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How do I expand my niche directory?

by iPete
3 replies
Hi everyone,

My niche directory website, Good Cafe Guide, is a UK directory for cafes and coffee shops. I'm a web developer by day and this has been my hobby for the last couple of years, tweaking the design and features after work. With my passion for coffee and cafes, I've really enjoyed creating the site, especially seeing how the design has evolved over time, however the site is still in its infancy and I could do with another set of eyes as I don't have experience in the marketing/business side of things. If anyone has a spare few minutes it would be hugely appreciated.

Currently there are two types of listings, free and premium. I've tried to make the premium listing as attractive as possible, including many features to entice cafes into upgrading, menu uploader, special offers, opening times, social plugins and more.

I offer a months free trial using a premium listing then after that they can decide if would like to continue. The price of the premium listing is £49.99/yr based on the site being new and quite sparsely populated. I've been going round in circles with pricing!

I own the both the .com and .co.uk domain names and my aim is to make Good Cafe Guide the brand which people look to when looking for a good cafe, similar to the Good Pub Guide, here in the UK.

Now that I have got the site to a point where I can step back and look at how it could be improved, I ask and invite any fellow Warriors to look over my site and see if they can spot any obvious flaws in my site, pricing structure, or any ways you think could help make the site grow.

Thank you so much for reading, if you got this far

iPete
#directory #expand #niche
  • Profile picture of the author Jeffery
    It looks great and contains the necessary information people would want. I would suggest that you add two more features: discounts and scheduled meetings.

    Once I added those features for similar sites for offline businesses the sites earned very well.

    Discount example. Since a lot of people patronize the same cafes due to location, yet sometimes visit other cafes for different reasons (break in the monotony, meetings with associates, etc.) a weekly or monthly discount card can be sold directly from your site or within the establishment with your affiliate ID.

    Scheduled Meetings example. Local businesses often use cafes for short meetings. Tourist companies close to popular tourist locations as well. Create an online reservation system for x number of seats during heavy traffic season and events. The cafes will love you for all the new and scheduled business.

    About .com and .co.uk. Search engine wise the only good and bad about a .co.uk is Google. Late last year they penalized a lot of low quality sites in the Uk that promoted products with brand names. You don't want to fall into that trap, so do a little research about it, but don't confuse the brand name of the cafe you promote with the product's brand name.

    Jeffery 100% :-)
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  • Profile picture of the author iPete
    Hi Jeffery,

    Thanks for the feedback, two really great ideas. They have been added to my list of new features

    I'll do some reading about the domain issues, thanks for the tip.

    Most of the signups so far has been manually contacted online via Twitter as most have Twitter accounts they post regularly to regarding the day's menu etc. I found this works but it is quite time consuming so I'm on the look-out for a faster approach.

    I've got window stickers for premium cafes or for cafes who receive 25 'Love it!' ratings, which will hopefully get the brand out there.

    I'm not interested in getting rich quick, I just want to point the site in right direction and build it up.


    Thanks again.

    Pete
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  • Profile picture of the author iPete
    Any other suggestions would also be much appreciated. Thanks.

    Pete
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