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How do directories-based businesses work?
I see @marc has been building Vision.directory and @jasonleow has ListsKit, and NomadList by @levelsio is obvious a directory...
I'm curious how these directory businesses work. My brain just couldn't understand no matter how I try to work it out. So I'm hoping some folks here would share insights, because I'm definitely missing some data points.
Questions I have:
I'm curious how these directory businesses work. My brain just couldn't understand no matter how I try to work it out. So I'm hoping some folks here would share insights, because I'm definitely missing some data points.
Questions I have:
- How do these directory business work?
- What are the selling points of these directory sites?
- Why would people even begin using them?
- Where do you marketing these sites?
- How do they make money?
Thanks in advance for helping a noob out on this one!
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If it helps you help me sort this out, I can write about my current thoughts on directories, but it might bloat the question so I refrained from it. So please let me know if I should write them out here.
List kit is a product to build directories
NomadList charges a membership fee
Vision Directory I believe atm is simply about building traffic to it, eventually I would see the play as allowing apps to pay for placement (i.e. sponsored apps)
Selling points: aggregation -- people are attracted to them because they want information in 1 place.
To add to this. If a directory website has a lot of users. There are companies that pay to post premium ads on these websites.
I suspect this would require an “advertise” page plus sufficient users for such an expense. Though, how many users will be sufficient for doing these premium ads, if any, just as a gauge?
I'm not sure about the amount of users. But maybe check some inspiration at remoteok.com/hire-remotely how the page is set up and what information it asks from a customer.
Also checkout jobboardsearch.com/ that has premium sponsored ad slots
Aggregation is interesting, I never thought about it that way. That gives me something interesting to try - like when I’m searching for stuff, I might as well try throwing up a directory or something 😂
I think that is exactly why people start them haha, spot on
It depends on your niche. Some directories make money by selling sponsorships to brands, some by membership, some from ads sense.
Selling point is usually info aggregation where the info is usually hard to gather or make sense. So it can be in any industry or niche.
People come to you searching for an answer or a resource. So usually a good directory has great SEO, target high volume or niche keywords. That's marketing.
Ah, infor that is hard to gather or make sense, actually makes sense.
How do you decide whether ads or memberships or selling to brands are more suitable for which niche? They all just kinda look somewhat the same to me right now.
SEO is still the stuff I don’t really understand, it seems. I do get content marketing, but I’m not sure how a directory would lead to SEO.
Whether ads/membership/brand sponsor, it again depends on the opportunities in your market. Just got to trial and error to see which works. In general I try to get to high traffic first or high word-of-mouth either via SEO or content marketing or social media, then it becomes valuable. Then can try diff ways to monetize.
SEO for directory means optimising for keywords for your niche. What words do people use to search for the problem your directory is trying to solve. Use those. Like for Lists Kit, I'm still figuring out if the main keyword is "business directory" or "info directory".. (or listing)
That's super useful, @jasonleow. I'm curious what do you mean by high traffic — and at which point it is considered high traffic.
Do you have a process you use to figure out the keyword? Like for Lists kit, do you try them both and see which one gets a better result? And is there a specific testing timeframe before you conclude?
If both don't seem to get results, then how do you proceed? Just curious about your thought processes and the what if scenarios if you're open to share!
Re: high traffic, I dunno either. Maybe 10k impressions per month is high. But again, depends on your niche/audience. If very niche and small community, traffic is low but if you serve their needs well, maybe conversion is better. High traffic but doesn't convert is also not too beneficial.
Speaking to users is one way to find keywords. What terms do they use. It helps if you're also a user, so you can dogfood your own directory. Otherwise, ask ChatGPT to suggest some, and research on Ahrefs/SEMrush. No actually you dont need to test. Just research on Ahrefs and you'll know which keywords has more search volume and competition.
If no results, maybe speak to users, and ask why? Might need to iterate or pivot.
My first (and most successful) "directory site" is BetaList which I started in 2010.
It started off without any intent to monetize. I just wanted to provide a collection of up-and-coming startups because nothing like that existed back then.
People liked it, they signed up for the newsletter and kept coming back to the site everyday to discover new startups and apps to try.
Because I grew this captive audience of early adopters, companies started to notice and were willing to pay to get in front of those early adopters. Typical advertising model.
I didn't really market BetaList except for sending out a press release which got picked up by TechCrunch and got the ball rolling.
This type of website is really easy to start as the code is very simple (mine started out as a Tumblr blog) and the content is easy to get (just aggregate from various sources and/or ask people to submit their resource). Getting traffic (and later monetizing that) is a lot harder. As you will need to offer something that 1) enough people want, and 2) they aren't already being served. The fact that it's so simple to start a directory site means that it's hard to find opportunities that qualify. I think that's why most new directories fail.
The exception is when a new type of resource suddenly becomes relevant. Vision Directory (my most recent directory website) is such an example. When the Apple Vision Pro came out there was a sudden and unserved need. I tapped into that, got press coverage, and established the site as one of the go-to directories for Vision Pro apps. Anyone that's starting one now will have a hard time getting press coverage or mindshare, which means it's harder to get traffic, which means it's not that interesting for developers to submit their apps, which mean it's hard to monetize, etc, etc.
FWIW, I haven't monetized Vision Directory yet, because I don't think the numbers work yet (not enough people have an Apple Vision Pro and not that many apps are released), but I did start it with experience of running BetaList and knowing that as long as I'm one of the big players and get the traffic, there's a chance to monetize.
If you don't mind sharing, I'm curious about ballpark metrics on when you think Vision Directory would be able to monetize. Do you give create a specific deadline as a "trial" of sorts?
And what do you do if it doesn't hit that metric/deadline? Just leave the project hanging? Abandon it? Revisit later? etc.
I just play it by ear. No deadlines or goals. I think every project is different.
Vision Directory's growth is largely dependent on the success of Apple Vision Pro and the number of apps being developed for it. Right now, that's lower than expected. So I don't spend a ton of time on developing the site. But I keep it running in the hope that Apple Vision Pro will gain popularity and so will the site.
As for ballpark metrics, you can look at industry CPM rates. For example, if your industry has a $5 CPM that means you can charge about $5 per 1,000 ad views. So if your site has 50,000 pageviews per month, you can expect a ballpark of $250/mo in advertising revenue if you were to show one ad and have an advertiser lined up for the full month.
It's not a perfect science, especially at lower numbers, but it gives you a ballpark for advertising revenue.
For other types of revenue is really depends on your unique situation.
I think directories are cool because they can drive a lot of traffic from SEO. Also, if it's a directory of something that people built or they can do a placement, people will find you because people love free marketing and search for the things they built.
I built a fun project away back: arcade-hub.com/, and I just wanted to list games on the Apple Arcade service.
I have so many developers of games contacted asking different questions. Next, the gaming magazines started contacting me and asking if I could open API for them, which I did, so now they even send me new games to add. Traffic also grows to it constantly.
I don't work on it, but the next step would be to charge for API or game placement or charge game developers to highlight or manage their games, etc. The opportunities usually come as soon as you have traffic, and traffic is easier with directories.