My potential business venture

[cah1234]

Hello,

I am thinking of starting a few directory websites. I will work on these in my spare time and this will not be my main income.

The idea is to offer different business sectors a free directory where they can register their business. For example, a plastering directory. Plasterers can register their details on the website for free.

I would eventually earn income from banners, links and possibly by offering premium listings.

If the idea is working I would then venture into different trades.

Please could I have your thoughts on this idea and do you believe it would be relatively simple to do?

 

[ukwebdev1984]

Hello,

I am thinking of starting a few directory websites. I will work on these in my spare time and this will not be my main income.

The idea is to offer different business sectors a free directory where they can register their business. For example, a plastering directory. Plasterers can register their details on the website for free.

I would eventually earn income from banners, links and possibly by offering premium listings.

If the idea is working I would then venture into different trades.

Please could I have your thoughts on this idea and do you believe it would be relatively simple to do?

It should be pretty simple to setup in terms of getting the website working. The are open source software you can use, maybe pay for a simple design and get people using it.

 

[JoshB92]

The problem comes in getting the traffic, and differentiating from the thousands (literally) of other directories out there. What would be your competitive advantage?

 

[Suzuki]

Hello,

I am thinking of starting a few directory websites. I will work on these in my spare time and this will not be my main income.

The idea is to offer different business sectors a free directory where they can register their business. For example, a plastering directory. Plasterers can register their details on the website for free.

I would eventually earn income from banners, links and possibly by offering premium listings.

If the idea is working I would then venture into different trades.

Please could I have your thoughts on this idea and do you believe it would be relatively simple to do?

Your idea is a complete waste of time, sorry. With Google sending out link warnings and now specifically saying low value directories are not a good idea, you're not going to get anyone to submit their sites and pay you.

This was a business model for 5-10 years ago. It would be stupid to invest any time or money in it today.

 

[LeafletsInLincs]

I can see a number of problems with the business idea...

1) Google doesn't like directory sites and any website owner that does a little research knows this.

2) It will be hard to get traffic without a large advertising budget.

3) It would take up a huge amount of your time to even find businesses that would want this or find it useful and even harder to make any money from it.

Personally I only use directory websites that have very high pagerank and only because google sees this as a ranking factor.

 

[cah1234]

Thank you for your replies. It looks as though I should focus on something different.

 

[silversurfer]

Suzuki is 100% right. It's just a waste of time. Gone are those days when people submit their sites to directories. Retired idea. Focus on something else...

 

[Mightymarcoose]

Although I don't own any, I love the directory model. If you can get authority and charge a tenner (or more) per inclusion, you could quickly make some decent money. I'd probably look at aged websites on Namejet to help boost your SEO efforts. Make sure you go .com