During the end of the year, there are plenty of opportunities and chances to take advantage of. In that regard, we discussed some guidelines to prepare your website for the Holidays, keeping your eDirectory website running smoothly.
In our discussion, we talked about end-of-year promotions and how to make your planning for the year ahead. As part of the design segment, we also offered ideas for making your website more holiday-themed we have two easy-to-use professional tools to help change colors, images, and the sliders on your website.
eDirectory also offers possibilities for automation such as recurring payments, welcoming new users, sending newsletters, and more. Prepare your articles/blog posts and banner ads for your sponsors, let your directory app following the same theme too.
Find out how to balance new sales opportunities, tweak some design elements, and save time by enabling the automation features of eDirectory.
This well-loved quote is a bit of a fallacy, especially when it comes to how to market an online directory.
Because the truth is, once you’ve built a directory website, you’ll need to promote it. (Don’t worry, both building your directory project and marketing it can be easy and fun.)
Because once you learn how to market an online directory like a pro, you’ll be getting your business out in front of not just more eyes, but the right, relevant eyes.
Meaning, promoting an online directory can help get more leads.
Marketing an online directory is essential – It’s as equally important as the building phase of the project.
So, let’s dive in to how to advertise a directory site and proclaim, “If you build it, then market it, they will come.”
What Makes a Good Business Directory?
Gone are the days of waiting for a giant yellow book to be tossed onto your doorstep for you to access a decent business directory. Today, good directories are not only digital, but they also look (and work) amazing.
And while everyone’s business directory is different, there are a few key elements that many good online directories share:
A blog with relevant content to draw in more traffic.
An option for visitors to sign up for your email list so you can market to your subscribers.
High-quality, visually appealing, and organized listings that are easy to navigate.
Online payment provider integrations so you can make sales online.
A self-service sponsor area that lets advertisers create and manage their own listings, so you save time while offering them flexibility.
A banner system for directory owners to earn revenue through advertising space on your website.
SEO-optimized content to help your listings and website show up higher in search rankings.
A membership website integration to accept recurring revenue for things like exclusive members-only content.
So now that you’ve got an idea of some basics to making a business directory good, let’s see how to market an online directory (now that you know yours is great).
If you’ve already published your website, but you’re still asking yourself how to market an online directory, this post will help.
Let’s go ahead and check out the top ways to market an online directory.
1. Populate Your Listings
It’s going to be hard to sell your directory to advertisers before it’s fully developed.
Once you’ve got a directory website up, it can be tempting to start reaching out to potential sponsors immediately. But before you do that, you’ll need to build some of your directory yourself. After all, a local business directory that has no listings won’t get much attention.
It’s best practice to always show leads a fully functional, populated directory. This will help tell a story to your lead about how your directory site can help bring more visibility to their business.
So, filling it with data yourself not only makes your site look professional, but it can also bring in more traffic, which is super important. Because without website traffic, your directory has no value to someone who may be interested in paying to be listed there.
Sure, it takes a bit of elbow grease to populate listings yourself as you build your online directory, but it’s absolutely worth the time. Your content and listings are the heart of your directory site. Without them, it’s nearly impossible to achieve organic growth through search engines.
2. Use Social Media
Social media is a great platform to market an online directory. This is because no matter your niche, your target audience is definitely using social media (and they’re ready to engage with you on those platforms).
People love interacting with brands on social media. Which is awesome, because not only does it build brand awareness and bring you more website traffic, but it also develops trust while getting your directory’s name out there.
For example, hashtags are an excellent tool to help generate some quick and easy interactions and visibility. You can use hashtags on most social media channels like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Brands using hashtags see an average of a 50% increase in engagement, too.
Some examples of this could be a recipe or cooking directory asking people to post photos of what they’ve prepared with hashtag “#itswhatsfordinner”. Or a golf course directory asking players to tweet photos of their clubs and equipment with the hashtag “#inmybag”. You can then re-share these posts on your own social media (a wonderful source of user-generated content). Plus, to make the most of these hashtagged posts, eDirectory lets you connect your Twitter feed to your directory website and automatically display your feed to your website visitors.
Don’t forget the power of advertising your sales, contests, and promotions via your social media channels too. People who follow you are ready and willing to hear what’s going on with your brand, so tap into that.
3. Run a “Best of” Contest
Another popular way to market an online directory is to hold a contest that asks people to vote on their favorite businesses in your niche.
For example, a local parenting directory could run an annual contest that honors businesses in the community by asking visitors to nominate the “Best Swim Class”, “Best Playground”, or “Best Kid-Friendly Restaurant”. You could pick and announce winners yourself, or you can have website visitors nominate businesses for you.
Image Source: cherryvalley.macaronikid.com
It may take more work, but having the public vote is fantastic for business growth because:
Businesses will share the contest with their customers by word of mouth and invite them to vote.
You can see more traffic as voters visit your website.
Your brand will get more exposure as people share the contest on social media asking for votes.
You can grow your email list by asking for the email address of everyone who votes.
Your other listings will get exposure and notoriety if they’re “nominated” in a certain category, building trust with your sponsors and authority for your directory website.
And building trust is incredibly important to make sales. Why? Well, trust is now the 2nd most important factor people take into consideration before making a purchase, just after price.
So just like in these online directory advertising examples, lean into the interests of your target audience. Choose categories by selecting the restaurants, businesses, people, or locations that fit your industry best.
4. Use Google Ads
When using Google Ads to promote an online directory, it’s important to understand the power of keyword targeting. By choosing the right keywords, you can make sure your ads are shown to the right people, who are searching for the type of products or services your directory offers. Google Ads also allows you to set your customized budget, so you can control your expenses and ensure that you never pay more than your monthly cap.
Another great feature of Google Ads is the ability to display ads to people searching in a specific location. For local search site owners, this can be a game changer as it enables them to reach a more targeted audience and drive traffic to their site. By choosing a specific location, you can ensure that your ads are only shown to people who are in your area, which can help increase the chances of getting conversions and growing your business.
Google Ads also gives you the ability to control what’s shown based on the time of day searched, which can be useful for businesses that are open at specific hours or for those that offer time-sensitive promotions. This way, you can make sure that your ads are only shown to people who are searching for your products or services when you’re open for business.
In conclusion, Google Ads is a powerful tool for promoting an online directory and driving traffic to your site. By using the targeting options available, you can reach a more qualified audience, get more site traffic, and increase conversions. Don’t forget to take advantage of the $100 credit offered by Google to start a new account, which can help you get started with advertising at a lower cost.
5. Trade Free Advertising
If paying for advertising is out of your budget, or you’d like to learn how to promote an online directory for free, bartering can be a solid option.
You’ve got a fantastic resource for offering free ads right on your directory website. In the same banner area where you can place Google Adsense ads that earn you revenue, a good directory website software will give you the power to place your own ads there as well. That way, you can sell or trade that ad space.
Here are some great trades to ask for when offering free ad space on your website. Ask for:
A day where you can hand out branded promotional materials at their location.
To be mentioned on their social media channels.
A link on their website to yours.
…and there are plenty of other creative ways to go about bartering.
The important piece is to remember to use the space you have available on your website to your advantage. You’ll likely be surprised how bartering leads you to new opportunities, connections, and growth for your business. Bartering isn’t exclusive to local directories, but if you’re wondering how to start a local business directory, this type of promotion can be extremely effective.
Guest blogging is a powerful tool to consider mastering when learning how to advertise an online directory. Creating good content takes a lot of focus, so the idea of writing posts to give to someone else’s website for free can seem counterintuitive at first. But truthfully, not as many business owners and entrepreneurs take advantage of guest blogging opportunities as often as they should.
Guest blogging is a great way to:
Get traffic to your website by getting in front of a new audience.
Build a strong reputation with search engines that helps you rank higher.
Find leads that are already visiting sites within your industry and expressing interest.
Gain authority by sharing your subject matter expertise.
Build relationships with other thought leaders in your field.
Guest blogging is not unlike “product placement” in the entertainment industry. Leads are made aware of your existence through another medium, which just happens to be someone else’s blog. It’s a popular method, with the average blogger writing 1-5 guest posts per month.
Image Source: Referral Rock
Some people find guest posting outreach daunting, but it’s actually standard practice these days. Many website owners are looking to consistently publish new content, so offering a guest post can be a welcome offer that some site owners will be happy to accept and publish your post. Just don’t forget the important of sending over a high-quality piece of content that’s helpful and not full of self-promotion so they’ll actually want to publish your piece.
Simply set up a technique to repeat for finding sites you want to guest post on and reach out to them offering a unique and relevant post just for their site.
7. Email Your Subscribers
Email marketing has an astounding ROI of 4200%. Meaning, for every $1 spent, $42 is earned. With numbers like that, it’s easy to see why email is one of the most powerful ways to drive engagement for your business.
Promoting your online directory through your email can be done in lots of ways, but here are some popular methods:
Send out promotional emails letting people know about timely events, exclusive content, or deals and offers (great for direct response advertising).
Send an informative, helpful, weekly newsletter that doesn’t sell anything so that it builds trust (to help get those promotional emails to convert).
Segment your list so you can send different emails with customized content to your customers vs members vs leads.
Promote your “Best of” contest before, during, and after it runs.
Create multiple drip campaigns that automatically send a series of pre-built emails. Popular drip campaigns include nurturing leads, onboarding, and recommendations.
Set up automated renewal reminders so listing owners are automatically notified when their listings are expiring, saving you time and money.
8. Provide Door Stickers to Storefront Customers
Printing and giving stickers to those listed in your directory is an exceptional marketing tactic if you’re running a local directory site. In an increasingly digital world, this tactic is a great way to get a step ahead of the competition.
Large directory websites like Yelp use this tactic often – you’ve probably seen a Yelp sticker on the door of a local restaurant, inviting you to rate them. This is a fantastic way to market an online business directory by building awareness and driving website traffic.
Additionally, sending promotional materials is a perfect conversation starter or icebreaker for businesses that aren’t listed on your site just yet (bringing you more leads).
Get the Tools to Promote Your Online Directory
Hopefully, this post on how to market an online directory has given you some excellent and effective promotion ideas for your own project.
We know business directory advertising is no small feat. That’s why many successful directory sites use software like eDirectory to help them get there.
eDirectory is the most complete directory website builder available. It’s an easy-to-use software that offers every tool you need to build, manage, and promote a successful directory site, and plenty of extra perks. The robust feature list includes some fantastic tools to help you market your online directory like:
Beautiful Listings: Easily create professional directory listings with images, video, and coupons inside a beginner-friendly and intuitive interface.
Flexible Customization: Customize your pages to meet your project’s exact needs. Use a visual editor to build different types of category templates for every listing type imaginable.
Social Media Integration: Seamlessly integrate with the most popular social media platforms and encourage advertisers to promote their own listings with social sharing links. Plus, display your Twitter feed directly on your website in just a few clicks.
Events Page: A stunning page to display and promote upcoming events for your directory.
Advertiser + Member Dashboards: Let your advertisers and members create, edit, and control their own profiles.
Membership Site Capabilities: Create member profiles and tap into the power of recurring payments by repeating collecting dues.
Google Maps Integration: Watch pins automatically appear on an interactive map as new listings are added.
Renewal Reminders: Automate your payment collection process by notifying listing owners when their expiration dates are approaching.
Deals and Offers: Drive business to your advertisers by letting them create their own coupons and offers, right from their listings. Activate the power of viral sharing when someone redeems an offer on Facebook and shares the deal to their feed.
Banner System: Sell or barter banner space in a variety of areas, with granular control over where they show up. Plus, a Google Adsense integration to further monetize your traffic through ads.
Online Payments: Securely accept payment over your website via PayPal or credit cards, and even set up automatic recurring payments.
Blog: An easy-to-use, built-in Blog Module that lets you create beautiful content to drive traffic and sales.
App Builder: Create your own app with no-coding knowledge directly through the site manager’s mobile application builder. Modernize your brand by going mobile and get your app to show up in Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store for extra visibility and awareness.
SEO Center: Control every aspect of your site’s SEO with Titles, Meta, and your own keywords. Set rules for pages, use keyword-optimized URLs, and sitemap generation.
…and so much more.
With eDirectory, you’ll have everything you need to create and grow an information-packed, interactive directory and membership website.
Keyword research for online directories is a key element to understanding the opportunities your website has to rank higher on search engine result pages (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc). Google won’t display your page if it doesn’t find any search terms in it (or other search engines).
You can use keyword research to determine whether a topic you want to write about has strong search demand. The result will be a consistent stream of highly targeted visitors to your page if your page ranks well in Google for its target keyword.
In order to do it right, you need to do two things:
You should have a thorough understanding of your niche
Knowledge of how keyword research tools work
In this webinar, our CEO James Chubb along with the marketing team shows how to determine which strategic keywords to target in your website’s content, and how to craft that content to satisfy both users and search engines.
Webinar: Keyword Research for Online Directories
The second part of the webinar demonstrates how to use professional keyword research tools such as the Google Ads Keyword Planner and SEMRush. Following that, we showed how to add keywords to your eDirectory website.
Since eDirectory’s code is written with SEO in mind. The structured code makes it easy for search engines to index and understand what is important.
This webinar discusses some ways to present curated content on your website’s home page. It is important to understand which widgets are most relevant to your website and audience since eDirectory offers several different widgets to enhance your home page.
Since this is the first touch point between visitors and your online directory, it deserves special attention. From a minimalist approach to a fully stacked model, there is a lot you can build with eDirectory.
Learn with our CEO James Chubb how to optimize the elements to improve visitors’ engagement while you increase the advertiser’s exposure.
If you are considering starting an internet business, but you are not sure if an online directory is a viable option for you, we’ve prepared a presentation to explain the do’s and don’ts of this tried and tested approach.
The purpose of online business directories is to assist people in making informed purchases. For example, a guide for restaurants in a certain region, or a wedding business-related online directory with suppliers, locations, service providers, or any other niche you could think of.
This type of website is in use since the nineties, if you think of well-known listings-based websites such as Craigslist or Yelp, you are talking about online business directories. These types of websites take their value propositions from two main factors: offering curated content in the form of listings of products or services, articles or events for their audience, while taking advantage of user generated content in the form of reviews.
As the online business directory website gains more and more traction in search engines like Google, it is likely that more sponsors will join the website and more users will consume products and services. This is a vital part of the monitazion methods where the online directory owner can offer banner ad spaces, membership levels and other ways of making the website profitable.
So stay tuned and join us for this week’s presentation and, also, don’t forget to check the related material listed below.
Creating a digital presence for your chamber of commerce is essential to propagate and disseminate the association’s activities, as well as attract new members and increase current participants’ online presence.
In addition to offering goods and services to the community, chambers of commerce play a crucial role in communities of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, providing ideas and solutions for improvement, based on the demands of the members themselves.
However, how can your chamber of commerce expand the reach of its services and solutions?
To stand out in the marketplace in today’s increasingly connected world, chambers of commerce must consider ways to attract new members, offer benefits that are aligned with members’ reality, and create a more integrated community by incorporating these factors into their operations.
Chambers of commerce benefit from these actions because they help municipalities maintain an up-to-date database of businesses, which contributes to creating new companies locally and moving the economy forward.
Additionally, we have selected the best tools and resources to add to your website, how to make it even more valuable to current and potential members, and how to actually create a functional and interactive site.
Keep reading this detailed guide to learn more about how to digitize your chamber of commerce and all you need to know!
Why go digital with your chamber of commerce?
For businesses and chambers of commerce, having an online presence isn’t merely a recommendation anymore, it’s a necessity.
Having a digital presence increases your chances of being found and of enhancing your results significantly if you know how to position yourself online, and chambers of commerce are not any different.
Digitalization offers you the opportunity to enhance the solutions you provide and allow your association members to integrate more effectively.
So, creating an online business directory for your chamber of commerce is an opportunity to give your members a chance to showcase their businesses, reach new customers, and have a more optimized space for interactions, discussions, and product promotions. In addition, it’s a great offering for businesses and professionals who don’t yet have the resources to establish a strong online presence (like ranking well on Google).
Providing a digital platform benefits all parties involved: associations, companies, and society. An online directory is beneficial to chambers of commerce since it automatically collects monthly fees from advertisers. Members benefit from the exposure, search engine rankings, and interaction like messaging, offers, and lead registration and society benefits from a niche portal that is verified.
How to make your site more valuable to current and potential members?
It is equally relevant to consider what this change might mean to your community members or potential advertisers now that you know the benefits of digitization.
After all, they also need to weigh these benefits before they decide to join, right?
So, to make this space even more valuable to members and to attract more people, you need to offer solutions to the real demands of this group.
As an example, if a potential member seeks your chamber of commerce because they are experiencing specific difficulties in their business, offering support materials such as eBooks and training, valuable content, and a community that shows them they are not alone in their journey will help them feel more connected and make their decision to join your association easier.
So thinking strategically about tools to help your community is what you need to do to make your chamber of commerce website relevant.
9 must-have resources for chambers of commerce websites
In addition to adding value to users and potential members, using resources that facilitate navigation, content consumption, promotion of services, and interactions between the community on the site is essential.
1. Build a custom website for your audience
One of the most important aspects when building a trade guide for trade associations is to think about customizing it according to the needs of your audience.
This will be a community space. Therefore, feeling welcomed within the virtual environment is crucial to keeping members engaged and retaining them. Thus, thinking about a personalized identity aligned with the interests of your audience is fundamental.
Set the location of your business guide to facilitate searches for companies and services at different levels (city, region, neighborhood) and customize display information to satisfy users’ search interests.
Segment your trade association members for easy identification when launching promotions and marketing campaigns. Offer free and premium profiles for new members to sign up for your trade association’s ad portal, each with its own features.
2. Consider a responsive website
The responsiveness of a website determines how a user can interact with your chamber of commerce site on any device: mobile, tablet, or computer. Visitors and members are guaranteed to have the best visual and user experience when your site is responsive.
In order to increase conversions and retain users, your chamber of commerce website should be responsive and optimized. The eDirectory platform allows chambers of commerce and associations to create online directories and classified websites that are responsive to all devices. You can also build an iPhone and Android app for your website so users and members can access it anywhere.
3. Have an exclusive “members only” area for your users
A members-only area is another key feature of your chamber of commerce’s website. From there, members can edit and add information about their services, post photos, videos, blog articles, and interact with visitors and collect leads.
A “members only” area creates the feeling of belonging to the group, much like a club for selected companies. eDirectory provides businesses and service providers with a control panel that allows them to display information, offers, and services in a well-organized and optimized manner.
4. Have a “Join our chamber of commerce” sign-in button
Having a button that allows them to join a members-only area is also helpful. Placing these buttons strategically on the site will allow users to easily join the association when they browse the platform.
The ability to automate the entry of new members is essential to the growth of your chamber of commerce in a digital environment. It offers a “sign up” button to make it easy for new users to sign up, as well as payment automation, email reminders, tools, and call-to-actions.
5. Valuable content is key to attracting new members
By creating valuable content in a niche, you create authority, and relevance, create a sense of community and attract new users to your website organically. This is because people are truly interested in what you have to say, and this is no different for chamber of commerce’s websites.
For generating organic traffic to your portal, content marketing strategies remain relevant. Searches on Google are geared toward topics that people are interested in, and if your chamber website matches the keywords, it may appear in the first results.
Online business directories are excellent for search engine rankings. This is because the richer your association website is in ads, events, classifieds, and text articles, the more often it will appear in the top spots.
So, this is a helpful strategy to keep in mind when building your website, and remember: invest in quality and relevant content for your current and future members.
Featured webinar: generate more revenue with agency services
6. Create a welcoming environment for new members
It is easier to adapt to a new community if you feel welcome from the beginning. It might seem like a small detail, but it can have a tremendous impact on member retention.
When new members register on your chamber of commerce website, consider creating a welcome space for them in a featured area; the new member should receive an automatic welcome email that contains relevant information and content that can be of assistance during this first interaction.
Make sure to add welcome videos, and articles on the basics of “how to start”, and consider creating a knowledge base area in your chamber of commerce website with short articles and a FAQ (frequently asked questions) section.
7. Add a featured members section
It is possible to create a desire in new users to register on your website by taking advantage of certain mental triggers. Highlighting members on your portal ends up encouraging other companies and service providers to join so that they can also promote their activities.
Therefore, make sure to include a section on your chamber of commerce website to increase exposure to the most valuable members in different categories. Create contests in your community to determine people’s choices in every category and also, the editor’s choice with highly rated members from your city.
8. Create a FAQ page on your trade association’s website
Your page users will likely have some questions about membership before joining, right?
This can be easily remedied through an FAQ page, that is, a page with the most frequently asked questions related to the trade association, answered objectively and directly, and made available to the user easily.
9. Invest time in good design and a great user experience
In addition to all the elements mentioned above, having a beautifully designed website that aligns with the association’s goals, and high-quality images that value the city or region and the association’s work is crucial.
People are easily attracted to appealing visual elements, and having this notion is key to ensuring a successful website. Add images that show positive aspects of your city/region and value the work of the trade association, consider offering professional image production to your members as a way to increase the chamber of commerce revenue.
Create a legacy for your community
And finally, by digitizing your chamber of commerce, your earnings will go beyond new members and revenue generation but the legacy for your city will be enormous, as a great repository with the best services, restaurants, leisure options, and shops, all organized and updated, that is, a lively commercial guide full of new activities.
Creating an ad portal for your trade association
Now you know the main aspects of creating a website for your chamber of commerce in a functional, responsive, and truly member-oriented way.
So, finding a complete platform that offers you everything you need to create your website optimized, scalable, and monetizable is essential.
eDirectory offers you all this on a single platform. With our solution you can:
Create a scalable website, starting with a small space and becoming an advertiser for thousands of users and visitors.
Monetize in a variety of ways: add a periodic subscription session, members area, advertise, add a classifieds and events area, etc.
Develop a space to provide different types of content such as blogs, ads, classifieds, events, offers, and more.
Create an exclusive area for members, where they can access and manage their accounts completely autonomously, optimizing your time and theirs.
Moderate the content made available on the site, ensuring the quality of the information shared.
Add resources to member pages and edit them as you wish, customizing them in a variety of ways.
Wrapping up
Did you realize the importance of creating a website for your chamber of commerce?
Being digital is an increasingly urgent business need, and trade associations are included in that list.
Now you know how to best optimize your services with eDirectory and create a responsive, functional, monetizable, customizable, and fully thought-out website for your audience.
The time has come to think about offering more quality services and scaling your business once and for all.
To learn more about the eDirectory solution and get a free demo,click hereto learn more!
With the release of the new eDirectory version 13.1, the suite of eDirectory apps became even more powerful. The new App was built using a Google technology named Flutter which delivers improved performance and visual consistency on different platforms.
The new technology was combined with a new design to make the eDirectory App look fresh and current. It took the eDirectory team months of research and prototyping to get to the final product: an app that’s fast and looks great on any device.
We were joined by Fernando Nascimento, product manager for eDirectory. In this webinar, he will describe in detail the eDirectory App’s main features, to help you understand what it can do for your business.
These are the main new features of the eDirectory app:
Creating a local search site will help you unite your community around the best businesses and services offered in your town – with the added benefit of being able to generate recurring revenue.
Make sure you include as much content as you can, with both breadth and depth: e.g. as many listings, services, and classifieds as possible, and depth, which is how strong your listing’s content is, with comprehensive descriptions, very good photos, a video, features, hours, map, social media feeds, and so on.
If you happen to live in a big city, the quantity of content you can find might be overwhelming, so curation is the key to having a relevant local search site. Members (and new users) are drawn to content that is well-done and informative.
Define your target such as residents, tourists, and retirees so you can include relevant content for each one of these audiences. They will have different interests and will look for a variety of services and products on your website. Make sure to work keywords and SEO in your listings so your local search site can be ranked on search engines like Google.
In this week’s webinar, we went through the best practices and strategies to launch your own local search site with eDirectory including strategy and a hands-on demonstration. Enjoy this session.
Revenue Strategies for Online Directories can be different depending on your niche.
Creating an online directory brings a fantastic opportunity to generate a recurring revenue stream. From using the built-in payment tools that eDirectory provides to offering links to 3rd party affiliate products and services, opportunity abounds when it comes to monetizing your website!
One of the best ways to start generating revenue is if your online directory already has good content that people are consuming or looking for online. You could consider creating a members-only area on your website, similar to what newspapers do, allowing only subscribers to read or access your material. Invite writers to publish articles as guest bloggers, giving tips and recommendations on restaurants, wine, books, movies, or other materials your audience could find valuable.
Another great way to make extra revenue out of your online directory is by advertising your newsletter. Send a curated list of the best or new services and products listed on your directory to your audience and sell the ad spots for your sponsors, therefore, their brand could be in the spotlight in front of a selected audience.
In this webinar, our CEO James Chubb shows the main methods of monetization used for businesses to generate revenue online.
Revenue Strategies for Online Directories
Online directories are one of the best media businesses out there because the production costs are low, and they gain traction on google rapidly because of the constant content generation (mostly user-created) and they are relatively quick to launch.
Have in mind that promotion takes an important role as you need to make your website visible to your audience. Invest some time to study paid media strategies (PPC) and SEO to generate more organic traffic to your online directory.
And of course, have in mind that the key is to keep your sponsors on board and attract new users. Recurring revenue is the way to make your online directory become profitable in the long run and eDirectory is built for that.
CRO (Conversion rate optimization) is the process of optimizing web pages based on visitor’s behavior to maximize conversion rates, which means increasing the chances that visitors will take the desired actions on your site, such as form submissions, downloads, newsletter subscriptions, clicks, and other.
In order to optimize a website, there are two main elements to consider:
Design – How visitors will perceive the content they are searching for.
Copy – This is the text that will capture the visitor’s attention and will persuade them to take action.
For directory-based websites, you must also think about two verticals of optimization:
Conversion for visitors – drive them to premium content.
Conversion for advertisers – drive them to sign up for a plan.
In this week’s webinar, the eDirectory marketing team shared strategies on how to optimize conversion rates through data analysis and conducting multiple tests, tweaking content to make it more relevant to visitors, and drawing appropriate conclusions from the data.
