What is Monetization?
This means you can earn money/revenue through a business or company. When it has to do with making money online you can achieve this through content on your site, advertisements, number of likes etc.
Directories are a great way to bring in more revenue. This can be a lucrative and passive way to make money. Directories come with integrated features to enhance monetization for your website, and come with options to make you more income.
What are directory websites?
Directories are website listings that are gathered into one platform. Directory owners allow other businesses to present or advertise their website on this specific platform.
Many have been reviewed and only allow certain websites to be presented. This gives an easy way to gather quick information all in one website. Directories can bring results for specified areas and searches depending on the topic, niche, or filter.
Popular Directories include:
- Yelp
- AirBnB
- YellowPages
These are all different types of directories, but they all have one thing in common: They bring in revenue.
First it’s good to understand how a WordPress websites work.
(Here is why we suggest WordPress for Directory Websites)
Know the difference between administrator, listing owners, and users
Admin handles the back-end of the website such as the management and setting up.
Listing owners are the ones who own the listings. This can get confusing with those users who posts listings. Some listing owners are not the one’s who actually submitted the listing.
Users/Visitors are the ones looking at the listings. They may be the one to make a purchase or to be in need of a short-term rental. The users can also add listings, but these may not be their own. (that’s where you can allow claim ownership, which we will get to later)
How to Make Money with Directory Websites:
Charge for Submissions
You can great different price packages, which allow for multi-added listings or whatever type of packages you prefer to charge for. This can include packages with certain lengths, pricing, or certain amount of submissions. Some directory websites allow for unlimited packages if you have multiple types of packaging needed, this is included in the directory theme. This can turn into membership packages for VIP members.
By allowing different types of packaging you can integrate certain categories to charge depending on what you would like. These can include different offers, price and time length. The user can choose which one they would like.
This is great for detailing a certain number of days that it will remain active, so you are not manually checking in and remembering how long each package is supposed to be running for. Also allows for a specific number of entries to limit the amount or can increase the price for more listings.
Category Specific Packages
Category specific packages are another step into specifying prices. If you would like a particular category to have a price such as featuring to homepage or events page, you can add that detail.
Recurring Payments
This allows auto-renewed subscriptions to save time on process payments. This also allows for the billing period for automatic billing so you don’t have to manually keep up with it.
Show Advertisement Banners
This is the easiest ways to make money with your directory website (really any website, or business). With the widget integrated design this allows for ads almost anywhere on the page. You have the ability to use Google AdSense or have the users upload an image or video ad banner.
Featured Listings
This is efficient for having listings on the homepage or right at the top. Most submission users will want to have their listing at the top. Charging for featured listings is a great way to gain more money.
Create Discounts
This is great for adding coupons to your website, on the back-end you can manage all the details. This includes the amount, discount type, the amount of days it will run. A couple ideas for how to use coupons: discount on listing submissions, rewarding loyal customers, discounts on purchases. If you’re looking to have an online store, find a directory theme that has WooCommerce integration, which allows all the options and features you will ever need to achieve a great eCommerce store. You will be able to include coupons for this as well. Happy Couponing!
Promoting your Directory website
This can include keeping any content such as blogs updated to keep traffic coming back to your website. This is great for certain niches, if you have a blog which maintains a steady knowledge base you can easily integrate affiliates and gain money through promotional products. The more traffic you have the better, for your listings and making money through your directory website.