How can I make a directory more interactive?

Why would you do that? Unless you have a budget to beat Google then directors are pretty useless.

I guess the most common imaged attached to the word directory on the mecca of the work from home/make money online movement is a site that is mostly a place where people simply post company details to spam the serps and try to rank.

Any site that is attempting to grow a loyal and growing online community of engaged users that become frequent visitors has to be more of a web app then anything.

The user-dashboard, and it's features and benefits, becomes the main draw.

You could buy a dashboard like this few less than 30 dollars, already comes with lots of elements that will keep users engaged.

Designing Media Works | Item : Apricot

You need to come up with features and benefits that are useful to users and businesses.

Right now, by saying you're dusting down an niche biz model, you would only be wasting your time attempting it. Because the idea of what you think one is, is obsolete.

Spam directories only ever reached some success by pure fluke and loop-holes in google.

You simply can't launch a major online community with the wrong mindset of it being a biz model.

It's a proper business and web users are well to savvy to join some outdated geocities type site when there are so many innovative and engaging sites.

Study that dashboard. Seeking out thriving directories online who have got with the times. They'll all have dashboard, reviews, points systems to encourage reviewers and 'local experts', offers.

You need to build on that. Create different features for business accounts, and have a free account they can join to begin with. Tell them they about all the social features, how they can be followed, follow others, share different media, becoming an authority.

Create upsells, etc.

Have a launch where you focus on getting businesses on board and listed before you open officially to users. Then have email templates ready and leverage the businesses' you've signed up email lists to grow a user base who can join the site and see that it's already filled with good info, has great features for them, and someone worth frequenting to mix with like minded people.

Just have something interesting, useful, unique and that both business and users want, and be in it full time for the long term, or forget.

I remember when I first found this place, or even before that, when I first fell victim to ads on the line about making $500 a day from home and all that, years back.

People were making easy money back then because people's sophistications levels of the whole online thing were at their lowest point.

You can't build anything lasting and that will generate profitable and consistent ad revenue without really being serious and business minded about it today, no matter what the course sellers claim.

Totally agree, and I still think a niche specific directory can work.


Posted from Warriorforum.com App for Android

Well...in the dawn of the internet...we had user groups and bulletin boards to exchange info - just running a computer you needed help LOL....as Steve Jobs said (paraphrase) "You don't need a user group for a toaster, in the future you won't need user groups" ...well the future is now....we do not need user groups

As it progressed...to windows, then to Windows 95 - with this graphic interface there were more things to see and do - compuserve...prodigy...america online.....then more and more websites - the dot com, net and org....in 1999 average people could buy domains for ? I think it was $150>? A flood of "site builders" came out..."free websites".....on tripod and homestead.....wheee

Now we not only had forums for how to run our computer, how to install software, troubleshoot..now we had forums to figure out html...and..forums to figure out how to find these wonderous sites

For awhile searching was hard...I ..and many others I guess..bought my own "spider">> a program that you input search parameters, boolean search and you could save your searches and favorites

cause you see ...when you typed in "transmissions" or "nail salon" you would get national transmission company and a nail polish manufacturer LOL....it was very hit or miss..those who could "game" the search engines were getting their stuff out there...but it might not be local

Things got very complicated when there were tons and tons of search engines coming out....tons ...
askjeeves....dogpile (was actually cool)...and so many others....all with varying results

Link farms were set up - to put your tripod site out there LOL...tons of links..nothing but links

and....the directories were born...people who were good at searching set up a little directory site...so that you could find a hair salon in Hollywood florida not Hollywood california....and people liked this...
relevant searches....local stuff....now whee...coupons...yay

some of these directories stand today...are national and are "citation" sites for what it is worth
some people still use - menuism for menus...opentable for reservations etc
Some allowed the average joe to "review" - Yelp and are huge today

and many many went by the wayside cause Steve Jobs was right...you dont need a user group for a toaster or a microwave and you do not need a directory when you have google

Google changed everything

I agree with Underground in that you would have to have an original and high end idea and then you would need a lot of backing....the days of build it and they will come have long past.

The only way I could see it working is if you did it very high end...or if you did it very coupon/deal oriented. ....and even then this is not easy. So many have come and gone that I think biz owners are jaded and resistant to them.

Hey Zoro...good to see you ..what's shakin'?

Thanks for the detailed responses. I have to go back to the drawing board so I can think of how I can make this work. I got the idea of this specific niche directory from a recent webinar but I wanted to expand this idea a bit more since it appears to "work" on paper but I will have to see.

Well then we had the guy here begging for help - with his florida directory..

it was so generic...and copy paste reviews...and the fact is I took one look for my own area and I saw he was listing out of biz, or not nice restaurants..he obviously did not know the area..
he would have had tourists take a long cab ride to a strip mall dingy pizza restaurant in an area that is not great at night LOL>> he had listed a retiree's local golf course, municipal owned, way out in the suburbs..hardly where a tourist would golf...it was a joke

you would have to know about what you were writing or get people t guest blog and review

I stated before you might get local aspirng review writers or foodies or whatever -you would need content

it also seems a lot of work to put it together before you start out - as I did state - you need some investment, time, money both....no more "build it and they will come" IMHO

Yeah, what Freebie said about big investment and backing is so true for proper sites today.

Forget doing this 'Warrior Style'. Any web app type start up that gets anywhere usually has raised venture capital, already had their own investors like the big corporate ones, or ran crowd funding campaigns and had $50,000 or above to invest. Development, apps, web presence, pr, social media, support, content creation, marketing, sales, customer care. They're not cheap. And one person can't do them all.

If your idea is ever going to work, then a crowdfunding campaign, when done to best practises like Indiegogo teach, will tell you if your idea has legs.


I sometimes allow myself moments of weakness to look at webinars and training in the IM space, and risk subjecting myself to the cringey, skin-crawling feeling I get when listening or reading most of them, since I can basically finish of the next sentence for them, so formulaic and disingenuous are they, and such a massive insult to intelligence the claims and the hyperbole.

Yesterday, after this thread I checked out a webinar about this model, with Syd, Brian and someone else. If your referring to that, OP, you know who they are as I can't remember their surnames.

I skimmed through and heard the bit about how they differentiate. Only allowing one business in the category to get a listing so they're not competing, and thought OK, at least these guys know you need to differentiate on the older model.

But then started seeing the same idealized, 'could happen' figures of finding just 12 business who wanted to be listed in the directory and charging them $499 a month, and then making other directories and doing the same, and getting yourself a nice 6 figure income, I got that horrible feeling again when I encounter people who are either sociopathic fraudsters or absolutely delusional masquerading as experts and gurus selling junk via mental and emotional manipulation of the gullible and naive.

Find hyper-local areas of less than 70,000 people was their suggest as basis for what to look for.Those communities for a start ain't big enough to attract advertisers. Because you'd be lucky get 0.00001 of that figure just plonking a site up and doing basic promo activity for a while, that got a few 1-time-only visitors and early-adopters who jumped in, filled in a profile and never came back. Plus, what visitor is going to return to directory site with one listing in that category. People using the yellow pages model to find businesses want choice, not an paid advertising placement.

I saw the theme they had. It's just a standard listing theme, wp, that looks ok, but that not enough. A community site needs to be alive with constant activity and new content daily.

No-one uses them these days to find businesses, unless they have really done everything right, so unless you get them ranking for keywords it's not worth it.

It's just an immediately absurd proposition to anyone who knows about this area and has researched it with serious intent from the very first sentence, as soon as they started trying to build their case. And it continues to become even more so as they go on, but to people who don't know there area, they've been lead right down the garden path at that point and are sold on how easy it seems to get just 12 people at $499.

Ask anyone of them to see their sites where they have even 2 people paying on a regular basis, and you won't get to see one, because they don't exist..

It's the exact same webinar some guy call Luther was doing. I checked out a site they used in the webinar and it was dead a few months later and not renewed.

Forget launching a business on the back of some course that sounds good by an IM'er.

This place is about tapping into the deep emotions and psychological triggers people have to be desire to make money and escape their current situation so people buy their shit. Not providing real training on businesses, with the rare exceptions.

There are legions of people just stuck in a docile, unthinking, trance-like state in the IM world expecting the next course to 'be the one' and refusing to take responsibility. People need to snap out if and get real. Get back to real life. Learn from proper sources and experts and take responsibility for themselves and their learning. Forget the Tony Robbins cult of positivity here that accounts for why so many people continually suspend rationality and believe childish, infantile make-believe claims.

If you studied that dashboard I showed you, all its features and capabilities and applied some creative thinking, and even just found real world sites to replicate, you could build something bigger than just a directory, something that could grow an online community.

But it takes skill, hardwork, creative thinking, commitment, sacrifice and money.

I came across this site today: https://deals.thenextweb.com/

They're following a proven model. By proven, that means in the real world, quantifiably to the tune of billions. e.i., there is clear consumer demand there. A existing, profitable market to be tapped into. But it needs to be done right and professionally.

I recognized the brand from somewhere else. It started as a tech blog years back and built a community, but have added more strings to their bow. Deal sites and Udemy style educational programs

You have be flexible in terms of what you offer. And don't have to solely be one strict category of site. The big web brands usually have lots of branches and sub-domain these days.

Warrior style thinking looks truly demented and absurd when held up to the light of the real, factual world beyond it. The competition out there has just got its shit together and if you want a site that generates serious passive revenues from advertisers, that means you need a large audience of frequent, targeted visitors where you have something exceptional and worth making a staple.

A directory, in the sense of a site whose main utility is to list contact details and act like a business search engine, is now at best, an important ancillary function but shouldn't be the main function of a site in isolation. Many top sites have them, Moz.com, Twitter, Peopleperhour, so they're useful, but don't define or restrict the brand.

The sites who do still specialize in the directory model are just to big and powerful or exceptional to try to compete with without giant resources.

Yeah, never let people discourage you from chasing a lost cause, non-starter, dead as door nail, obselete business model. There's just haters trying to piss on your parade. Feels much better to listen to the people who will you fill up with the most ridiculous nonsense.

Hey Zoro congrats on the site rental - good for YOU