early in the internet age. (and they are not a full time project)

people dont look through the (two) directories - they come up in searches naturally and are a good resource. but setting it up today in the UK would be a BIG job.

so, again - where will you be targeting your directory - would it be south africa - and if so - what is the competition ? are there loads already. if there are loads- like the UK - i would say you have an uphill struggle.

[fisicx]

Stephan,

Listen to what Squalid is suggesting, setting up a directory for the purposes of making you money is doomed to failure because that is exactly what it will look like to your customers.

Create a niche or local directory with lots of useful links and supporting information and you may have a bit more luck.

But think as well about my question: do YOU use a directory to search for information? If not then why should you expect your potential customers to do so. If you do use directories, then use the experience to influence your own site.

[Birmingham]

Originally Posted by stephangrobler

What do online and offline businesses seek to see in an online business directory, paid for of course, but really cheap?

Feature wise?

some online businesses probably have good web skills and therefore know enough to want high pr pages with links to them, with no 'nofollow' rels in the links, and few other links on the page, particularly external ones. it's all about the links for those who know what they're doing. search engines will pick up the good links and send endless people to ur site - much more than the directory itself could.

for most offline businesses and even online ones with few webmaster skills - they want something that looks credible, like it's got a good brand image - plenty of links to their site seem are attractive - even if they're from search-generated pages and not actually linked in from the homepage - even if they have nofollow rels in the links (they don't know what that means!). make a huge flashy image (possibly a logo they've uploaded, or a screenshot of their homepage) - make it the size of half a page and splatter a page dedicated with details and links to their business and site (lots of these pages for each business will harm ur pr and not actually benefit them much but they don't know that!)

also make it a dead simple sign-up process - make it seem very very secure if they're paying and entering their credit card details or something - ...and to keep them coming back for more, optimise a page for their organisation's name, so when they do a google search for their organisation's name or an accronym or otherwise abbreviated version of it, ur page comes up tops and looks like it's worth the money. even better - make a few copycat directories, but with clear differences so that search engines don't consider them as too similar, thus giving the clients 3 for the price of 1 and ur directories get ranks 1,2 and 3 when they do a search for their names