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Hi everyone,
I'm wondering, - has anyone else created a directory website in their niche?
I'm building one, but wondering a few things. There are some MAJOR players
I built the "Directory of MLM and Business Opportunities" site mlmopportunitylist.com in 1998 and ran it for about 5 years.
People could list their bizop for free by completing an online form, which I manually reviewed, edited, and posted.
The only requirement was to subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Today's Network Marketer. My subscriber list was almost 5,000 people. TNM included a guest article and my article, free resource blurbs, and recommended products. There was a top and bottom paid ad slot which I charged $5 per ad.
The best thing I did was include guest articles. It reduced my workload, gave readers more content, and helped other writers reach larger audiences.
My USP is "free and low-cost" because novice and struggling business owners lack the resources to compete.
I hope this helps.
Glen
Yep. I should have said I included the URL if anyone wanted to use the Wayback Machine to look at web archive snapshots of the site.
I echo Dale here :)
What is your Unique Selling Point or Proposition?
Specialization: Focusing on a specific sub-niche or geographic area not well-covered by the major players.
Quality and Trust: To build trust, offer high-quality, verified listings and user-generated reviews.
Additional Services: Providing marketing support, SEO tips, or premium listing enhancements.
Community and Networking: Creating a community where businesses can interact, share knowledge, and collaborate.
I have also responded to your question in another thread.
Abie
"why are businesses going to list with my site and pay me, and why are customers going to want to use my site when there are others that are way more established and have whole teams behind them"
You need to figure this bit out first. You need a USP :)
My idea was because it will cover literally everything in the niche, - it's a huge niche, and have way more articles and useful information than other sites, as well as being available in at least 2 languages, - maybe more in the future, plus the fact hat I planned to donate 50% of the profits.
Thing is, I'm not sure that anyone does pay for listings, Not unless the site is getting massive traffic and it will make a difference to the business, so that might be that half of the income stream not viable. (The rest is affiliate marketing and paying for ads, again, it all comes down to massive traffic) :(
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Have you built a directory website?
Hi everyone,
I'm wondering, - has anyone else created a directory website in their niche?
I'm building one, but wondering a few things. There are some MAJOR players
I built the "Directory of MLM and Business Opportunities" site mlmopportunitylist.com in 1998 and ran it for about 5 years.
People could list their bizop for free by completing an online form, which I manually reviewed, edited, and posted.
The only requirement was to subscribe to my weekly newsletter, Today's Network Marketer. My subscriber list was almost 5,000 people. TNM included a guest article and my article, free resource blurbs, and recommended products. There was a top and bottom paid ad slot which I charged $5 per ad.
The best thing I did was include guest articles. It reduced my workload, gave readers more content, and helped other writers reach larger audiences.
My USP is "free and low-cost" because novice and struggling business owners lack the resources to compete.
I hope this helps.
Glen
Yep. I should have said I included the URL if anyone wanted to use the Wayback Machine to look at web archive snapshots of the site.
I echo Dale here :)
What is your Unique Selling Point or Proposition?
Specialization: Focusing on a specific sub-niche or geographic area not well-covered by the major players.
Quality and Trust: To build trust, offer high-quality, verified listings and user-generated reviews.
Additional Services: Providing marketing support, SEO tips, or premium listing enhancements.
Community and Networking: Creating a community where businesses can interact, share knowledge, and collaborate.
I have also responded to your question in another thread.
Abie
"why are businesses going to list with my site and pay me, and why are customers going to want to use my site when there are others that are way more established and have whole teams behind them"
You need to figure this bit out first. You need a USP :)
My idea was because it will cover literally everything in the niche, - it's a huge niche, and have way more articles and useful information than other sites, as well as being available in at least 2 languages, - maybe more in the future, plus the fact hat I planned to donate 50% of the profits.
Thing is, I'm not sure that anyone does pay for listings, Not unless the site is getting massive traffic and it will make a difference to the business, so that might be that half of the income stream not viable. (The rest is affiliate marketing and paying for ads, again, it all comes down to massive traffic) :(
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Hi all,
depsite being here a while (let's not go there..), I'm still not 'techie' at all! (I have never touched my FTP, am still trying to understand what functions.php i
Thanks to everyone for coming to my aid again, I love our wonderful WA community! I seem to have finally got the guy to understand when I replied telling him you guys said I don't need one, and he has come back to me finally agreeing if I'm not customising beyond the current scope of the theme then I don't need a child theme. :) That was hard work! Haha.
Now I only need to figure out what to do about the page speed, which in Insights comes out at like 3, 4, I think 10 was the highest! Eeek! Theme has a lot of plugins that come with it, so can't do anything about those. But it seems to load ok when I go to it in search engine, so I shall not worry.
Thanks again to all of you. x
Hi, Avecita, you don't really need a child theme unless you are making major changes to the parent theme, normally you can make changes using the Additional CSS in Customization, which will remain even if your theme is updated.
If you use Additional CSS, it is always wise to use a test site using the same theme as your published site to test any changes you make to ensure they work before making them in your published site.
Very often purchased themes come with a free version that doesn't offer support or any extras, but the stylesheet is very similar. If you let me know what theme your using and what you wish to change I'll see if it has a free version and see what changes can be made. Hope this helps, and best wishes.
Thanks Brian! I'm using ListingPro, as I wanted a directory on my site and this is touted as being by far the best. There's no free version, but I don't mind if I can get a great site with it that works for me and all the users. At the moment I don't know what I would alter. I think I'm at least a few months away from having an idea about that as I'm still trying to figure out all the normal set up (as being a 'directory' theme it has a lot of 'internal pages and payment pages and things). Thanks for your help though. I'll call on you in future about it. xx
Make changes to your child theme, because if you make changes to the parent theme when the parent theme updates, all your changes are lost and you will have to start over again. Always keep a copy of the 'CSS', 'function.php' and 'htaccess' files in case your site breaks.
Thanks Simon. Where does one save those things? There's probably a plugin I can get to pull those things, right?
Just download the file using FTP, 'File Transfer Protocol' and save to a folder on your desktop, avoid using too many plugins as they can slow your site down. You can get an FTP software program from FileZilla it is free. and if you search FTP you can find out how to use it. https://www.wired.com/2010/02/ftp_for_beginners/
why use the child theme if any changes you want to make are covered within the main theme.
unless you want to customize your themes functionality then use the main theme.
if you want to change 'how the breadcrumbs' work then that is copied to the child theme and customized there - all other files are left in the main theme.
a child theme looks to the parent theme for most of the functionality.
so unless you want to change the main features then use the main theme and see what you can do under the appearance customize menu.
i'm not suprised you are a bit blasted with this.
the main thing to remember is that this is not getting you closer to the money - if anything it is holding you back from producing content ( unless that is your niche...)
good luck
phil
Hi Phil, exactly! It's really holding me back. I just want to set it up and go, but instead I'm still fighting to get out of the starting blocks. I thought the best thing to do was always have a child theme?? I thought if you changed anything and then the theme has an update which they often do, that you lose any changes you've made unless you have an active child theme? I don't know, many WA members are always telling us we should always have and work in a child theme.
I must admit I used Divi for a long time without one and it had a few updates, but I thought theirs might just be clever, since I never lost any changes :)
I don;t why he started talking about breadcrumbs I think he was just trying to give an example of something I might want to change.
I may want to customise the functionality further down the line. I've just been under the impression that we should have child themes, and this theme automatically comes with one.
Perhaps I'd better use it so it's less complicated later down the line if I do want something special. Only thing is, - do I just upload it, or do I need to upload the 'file' and then 'make' it with all this copying he was on about?
never used one yet - if you change things like images etc under appearance customize then all that stays when the theme updates - it is when you add code to the head section or footer - but with ad inserter or headers and footers plugins you really don't need to.
so i would just install the theme - if you have a couple of site licences try it out on a test site before putting it on your main site and have a play with it to get used to it.
Thanks Phil. I'll do that for now. The good news is I do have a test site and I'm definitely playing making all changes to that one first.
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Please can someone help me to understand what this means?
Hi all,
depsite being here a while (let's not go there..), I'm still not 'techie' at all! (I have never touched my FTP, am still trying to understand what functions.php i
Thanks to everyone for coming to my aid again, I love our wonderful WA community! I seem to have finally got the guy to understand when I replied telling him you guys said I don't need one, and he has come back to me finally agreeing if I'm not customising beyond the current scope of the theme then I don't need a child theme. :) That was hard work! Haha.
Now I only need to figure out what to do about the page speed, which in Insights comes out at like 3, 4, I think 10 was the highest! Eeek! Theme has a lot of plugins that come with it, so can't do anything about those. But it seems to load ok when I go to it in search engine, so I shall not worry.
Thanks again to all of you. x
Hi, Avecita, you don't really need a child theme unless you are making major changes to the parent theme, normally you can make changes using the Additional CSS in Customization, which will remain even if your theme is updated.
If you use Additional CSS, it is always wise to use a test site using the same theme as your published site to test any changes you make to ensure they work before making them in your published site.
Very often purchased themes come with a free version that doesn't offer support or any extras, but the stylesheet is very similar. If you let me know what theme your using and what you wish to change I'll see if it has a free version and see what changes can be made. Hope this helps, and best wishes.
Thanks Brian! I'm using ListingPro, as I wanted a directory on my site and this is touted as being by far the best. There's no free version, but I don't mind if I can get a great site with it that works for me and all the users. At the moment I don't know what I would alter. I think I'm at least a few months away from having an idea about that as I'm still trying to figure out all the normal set up (as being a 'directory' theme it has a lot of 'internal pages and payment pages and things). Thanks for your help though. I'll call on you in future about it. xx
Make changes to your child theme, because if you make changes to the parent theme when the parent theme updates, all your changes are lost and you will have to start over again. Always keep a copy of the 'CSS', 'function.php' and 'htaccess' files in case your site breaks.
Thanks Simon. Where does one save those things? There's probably a plugin I can get to pull those things, right?
Just download the file using FTP, 'File Transfer Protocol' and save to a folder on your desktop, avoid using too many plugins as they can slow your site down. You can get an FTP software program from FileZilla it is free. and if you search FTP you can find out how to use it. https://www.wired.com/2010/02/ftp_for_beginners/
why use the child theme if any changes you want to make are covered within the main theme.
unless you want to customize your themes functionality then use the main theme.
if you want to change 'how the breadcrumbs' work then that is copied to the child theme and customized there - all other files are left in the main theme.
a child theme looks to the parent theme for most of the functionality.
so unless you want to change the main features then use the main theme and see what you can do under the appearance customize menu.
i'm not suprised you are a bit blasted with this.
the main thing to remember is that this is not getting you closer to the money - if anything it is holding you back from producing content ( unless that is your niche...)
good luck
phil
Hi Phil, exactly! It's really holding me back. I just want to set it up and go, but instead I'm still fighting to get out of the starting blocks. I thought the best thing to do was always have a child theme?? I thought if you changed anything and then the theme has an update which they often do, that you lose any changes you've made unless you have an active child theme? I don't know, many WA members are always telling us we should always have and work in a child theme.
I must admit I used Divi for a long time without one and it had a few updates, but I thought theirs might just be clever, since I never lost any changes :)
I don;t why he started talking about breadcrumbs I think he was just trying to give an example of something I might want to change.
I may want to customise the functionality further down the line. I've just been under the impression that we should have child themes, and this theme automatically comes with one.
Perhaps I'd better use it so it's less complicated later down the line if I do want something special. Only thing is, - do I just upload it, or do I need to upload the 'file' and then 'make' it with all this copying he was on about?
never used one yet - if you change things like images etc under appearance customize then all that stays when the theme updates - it is when you add code to the head section or footer - but with ad inserter or headers and footers plugins you really don't need to.
so i would just install the theme - if you have a couple of site licences try it out on a test site before putting it on your main site and have a play with it to get used to it.
Thanks Phil. I'll do that for now. The good news is I do have a test site and I'm definitely playing making all changes to that one first.
See more comments
Hi All,
I'd like to speak with any of you that have a directory/listings site or at least know a fair bit about them, for my new project. I'd especially like to hear fro
i use listify and listify child both pro themes,Not sure why you would have to purchase twice you can list goods and services as a category
Yes!! Thanks Catherine! I'm so pleased to hear from someone who is using a directory theme!! :D :D
By purchasing it twice I mean one for my test site. Seems with the one I'm interested in, that they only sell one licence per site.
Have you been using Listify for long, Catherine? Is your niche quite focused? I'm looking at how to best get ranked and as I'm looking to be quite diverse within my niche, I'm thinking it might be best to focus on only one type of business and only write articles about that for a while, ensure my affiliate links are only focused on that kind of business etc, then choose the next type and do the same? Did you have any problem yourself?
I agree totally I First started with restaurants.My theory was if I couldn't get people to pay me I was happy to exchange it for free meals. Once you have got the first few people on your site then you can start charging happily.
Also when I first started I put a free one page site up for the restaurants and then went round to see them and offered them a five-page service if they paid and if they didn't go for that I said okay I will do it for one free meal of the two people
I like your style! I honestly think I'll be waiting a long time for someone to pay for a listing. Originally the idea was to charge for advertising space on my site and the directory was just about helping my users find physical businesses connected with the niche, - it has taken me a looong time to realise that I might actually be better off with a directory theme with a mega blog (with all my afilliate stuff), instead of a normal affiliate site with a directory feature. It's only because I couldn't organise my info for so long I eventually realised that a directory theme will really help me with that. But I love the idea of businesses also paying me for listings, hehe, even though that isn't the primary focus. As long as this hybrid model works, I think, why not have both? :)
See more comments
Hi All,
I'd like to speak with any of you that have a directory/listings site or at least know a fair bit about them, for my new project. I'd especially like to hear fro
i use listify and listify child both pro themes,Not sure why you would have to purchase twice you can list goods and services as a category
Yes!! Thanks Catherine! I'm so pleased to hear from someone who is using a directory theme!! :D :D
By purchasing it twice I mean one for my test site. Seems with the one I'm interested in, that they only sell one licence per site.
Have you been using Listify for long, Catherine? Is your niche quite focused? I'm looking at how to best get ranked and as I'm looking to be quite diverse within my niche, I'm thinking it might be best to focus on only one type of business and only write articles about that for a while, ensure my affiliate links are only focused on that kind of business etc, then choose the next type and do the same? Did you have any problem yourself?
I agree totally I First started with restaurants.My theory was if I couldn't get people to pay me I was happy to exchange it for free meals. Once you have got the first few people on your site then you can start charging happily.
Also when I first started I put a free one page site up for the restaurants and then went round to see them and offered them a five-page service if they paid and if they didn't go for that I said okay I will do it for one free meal of the two people
I like your style! I honestly think I'll be waiting a long time for someone to pay for a listing. Originally the idea was to charge for advertising space on my site and the directory was just about helping my users find physical businesses connected with the niche, - it has taken me a looong time to realise that I might actually be better off with a directory theme with a mega blog (with all my afilliate stuff), instead of a normal affiliate site with a directory feature. It's only because I couldn't organise my info for so long I eventually realised that a directory theme will really help me with that. But I love the idea of businesses also paying me for listings, hehe, even though that isn't the primary focus. As long as this hybrid model works, I think, why not have both? :)
See more comments
Hi all,
for a (mostly) directory site, which will still have a blog (full of very helpful and engaging articles), advertising space and affiliate marketing, (and pref du
Hi Heather! You may like to read this so you could have a clearer view of what you really wanted to know. Cheers! Directory structure - can you please help on this?
Thanks Florentino. I'm not quite sure what he is getting at on that post? Something to do with how the domain name is structured and protecting the site, but I would imagine that directory themes have some protection built in when they know that members of the public will be logging in as well? Also, I believe that I don't have to enable that functionality in particular anyway? I could be responsible for all listings myself? (Lord knows I have knowledge of several hundred I could add myself). So that doesn't really answer my question of what the other functionalities are and whether a purpose-built directory theme or a plugin would be best. I'm leaning towards theme, (though I haven;t switched themes for such a long time I'm scared to do it). But I would love to hear from anyone who does have a directory site.
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Directory theme or directory plugin?
Hi all,
for a (mostly) directory site, which will still have a blog (full of very helpful and engaging articles), advertising space and affiliate marketing, (and pref du
Hi Heather! You may like to read this so you could have a clearer view of what you really wanted to know. Cheers! Directory structure - can you please help on this?
Thanks Florentino. I'm not quite sure what he is getting at on that post? Something to do with how the domain name is structured and protecting the site, but I would imagine that directory themes have some protection built in when they know that members of the public will be logging in as well? Also, I believe that I don't have to enable that functionality in particular anyway? I could be responsible for all listings myself? (Lord knows I have knowledge of several hundred I could add myself). So that doesn't really answer my question of what the other functionalities are and whether a purpose-built directory theme or a plugin would be best. I'm leaning towards theme, (though I haven;t switched themes for such a long time I'm scared to do it). But I would love to hear from anyone who does have a directory site.
See more comments
Wishing you success with your venture.