Your Guide To Starting A Quality Directory

This is your guide to developing a quality directory.  Quality does not mean free, but it can.  That just depends on if you have the funds to develop a quality directory without getting a return to at least break even on that investment.  For more on business theory of paid vs free directories visit the article Different Types of Directories.

You can develop a directory for next to nothing, but don’t mislead yourself into thinking it will be the next DMOZ, Google or Yahoo.  If your goal is to be one of the thousands of others than this post may not be for you.  My goal in developing my directory has always and will always be making a quality resource for visitors and clients.  Doing that will take an investment of time and capital.  If you’re not prepared for that then a quality directory may not be your goal.

Develop Your Concept

The only place to begin when you start a project is to visualize where you want to be when you finish.  You need to know what you want to end up with in order to get there.  These tips hold true whether you are planning a general or niche directory.

Do a websearch for the term web directory.  There will be more results than you really want to look at, but take the time and browse through as many of them as it takes to get a clear understanding of quality directories versus those that are not.

Quality directories will have additional features to the directory other than just a bare bones website.  Some of those features include deep links, seo optimization, a built in blog, custom designed template and specialized site modifications. 

Additional signs of a quality directory is unique content via blog posts, informative and unique article posts and other useful content.  If a directory has nothing there for content other than links to other websites you can successfully make an arguement that it is just a link farm.  After all what other purpose does it then serve?

Start to pick out features that other directories have and you like.  Make a list of those features you want to have on your directory and once you have a good idea of what you want, try to develop a directory concept that will tie those features together for you.

By now you should have looked at numerous directories in research and will have found some designs that you like.  Undoubtedly there will be many more that you did not like.  Take notes on the directories you liked and what you specifically liked about the design while also taking note of those things you did not like.  Whether it is colors, layout, graphics or something else.  If it appeals or does not appeal to you write it down.

At this point you should have a list of features and a list of design elements that appeal to you in addition to a list of specific elements that you do not like.  This phase in the process alone took me well over a month, so take your time, this is the part that sets the stage for the rest of the project.

Some other good places for research are forums on directory topics.  These are good places to get ideas and in some cases advice, but be very careful on the advice you take.  You should research the topic exhaustively.  There are thousands of directories out there and the truely quality ones are hard to find.  If your getting the wrong advice it will hurt the development of your directory.

Here are a couple items that you do not want to include on a quality directory design:  Adsense, sitewide links be they sponsored or affiliate.

From this point and going forward start thinking about ways you are going to promote your directory and keep notes.  While you are researching other sites you will undoubtedly see ways that those directories are being promoted.

Domain

Hosting - The best way to go when just starting a directory is with a shared hosting account.  It is more cost effective and when your directory starts gaining the traffic needed to outgrow the shared hosting you can move your site to a dedicated server.  There are many choices for hosting services on the market.  One of the best known is GoDaddy which provides great support but has some “fetching” issues if you are going to have any features on your site that require that.  Some other options are Bluehost and Hostgator.  If you do a search for web host you will find even more.  You should decide on a host prior to registering your domain, then you can register your domain through the host.

Finding the right domain name for your new directory can seriously take some time, or no time at all.  It just depends the concept you decide on for your site and how well you want that to tie into your domain name.  I feel they are pretty tightly intertwined and at times had to toss out certain design concepts that did not tie into the domain names that were available and vice versa. 

One problem you will encounter is that most of the domain names that you think of will be taken.  You have a couple choices then.  Find another domain or try to purchase the one you want from the current owner.  I highly recommend that you start fresh with a new domain that has no baggage from the previous owner and dot coms are better than the other alternatives.

There are many theories on what words that domain should have in it.  Many believe that having the name directory in the domain name of a directory helps in obtaining good search engine results for that name.  It probably does affect it somewhat, but the overriding concern for the domain name in my mind is that it tie in well with the concept for your directory.  There are many instances of directories doing very well with unrelated domain names such as JoeAnt.

The brandable aspect of the name can be more important than having keywords actually in the url in some cases.

Decide on directory platform

When it comes to directory scripts, you have a few different ones to choose from.  The one I use and recommend is phpLD.  The script is by far the most popular with good support and an extensive amount of mods available for it.  Other scripts include Esyndicat, PhpLynx and phpLinkBid for bidding directories.

A little about the directory scripts - Whatever version you get. don’t be cheap.  Get the latest paid version without the footer links.  Nothing says the directory is of lower quality like a bunch of links to other sites in the footer.

Structure promotion

To clarify one point, site promotion and link building are not the same thing.  They are somewhat related to each other, but promotion is more of an advertising concept and link building is related to gaining search engine popularity.

Understand this - You can have the greatest product in the world, but if nobody knows about it you will never sell one.  On the other hand, you can have the worst product in the world and outsell the best just by being there.  Being there is sometimes better than being good.  Being there in addition to being good will bring you success.

Before you build it you should understand how you are going to promote it.  There are really an endless amount of ways that you can promote your new directory.  By now you should have already come across many of them.  We will cover a few and you can take if from there.

Here are just a couple examples for promoting your directory to get you started.  Participate on relevant forums and banner ads on other directory related sites.

Arrange for Programmer - find one that can continuously assist you

This part of developing your website can vary dramatically depending on you and your ability to code.  If you can’t code expect your costs in building your site to go up substantially because every programming element will have to be contracted out. 

To find a programmer that you have confidence in can take some time.  A good place to look is on forums while you are researching features, promotion and how to develop your directory.  There are some good programmers and mod developers on forums, but be careful as there are some poor ones that will take your money in return for shoddy work. 

I find that a good place to look for programming and coding assistance is the forum on the site of the actual directory script you decided to use.  For example, if you have a phpLD script head to the phpLD forum.

There are also different kinds of programmers so understand the differences.  There are those that have developed a mod and can do little else or want to do little else.  There are also those that have learned enough over time to to get by and there are coders that really know their craft. 

Programming and designing are also two entirely different things.  You may find a good programmer that has absolutely no imagination for making unique templates.  What they produce in that regard is a template that is straight out of a box with no uniqueness or artistry.  A true desinger is an artist that can code.

Now if you do know some php coding ask yourself this.  Are you good?  And I do mean good.  If you are not or unsure go find a quality progammer who will do it right.  There are no short cuts to creating quality. 

Build directory - and fine tune

Now you have found your designer and programmer or you decided you were good enough to do it yourself (good luck). 

If you are having professionals take care of the design and coding, make sure you speak with them to clearly explain to them your concept and the design your looking for.  Give them examples from your notes and be specific.  Make sure they are not just listening but participating in the conversation.  And above all talk to them.  Don’t use pm’s, emails, messengers or anything but conversation.  If they are not willing to talk to you they may not be who your looking for.

The designer should come back with a preliminary psd that you can approve or ask for tweaking.  Now is the time to let them know of problems as it is much easier to make design changes at this point.  Once you give them the ok, they will code the design for the site. 

Once your design is completed you can have the programming done to add any special features you want included.  Take note that if any of those special featues are going to need a design change it would be good for the designer to know this beforehand.

Establish editorial integrity

So now you have the directory you dreamed about.  I hope that you wanted to be an editor, because that is what you now are.  You need to establish guidelines for accepting websites in your directory and editorial guidelines on how they appear.  Nice directories can be easily ruined by substandard editorial guidelines.

Start building content and links

Your directory will need a steady diet of unique content.  So write and post articles in the directory categories and if you have a blog, post them there also.  Make them unique, informative and something that people would want to read.

When you set up categories within your directory do not use a category dump, structure customized categories so that your directory looks different than all the other ones to the search engine robots.  Plus when you build the categories do not leave them empty.  Put some useful links in them for the visitors to your site. 

If you have no content for visitors when they get to your site, why should they come at all?  There is nothing worse than hearing directory owners brag about having 20,000 categories in their directories when they only have about twenty links scattered throughout them.  In my opinion, if you felt you needed a category, there should be a site you can link to in it.  Quality is about building a resource.

You will need to build inbound links to your website.  There are several ways to do this including submissions to other directories.  If you want to have a quality directory then you should also focus on obtaining inbound links from quality directories.  You can learn more about link building in the article Benefits of Directory Submissons.

Summary

Now you’re thinking to yourself that I have not covered costs yet and you’re right.  The costs are very individualized depending on many of the factors I have covered already.  In my case I did not build the Authority Directory to get rich.  I hope that one day I may break even on what I have invested in building it, but that day is a long ways off.

At this point in the process what your directory needs is promotion and link building, so get to it and submit your directory for review.