How much you need to Invest to create a Quality Web Directory
Starting a Web Directory is still a good money maker even if many webmaster think that the directory business is not profitable anymore. Basically they think this way because they created a directory and did not succeed in making it unique and popular. At the beginning, running a directory could be frustrating because you won’t […]
Starting a Web Directory is still a good money maker even if many webmaster think that the directory business is not profitable anymore. Basically they think this way because they created a directory and did not succeed in making it unique and popular. At the beginning, running a directory could be frustrating because you won’t sell any links even if you spend a lot of money in it’s promotion. On the other hand, once your directory is popular, it could become the big earner in your website portfolio.
Let’s skip to the main question of this article (the earnings of a web directory, will be discussed in another post): how much money do I need to invest to create a quality web directory?
Many people create a directory network instead of creating one single web directory. The benefit of a directory network is that you can create a lot of directories that look the same, and offer a submission to all these for a cheap price. Also in this case, you will need to promote only one of them and than link all your directories from the promoted one. A directory network can bring quite good money, but it will never beat the earnings of one single professional quality directory.
In my opinion it’s always better to focus on one single directory and try to make it as unique and popular as possible. Here is a list of what I’ve spent to create the Linkrain Web Directory:
- 10$ for a domain name at Godaddy
- 75$ for a directory script ( PHP Link Directory) with full rights
- 100$ for a Deeplink Mod (a modification which allows users to submit also inner pages of their site and not only the main page). This mod can also be installed on your own if you are a good PHP coder or if you have already some experience with the “php link directory” script.
- 400$ for a custom template (which is not online yet) and a logo. Also this can be done by yourself if you already have some experience with “php link directory” templates and if you are good in designing with Photoshop.
- 1.000$ in promotion. I don’t really know how much I’ve spend in promotion yet, but with 1.000$ you can get some really good results. At the beginning you should not spend them in Adwords but only in permanent links, blog posts and some cheap monthly links. Once you have an established directory, you could also start to sponsor Wordpress themes (or other kind of templates) and to spend some money in a Pay Per Click advertising service such as Google Adwords.
TOTAL: 1.585$
If you think that this is a lot of money to start only a web directory, wait to see how much you can earn with a 6 months old and well promoted one (article that I’m going to write soon). If you are to lazy to come back, subscribe to the full RSS Feed.
