Is my website a sinking ship?

bertbaby said:

How was the OP going to monetize his site? Membership fees or ad revenue?

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Deez The Webguru said:

I think you solution could simply be a matter of adapting your idea a little...Perhaps change the directory to cater for more of a defined market. Perhaps make your strictly a medical directory, if you look into the medical sector there is a massive sub niches within this sector.. from various specialist and all the way to alternative therapist for various illnesses. Build up a massive listing of medical professionals who will pay you advertise on your directory, created a second income stream by monetizing also with CPA offers like weight loss trials, men's libido trials, anti-ageing stuff and skin care trials...etc..etc... Hope this helps... keep us in the loop and let us know how it goes....Good luck dude.

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Marcink99 said:

Is it a big city? How many visitor are you geting per day? Hows the bounce rate and how long do they stay on the site?

also what makes your site better from all the other yellow pages clones?

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is a population of under 500k small enough to make significant gains in the market?

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agente808 said:

your population is too small to be very profitable, even if you do get some name recognition in your local city - Deez The Webguru had it right - the only place directories can compete is in TOPICAL directories - location based directories are not going to be able to compete with G+ / YP and Foursquare, but a themed directory CAN still compete. The thing about themed directories is you need to use a "wide net" - larger than one town or city, but not country wide (in the USA, if you were not in the USA, country-wide themed directories are often still good)

The best idea came from sledbo though - you will make the most money by packaging what you have for resale.
You can sell both pre-made sites and / or the scripts to make sites like yours.

The problem with having over-invested in an idea is that the emotions lead you to continue to invest in what you've already over-invested in - it's why people lose big in casinos, lol. It's the thought that a bigger investment will overcome the losses better than just cutting your losses. This is statistically not likely to work out well for you.

There is NOT enough money in a small local directory (even if you did manage to get traffic) which is likely to make your investment back and/or make enough of a profit to make the project worth your continued time. It really looks to me like maybe you didn't do your KW research - (check semrush) how much traffic is there for common terms like "mycityname restaurant", "mycityname dentist" or "mycityname florist" & Remember that you are also competing with G+local on the results page. (and that you aren't going to rank first for every term you target) - my bet is that the traffic volume just doesn't add up.

I understand that your business model is to sell ads to local businesses, but most of them won't renew your ad when they don't see any sales / traffic from it.

You are lucky to have a third option here - selling websites / the script you have built - this is the only exit which will allow you to recoup your losses and even make a profit (possibly a very good profit) - you really need to take this idea more seriously.

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Affiliate X said:

Yellow Pages is on the internet, which is what I was referring to there wise guy

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assphuck said:

I'm more of an assphuck then a wiseguy. But I don't mind wearing two hats.

Still most people don't search for a business on YP, instead they Google it. Canned listing information can be easily outranked and revenue can be made, even when competing against the domain authority of YP. This is too much work for a limited ROI in my opinion, but everyone has a different passion when it comes to marketing.

Local SEO companies will jump to list in a local directory if it benefits their clients. Directly mailing (postal mail) businesses within the region will also generate revenue along with other forms of direct marketing. Long term survival is dependent on yearly listing fees that ensure a stable cash flow year after year. The directory's appeal would be devalued if it were defaced with Adsense where competitors may be listed on the same pages as companies you have listed.

Unless you are prepared to dump five figures into the directory, and spend a year or two just getting it out there, I would flip it and move onto something with a better ROI.

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Your reply seems a little bit aggressive considering I was just asking for people's opinions. For another you sound very ignorant, considering the fact that 1) every page on my website is based off of active local keywords, so yes, I did keyword research oh wise one, please tell me more of your secret tactics 2) there is a fair amount of recurring revenue to be made in this business if you can establish your brand within the local area in question. With over 500 categories, one single ad placement at the top of each category at a measly $50 per month would generate 25k every month. Yes, this will take time to achieve a level of being well-known enough that all categories will have active advertisers, but it's possible with a long-term plan like Duffers said.

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Affiliate X said:

Your reply seems a little bit aggressive considering I was just asking for people's opinions. For another you sound very ignorant, considering the fact that 1) every page on my website is based off of active local keywords, so yes, I did keyword research oh wise one, please tell me more of your secret tactics 2) there is a fair amount of recurring revenue to be made in this business if you can establish your brand within the local area in question. With over 500 categories, one single ad placement at the top of each category at a measly $50 per month would generate 25k every month. Yes, this will take time to achieve a level of being well-known enough that all categories will have active advertisers, but it's possible with a long-term plan like Duffers said.

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agente808 said:

My reply wasn't aggressive - you asked for opinions and you got them - calling me ignorant was just plain rude

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Affiliate X said:

Well most of the money went towards developing a custom database scraper/poster to populate my site with all of the businesses listed on Yellow Pages, but in my own custom format for my site. Then I hired a couple guys to research established businesses not already listed and list them. I also just started paying people to recruit business ratings/reviews from the public which is working great for rankings but is becoming quite expensive.

I didn't know I could integrate with Foursquare. Seeing that I would be their competitor (as far as their new business directory app goes) I would have to imagine they wouldn't give me much room to work within their platform.

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