Interested in making your online deals/coupon directory software that lets you generate some passive income?
Here’s a complete guide to on how you can create and manage a coupon and deals directory website. In this article, you’ll find the basic to advanced tips and tricks to create, manage and grow your coupon directory software.
It includes everything starting from choosing a niche deal coupon directory theme, adding links of affiliate, displaying/managing the daily deals, a search functionality and also a front-end deals/coupon submission form.
The following are the steps you can follow to create your deals directory website in less than 30 minutes:
- Understanding a coupon directory website
- Register the domain name and hosting
- Download and install WP Deal Coupon Directory software
- Manage Daily Deal template
- Wp-deal coupon/deal directory Software compatibility
- Making money through deals directory theme
Understanding a coupon directory website
A coupon directory website is, as the name suggests, a directory of coupons and deals. You must have seen many such websites where they sell daily deals, the deals that come with discounts and are limited period offers.
If you want, you too can create a daily deal website of your own, and allow people to submit their deals by paying to advertise on your coupon directory website.
The features are more like an ordinary directory website
A coupon directory website is nothing but an online directory of coupons. So it functions just like any other directory website.
Just like the real estate directory website has the real estate listings, the coupon directory website has the coupon and deal listings. So, the front end submissions are also in the form of deals and coupons.
Paid submissions
On your coupon directory website, you can offer paid submissions for those who want to use your platform to advertise their deals and offers. The coupon listings are simpler than the ordinary listings that may denote an event or a place.
Typical details on a coupon listing include: The coupon title, the description of the deal where you can mention general details or the terms and conditions, the price as well as the validity of the deal.
Front end deal submissions
A coupon website allows different types of deals and offers to be submitted online through a front end submission form. The WP deals coupon theme comes with a ready to use coupon submission form that the visitors can use to submit their deals on your website. See an example of submission form here.
This theme also comes with all the other features that a front end submission and management website should have.
Validity of deals
We are sure not all the deals are the same. So the coupon directory theme allows you to create different types of deals to be submitted with different features.
Also, you can create coupon categories to make sure the submitted deals are all well organized and the visitors can find the relevant information easily without having to browse through the deals that means nothing to him/her.
The businesses/dealers can submit their coupons
For the traders, dealers and business owners, your website becomes the portal to advertise their offers. Because as a coupon directory website, the audience of your website is exactly their target audience and prospect customers.
Therefore, such a coupon directory website will allow the deal owners to create an account on your deals website, and submit their deal through the front end submission system. This can be a paid, or free deal submission.
The visitors can buy deals
The audience who come to your website can browse through the deal listings and even buy the deal online. For this comes the payment processing feature of your daily deals website so that the payments can be made online.
Social sharing ready to promote your deals through social media
A simple method to promote your deals and coupons is by publishing them on social media. The Deals theme from templatic comes with a social share button so that you can easily push the deal listing to your social media account.
This helps you use the power of social media to reach more people. The deals can reach an all new sphere of users when shared on social media.
Register your Domain & Hosting for your coupon directory software
The fundamental requirements for any website are domain and hosting. But as easy as they seem, you must choose the domain name and hosting service carefully. Invest time, research about the alternatives, pos, cons, read reviews and then choose the right domain and hosting for your coupon directory portal.
Decide on the domain name for your deals and coupon directory software
The journey of any website creation starts with the domain search. You need to decide the domain name of your deals directory website. The domain name is the permanent address of your website on the widespread internet.
Search for the domain as per the niche you have decided. My personal favorite is the Bluehost domain registration service. Alternately, you can go for NameCheap, GoDaddy, or any domain name registrar that works for you.
Once you see the domain search bar, enter the domain name you wish to have. If it has been taken by someone else always be prepared for the alternate domain name. After purchasing the domain name point your domain to your host by updating the name server of your domain.
Subscribe to a hosting service for your coupon directory software
Domain selection depends on availability whereas before choosing the hosting you need to consider various factors associated with the hosting provider.
The main factors you need to consider are Reliability, Uptime, Efficiency, and Support. We recommend using the Bluehost hosting for your website which eliminates any of these pitfalls.
Go to the hosting provider’s site and Check the available web hosting plan. Select the plan which fulfills all your website need. As we’re going to create a WordPress website, I recommend using the WordPress optimized hosting from Bluehost.
Signup now to get our discount – only $2.95/month.
Templatic Themes fans get a special low price when hosting with Bluehost. Signup and claim this deal.
Starting with your online Deal Coupon Directory software
After purchasing the domain and hosting services for your website, Install the latest WordPress setup on your site. Once you’re done with the WordPress setup download the wp-deal theme from WP Deal theme details
Installing the Coupon Directory Software
As mentioned earlier the coupon deals directory template is designed for non-technical people to be able to create and maintain their website on their own. Therefore it is really easy to use.
The theme can be installed and the website can be set up in just two-three steps.
Navigate to the themes section on your WordPress dashboard and upload the deals directory template. When the theme is uploaded and installed, you can activate it.
Upon activation, you can install the sample data, click on install sample data button. This will populate your deals directory making it look exactly like the coupon directory theme demo.
So just with a few clicks, your coupons/deals directory website is ready with the sample images, posts, categories, deals etc. Later you need to update it with the actual content of your deals.
Or you can have us install it for you
Save your time and efforts with our WordPress installation service
Customizing your WP Deal
Now is the time to customize your deals directory template and make it look like your own website.
The WP Deals directory template for WordPress comes with enough customization options to make your website look and behave exactly the way you want.
The wp-deal provides flexibility to a great extent. Hence, you can change the user interface with fewer efforts.
You can upload your logo, set the site titles, change the colors and background, etc to rebrand your coupon directory template.
Also, you can change the typography of your website. Update the footer credits and create the menu of your choice. Also, the WP Deals directory template’s homepage is made of widgets.
So to change where certain screen elements appear you can adjust the movable widgets with just drag and drop options. Al the customization steps are clearly mentioned in the theme use guide that you get on the WP deals directory website template.
Manage Daily Deal template
The wp-deal coupon/deal directory theme contains many pages, you can manage the interface of each page from the backend easily. You can also redesign the page and give your own taste to it.
Create & Submit Deal with Frontend form
The theme has the feature to let the website visitors/owner/subscribers can submit a coupon/deal by a front end submission form. The admin can customize the form elements and fields and change it according to their niche.
Wp-deal deal/coupon directory Software compatibility
The theme is standalone but it provides the compatibility with the following third-party plugins.
Social Logins on your coupon directory Software
In the theme, you can enable social logins through the well-known social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc. The Social Login plugin is fully compatible with the theme. by adding, activating the plugin and following the simple steps given in theme guide it will be integrated into the theme.
SEO plugins compatibility with your coupon directory
In order to optimize the directory content for search engines, the theme provides compatibility with these two SEO plugins.
These both the plugins will work with wp-deal in the same way as with other WordPress templates.
Contact form plugins
In order to setup contact page, You can use any of the following plugins.
- Gravity Forms (It is a premium plugin to let you create forms)
- Contact Form 7 (It is available free of cost)
Make money through deals directory theme
The coupon/deals directory sites can help you earn some passive revenue through it. Here are a few ways through which you can make money through your deals directory template.
Advertisement banners on your deals directory website
You can display sponsored advertisements in the sidebars or the other sections of the website and start generating revenue.
The WP Deals Directory template comes with advertisement widgets that you can place at any section of your website.
Alternately, you can subscribe to the Google AdSense service to display targeted advertisements to your visitors based on their search history.
Paid coupon and deals submission on coupon website software
Once your website reaches a benchmark in terms of traffic and click-through rates, you can start allowing paid front-end deals submissions.
As mentioned online, the WP deals directory template comes with a fully functional front end submission system through which the visitors can register and submit their deals.
You can create the payment packages of your choice with different attributes to be displayed to your front end visitors. A business who wants to display it’s coupon/deal on your website can choose a package and submit the deal upon payment.
The deals directory template comes with an inbuilt payment processing options so you can start accepting payments right away.
Become Affiliate Marketer and Make Money Online with Coupon/deals directory software
There is a trend of coupon codes, deals, and other money-saving offers. People search for discounts and coupons before purchasing anything. Hence coupon directory is more useful for buyers as well as sellers and affiliate marketers. The buyers can save money, the sellers get more sales and you can become an affiliate marketer and get a commission through the links.
To become an affiliate marketer follow the steps below
- Select your niche.
Selecting a niche is the most important before starting any site. Create a mind map for your site and gather deep information related to your domain. - Research for the various affiliate products and programs related to your niche
Search for the website and platforms which provides affiliate membership and that should be the best match for the domain you have selected. Irrelevant content may or may not result in a high conversion. - Advertise the products on your site.
When you’ll register as an affiliate member of any products or programs. You’ll get an affiliate link, banners, and other sample data. Use this data on your site for advertising purpose. - Create excellent product content.
Product content is very crucial and fundamental part of any website which are marketing affiliate products. Create unique, Excellent, powerful content which can draw more traffic to your site. - Generate an audience.
Share your portal content through various social networking platform and generate traffic. Again the relevant content is necessary to the success of your site. - Promote those products and update your site regularly.
Regular maintenance, and updating your deals and coupon directory is a most important task. Your affiliate will create new offers and coupons each day, you need to update the recent content on your site regularly. As well as remove the outdated content which may create a false impression on users mind.
Now is the time to make your coupon directory software
It is an easy and time-saving approach to create the coupon portal with the wp-deal coupon/deals WordPress template. Because it already comes with all the features required by a coupons deals website, your efforts are reduced to the minimum.
The coupon/deals directory portal helps to earn more monthly passive income with your right efforts in the right direction with the right content.
If you have any suggestions or questions/opinions, you can reach out to us by posting your comments here.
Check out how your deals/coupon directory software should look.