Creating and managing online directories got easier with the availability of the modern directory software. It is surely one of the best ways you can make money online.
Are you too thinking about creating a local or multi-city directory of your own? Then this article intends to help you get a clear concept of how you can create your online directories and how to promote it and make the best of it.
But before anything, you need to decide the platform on which you want to create your website. With the advanced technology and the unlimited CMSs & frameworks, you have your say on what you want to use to create your eCommerce website.
However, it is very confusing to choose the right platform for your eCommerce website. Because the performance of your website solely depends on the platform you choose.
WordPress is one of the best CMS and ideal for the non-technical people to create their websites. This is because of its ease of use and various features.
Creating websites with WordPress is easier because you won’t have to manage the databases. Because Online directories are websites are nothing but information portals. So with directories, you’ve got a large amount of data to be stored and managed.
Here, WordPress proves to be one of the best platforms to create your online Directory portals because it manages all the data by itself. Therefore, you can focus on the marketing and enhancements of your directory without worrying a bit about how and where your data will be stored.
It is easy to find a suitable Directory software for your eCommerce website, but how to choose perfect host?
Directory websites are data intensive websites with lots and lots of data to be stored. Also, a directory is only useful when it is efficient enough to provide the requested data, instantly, without any delay. And therefore, the host you provide should be efficient enough.
Some directory owner uses cloud-based or CDN for faster and efficient data delivery. Using such hosting may prove to be a little more expensive than the dedicated hosting, but they are excellent for large directory websites.
While Shared hosting does not look efficient enough for data and traffic intensive directory website, you can go for a secure dedicated hosting, or WordPress optimized hosting. These hosting services allow your website to perform well even when there’s a lot of data on it and promise efficient speed.
We recommend Bluehost for your website. Read: Why bluehost is best for medium to small sized WordPress websites.
The internet has taken over and we have the platforms and CMs, that is as easy to use as a mobile application. More and more people are looking at the Internet as a way to make money. If you too are looking forward to making some bonus bucks by investing on the internet, you should think about Directory website.
Directory websites provide you with ample opportunities to make money online. Read 10 ways to monetize your Directory website. And if you are thinking about all the efforts you will need to put it, stop worrying. Thanks to the WordPress directory software, that lets you create online directories, without touching a line of code, or requiring technical expertise.
The directory software focuses on ease of use and customizability. It enables you to create and manage your own directory website in no time. And that doesn’t mean you have to compromise on the features that are provided with the directory software. You have all the flexibility to change how your website looks, turn on or off the features, implement your ideas and pricing plans and to add new features.
However, with the directory software, you are in control for your website. You can accept payments through your website with the best payment gateways. All your data is self-organized, and with the simplest options provided at your directory software’s backend lets you manage your website on your own.
Also, you can create pricing packages off and implement your own pricing policies. Directory software makes it all very easy. And furthermore, if you need assistance in setting up your website, you can use the directory website installation guide, or create a support ticket to get assistance from our technical support team.
You can create directories of almost any niche you can think of. Be it a restaurant directory, Babysitter’s directory where all the babysitters can register to get hired, a directory of racing clubs, events directories, article directories, etc.
Local directories of cities limiting to specific geographical locations. These city directories intend to help people find the locations within specific geographical locations.
For instance: Imagine a local directory for your city, that follows various categories called hospitals, Schools and education institutes, Hotels and B&Bs, Diners, and Restaurants, Tourist spots, Casinos and gaming zones, Nightclub and discs, Shopping malls, etc.
The categories can be unlimited! You can let your visitors add their listings to any of the available categories. You can even decide different prices for different categories.
Basically, these type of city directories have many categories like the ones shown in the image below:
You can have unlimited categories in your city directory. therefore, you can allow almost any kind of listing on your site.
You can use the directory software to set up a travel agent’s website or a location directory. These kinds of websites have a similar kind of listing for various categories related to different locations. The scope of such location directories can be limited to a geographical location or be spanning multiple countries.
The audience of location directories are the generally are the travelers or new visitors to a certain place. Therefore, you can use the ad spaces available in such directories to display hotels, accommodations, and diners, etc.
Another common type of popular Directory niches is an event directory. If you are anyhow related to events business and have contacts in that area, an events directory is an ideal way to earn some passive income.
Events directory can be large directories with event listings or listings related to event planners/organizers and different events. The following is an example of what kind of categories an events website can have.
If you are an event planner or an event organizer’s group, you can create your own event’s website where you can display all your events under different categories.
However, you can also create an events portal for your city, where you can allow different event organizers to register and advertise their events. The organizers can choose a relevant category and add their events to your website.
Thankfully, the eventum WordPress theme comes with all the required features to allow front end events submission, viz. registration, submission form, payment processing, and options to manage the submitted events listings.
Eventum is a WordPress directory software for creating events portal with a fully functional front end event submission system and a predesigned submission form.
The usability of an events portal is not just limited to displaying events, you can even integrate the ticket selling module. The whole feature of selling tickets and managing the ticket sales is available as a plugin that can be installed with just one click.
So the organizers or event authors can even sell tickets on your site. The visitors can register directly through your portal. This gives you an opportunity to earn more by charging the organizers a commission on their ticket sales.
You can have the ticket selling feature installed into your Directory software by using Tevolution event tickets.
..or the online marketplaces are websites where the sellers of the products can post the advertisements and the buyers can find the advertisements they are interested in.
Classified is, in fact, a very profitable niche of the directory. You can allow posting advertisements for free or make the visitors pay for it. The classifieds ad directories that allow free ad submissions can generate revenue through advertisements. And the best classifieds website with considerable traffic can charge a nominal amount for posting a classifieds advertisement on the site.
A classified website may have a massive amount of products. Therefore, it is very important to keep all the data organized by creating relevant categories.
Categories not just help to keep the website organized, but also is necessary for efficient searchability. Therefore, the users can come to your site and look for the products of relevant category only. No need to waste time on categories that you’re not interested in.
Classifieds website runs on the concept that the front end users can submit their advertisements. Therefore a detailed submission form is vital for a classifieds directory software.
The classifieds directory theme for WordPress by Templatic provides you with a customizable classifieds submission form that is ready to use.
Another popular and money making subject of a directory is job board. A WordPress job board software can be bought in a few dollars and can work as the best investment for an online business.
Running a job board site is no different from creating any other directory. Our Job board directory template comes with all the necessary features. It comes with a pre-designed form for posting jobs. Again, a job board website allows you to choose if you want to charge your users to allow job submission.
The visitors on your job board website will search the jobs based on the categories. Therefore, creating proper categories on a job board website is really important. Given below is an example of the categories for a job board website. However, you can add more categories as per your requirements.
One of the important features of a job board website is the ease of search. That’s why a filtered search feature in your job board directory software is must have.
Check out our job board website demo to see how the filtered search works. The candidates looking for job can key in their required details
Apart from a single broker’s personal website, or a brokerage company’s website, you can even create a multi-agent website where different real estate agents submit their listings.
The scope of such website is nearly as broad as that of a property portal or a real estate directory where the investors can look for the different properties. The property listings here are submitted by different agents under their(or their firm’s) name.
Property search is made easy with this directory software. However, with the directory should be search friendly. The real estate directory software from Templatic comes with an advanced search tool that allows your visitors to enter the parameters and get filtered results based on their requirements.
With the flexible Directory software, adjusting your website to your requirements is very easy. As mentioned earlier, the directory software can be used to create a website of almost any kind.
The pages are pre-designed and widgetized. All the widgets are strategically placed to maximize the usability as well as to extend user experience. Therefore, you can create listings of any kind.
You can even assign special fields for your post type. A custom taxonomy needs to have custom post type. As per our example, if you create a taxonomy called idioms, then you will need to have special fields for it.
The basic fields that a post type called idioms need are – Idiom phrase, meaning, use, example, history, etc. And all of these fields are clearly not available by default with any of directory software. But you can create them very easily when you are using The WordPress Directory Software by Templatic.
So this is how you can create your online directory using the Directory software, and start earning passive income. With the easy and intuitive options, you can create and manage your own website without touching a line of code.
Need technical help with your WordPress Directory website? Get help from the WordPress enthusiasts who would love to help you optimize and maintain your site.Get to know more about our WordPress technical support services.