Are you looking to create an online directory website but don’t know where to begin? You have come to the right place.
In this article, I will show you how you can create your own directory website. If you are a beginner and new to WordPress you can check on our WordPress Beginners guide to know about WordPress. You might have heard of many directory sites like Yelp, Facebook, eBay and many more.
Today Directory website has become one of the best online business where you can list business and services. Creating an online directory website is easy as with the right ingredients you can create a website in minutes.
You could be thinking of which platform is best suitable for creating a directory website. Well, the answer is you should be choosing the best CMS platform which is WordPress.
In this post, I will share how you can create and manage your directory website. Furthermore, I will show you how you can monetize your directory website and earn income through online business.
Introduction to a Directory website
Before, we start looking to create an online directory website you should know what is a directory website? A directory website is where you can list your services and business. You will find every information about the relevant business that you are looking for on the directory website.
Some of the best example that you can find is craigslist, facebook, Yelp and many more. You can create any type of directory website that you can event directory website, business website, job directory and many more.
As said earlier, directory websites have become one of the best online business where you can earn millions by listing services or businesses. If you are creating an online directory website then you should keep in mind that you have to choose the right platform.
Furthermore, you should choose the best hosting service for your directory website. If your site is having huge data and enough traffic then you should choose the best hosting service for your site. Moreover, there are many WordPress theme providers who provide directory WordPress themes. You should choose the right theme that suits your needs.
Finally, just having a directory theme and listing services & business doesn’t monetize your website. You should make sure that you should have the proper marketing strategy and promote your site to generate income.
There are many ways that you can do that which I will show you in this article. So, let’s start with the most important topic of your directory site which is picking the niche for your directory site.
Decide the niche
Congrats, you have decided that you are going to create an online directory website. Since you have decided to create one the most important step is what type of directory website you would be creating.
To be honest with you there are many different types of directory websites that you can create. But the right thing that you need to do is which directory website is popular in the market. If you look around your local city then you should find many niches for your directory website.
For instance, if there are many restaurants in your city then you can create a directory site where you can list restaurants. You can categorize the restaurants based on different cuisine and location.
Furthermore, you can try creating a real estate website where you can list properties. If any of the agents want to list their properties on your site you can list their properties. Moreover, you can charge them to list their properties on your site.
Now here’s the best part. If you would like to sell something on your site then you can create an eCommerce site. Just like Amazon, you can list products that you need to sell on your site and create a perfect eCommerce website. You can ask many vendors to list their products on your site as well. You can charge a commission for every sale or charge vendors to list their products on your site.
Finally, if you are looking to invest before building a directory website then there are many online tools that can help you to find the keyword on search engines. You can use Keyword Planner or Ahrefs to find the best niche for your site.
Getting a domain name and hosting
If you have decided that you would be creating a directory website then the first step that you should follow is to have a domain name. This is another most important step while creating an online directory website.
You should choose the right domain name and web hosting where your website gets hosted on the server. I would recommend going for Bluehost as it has the best hosting service and support that suits my needs. It is important to have a domain name as it provides the identity of your website. When you type in the URL the domain name that you have purchased gets redirected to your website address.
I have divided this topic into different parts to get a better idea about how and what type of domain name you can choose. You can also find some information as to what are the other hosting providers that you can choose apart from what I have recommended to you. The choice is yours which hosting is best for your website.
Where do I get a domain name?
Normally, you can choose your own domain name. There are other domain service providers that provide you better domain name at an affordable price. Earlier I have mentioned going for Bluehost as it provides both the domain and hosting service.
Moreover, if you buy their hosting service you would be getting your domain name FREE for one year. Therefore, I recommend that you choose Bluehost your hosting partner for your website.
Some of the other hosting services like GoDaddy, Siteground and Hostgator are popular for hosting WordPress websites. They also provide the domain name and hosting service at a very affordable price.
There are many domain extensions that you can choose for your domain name. Some of them include .com, .org, .net,.info and so on. You can choose any of the extensions that you like according to your site that you have created. Once you buy your domain name, you can register it with your hosting which I choose and recommend Bluehost.
Choosing the right plan & service for hosting you need
It is important to note what type of services and plan you need before purchasing the web hosting service. You don’t need to buy or spend a huge amount of services that you don’t need or plan for hosting your website. There are many services that a web hosting service provides but you should look for are simple, secure, support and low-cost hosting service.
Bluehost provides all these features and awesome services that I need. Moreover, you can choose any type of services that you need like Shared Hosting, WordPress Hosting, VPS and Dedicated hosting service. Bluehost is one of the leading web hosting services which is also recommended by WordPress if you are starting to create a website.
It is affordable, secure and provides support 24/7. It gives you assurance and guidance that your website is safe. Bluehost will also guarantee that your website gives you the best performance on any search engine. I hope I have convinced you why I have been referring Bluehost as one of your website hosting service.
Since you have given so much dedicated time and energy on creating your dream website you should feel that your website gets secured. You would be needing assurance that your website could not get into the wrong hands or gets hacked by intruders.
Choosing the right platform to create a website.
You can find many platforms for creating your online directory website. But you should choose the right platform where you can easily manage your website without any hassle. The thing is that once you are halfway down the road and the changes that you have implemented cannot get reverted back to original.
There are many platforms that you can choose like WordPress, Joomla, Wix and so on. I would recommend that you should list down the requirements as you need for your website and compare other CMS platforms. When I started creating my first blogging website I couldn’t decide as to which platform is best.
Then I have opted for WordPress which is easy to manage and create any type of website in minutes. In my coming points, I will mention why you should also choose WordPress to create your online directory website.
Is WordPress easy to use?
I have been recommending you with WordPress because this is how I created my first website and it was very easy to use. Moreover, it is FREE, YES you heard it right it is free and which is an open-source platform even for beginners for creating a website.
I would recommend you to try googling the number of websites created using WordPress. You will get amazed and surprised by the users that are using WordPress for creating their website. Furthermore, they recommend others for creating a website using WordPress. If you are new to WordPress then you can refer WordPress for Beginners.
I have mentioned the basics of how you can install and use WordPress for your site. The main reason that I recommend using WordPress is it is easy to use and one of the best CMS platforms.
Once you master WordPress you can create any type of website. You see more than 60% of the websites are built-in WordPress because of the ease of use and better content management system. Moreover, it is better than it’s other competitors like Joomla and Drupal.
Choosing the right theme for your directory Website
You have your own domain name and the hosting that I have recommended. Also, you have chosen WordPress as the CMS platform for creating a directory website. Now it’s time to take a step further.
You would be needing a perfect online directory theme for your website. But before that, the first thing to start with is checking on other niche websites. Like I said there are many directory websites in the real world you should visit their website and see what features you need for your website.
Check the functionalities, design, layouts and so on. List down all the points and start looking for the WordPress theme that suits your needs. With WordPress, you will have thousands of Free & Paid themes. Furthermore, you will have many additional plugins which you can add new features for your site.
Using plugins you can add advanced features on your site so you don’t need any developer or coding skills to add new features. You can find a theme that is flexible and adapt changes according to your needs. With a perfect WordPress theme, you can find many theme options and customization features that you can put in place on your site.
There are certain things that you should keep in mind when creating a website. Not only you but the site will get visitors from all around the world. For better user experience you need to have easy access, fast and simple options to explore your site in an easy way.
Free vs Paid Theme
Mostly, people would prefer going for Free WordPress themes as compared to paid ones. Moreover, you might be thinking I’m out of my budget and cannot take more on investing in purchasing a premium theme. But I would like to mention here that there are many WordPress theme providers who provide premium themes at a very affordable cost.
While some of the Free themes have their own limitations as compared to a paid theme. You can also check on this link here as 25+ WordPress plugins that you need for your WordPress site. Once you have purchased the hosting and domain name you would find an option on how you can install the purchased theme on your WordPress site.
Most of the steps are easy either you can install the theme using hosting server cPanel or using the FTP server. Now, you have purchased the domain name, hosting and installed WordPress. Additionally, you need to install the theme and necessary plugins for your site.
Not entirely done you need to make changes as the theme site title, the logo needs to be changes and color that suits your jobs portal website.
Customizing your Directory website
When I say that we are not entirely done is because of the above options that need change. When you buy a theme you will install with the demo content data like sample posts, default logo, footer credits, and many things.
You need to adjust according to your needs by changing all the default settings and options. Many theme providers provide settings or options to change this on the customizer options. You can change these settings on the backend of your site Appearance >> Customize section.
You can change the Site Title and Tagline as per your needs. Once you change that you can change the color of your website since you don’t want to show the directory site the same as the one sold by the theme providers.
You can add your listings or services from the WordPress admin dashboard so that your site cannot be shown blank when any user visits your website. You can add categories and use widgets as per your needs and create a fully responsive online directory website.
Bonus Points
Monetizing your WordPress website.
With the online directory website, there are many options on how you can monetize and make money. Since nowadays all the theme providers one or the other way provide you with the option to make money using your directory WordPress site.
Frontend submission: There are many themes where you can set up frontend submission and you can charge other individuals to submit their listings to get featured on your site. You can charge users according to the price packages that you have set up on the backend of your site. Also, there are options on how you need to take payments from the users. You can use different payment gateways to collect payments from users.
Showing Ad Banners: This is one of the simplest methods which you can use to get paid by displaying advertisement banners on your site. One of the best ways is to use Google Adsense on your site.
Some of the businesses need to market and promote their business so they can either put their ad banners and provide a link to their website and get paid. You can use the Text widget to put on the banner ads and add the custom code to display banner images.
Maintaining and Promoting your website
Share your website on Social Media: One of the easiest ways that you can promote your website is by sharing your site on social media. Today, social media has become of the major tools for promoting any business and increase traffic on your site. This requires no cost and no effort you can simply share your content on social media like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
Maintaining Blogs: Since the theme has been created using WordPress then you can also take advantage of maintaining blog posts and provide news/blogs for your subscribers. This can also be used to increase traffic on your site by publishing relevant content and post on your site.
Conclusion
So, here it is how you can create an online directory website in 30,45,60 minutes. I don’t know the exact number but if you are a beginner in WordPress then it won’t take you more than 60 minutes to create your own directory website.
As a beginner, you would be much satisfied with the features and functionalities that the theme providers to the theme. But if you are a developer then I would not say it would take 10 minutes but they always think of adding new features and functionalities and customize the theme and take its limits to its core.
I would love to hear from you: Have you created your online directory website? Which theme you have used and why?
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