Can someone clue me in on the local directory thing?

Personally I'd be inclined to get a small business willing to pay you to help them with their internet marketing then just create a website for them that ranks high for the local keyword phrases that suggest someone is looking for their product or service.

That way you know you're going to get paid BEFORE you do any work.

In fact you should take 50% in advance before you start so you actually do get paid before you do any work.

Now if you want to launch out into creating local directories there is value in that and if you're choosing your keyword phrases well almost any content (even content that just describes the services a business offers) will rank high on Google for a long tail local keyword phrase.

It also helps if your domain matches the local area in some way so it combines easily with those local keyword phrases (although some people are doing well even without having a location matching domain).

At present a high percentage of local search terms are not very competitive. Some don't have any relevant content at all so the market is wide open.

If you want to get paid though you really should focus your efforts on how you're going to get local business owners to pay you for listings or for helping them with their internet marketing.

That's where the money is made.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

As far as directories/portals go the options are wide open.

Some people are creating a generic directory for their town, and populating each niche(ie dentists, accountants, auto sales etc) with free listings that include a business name, address and phone number.

On that same page they will try to get someone to go for paid advertising, which could include only a banner(instead of just text) and/or a page on the website about their business. The goal here is to help promote those with websites by driving traffic to their site by your site being ranked better and higher, OR for those without sites to create a mini site on your portal for them. This could also lead to you offering to create a site for them as well as other services.

You can also create what I call niche portals which focus on a niche, not a broad range of businesses. This also works but you are limited by income because you obviously don't want to have more than one of a business. Example, snow removal. You want to be able to help a company get more sales by their site or service showing up on your site in the rankings for their keyphrase. What happens when you have more than one snow removal company? You can't get all of them on page one.. well you could...but someone has to be first and then the others will get pissed.

There are so many different ways to attack this niche, and all can be profitable if approached correctly.

I do agree with Andrew that there is more money is offering web services than in portals, but it all depends on your limitations(ie: fear of selling face to face, skill set etc)

As far as content goes, you can still approach things like you were article marketing if you like, but it depends on your directory goal. If your directory is just going to be ablut "snow removal" and want companies to advertise, then yeah, articles and content would be good. However, I think you would be limiting your income potential this way, as opposed to using your site to create content based around the actual snow removal company.

Probably doesn't make too much sense, but hopefully you get the idea.

Keith

Actually, neither of the above. I was really just looking to get some insight into how people were approaching these things. There's a bunch of great info in this thread and I really appreciate everyone's help.

I do have a potential client that fell into my lap. They are going to want to rank well in localized searches (probably the city level), and I haven't ever concentrated on that kind of thing so any and all information is useful.