Making Money with… Directories!

Directories are very common on the internet. They are very popular too because people desperately want backlinks to their website for various reasons, including PageRank and traffic. You’re probably reading this tutorial because you either have a directory, want to create one or you just like to read all the tutorials here

Now, lets get started.

Directories (Also known as Link Directories, Web Directories, Site Directories etc…) are basically a big website of other websites. They list websites for other people so that these users can get more traffic from others and more backlinks for Google. If people want a good placement, they often have to pay for a featured link (Which makes their link appear ahead of everyone elses). The cost can vary depending on the traffic of the directory and of the PageRank of it, because obviously the higher the PageRank, the more that the linkback is worth.

How to start one
Well once you have a domain and hosting set up (Check the Courses category if you haven’t yet), you need a script to run the directory for you. Now, there are numerous ones on the internet, but the best (and most popular) is phpld. They do a free version, and the latest version which costs approximately $30. The free version is still good, but if you have a bit of loose change, I recommend getting the latest version.

Once installed and you’ve configured the options, added categories etc… and got it to how you like, then you may want to think about advertising your directory.

Advertise It!
This can be the trickiest part for a directory - To actually get the submissions. Now if you’ve just bought a domain name and its PageRank 0, then you should expect to get most submissions as free, maybe the odd 1 or 2 paid links. Thats absolutely fine considering that PR0 backlinks aren’t worth much. You can expect a lot more as you get a higher PR.

To advertise your directory, I recommend doing these:

• Directory Critic - This place gets the most traffic for directories. If you submit your directory to Directory Critic, you can expect a lot of traffic when you’ve submitted. Unfortunately, you have to place a link back to them and it can take a while for them to accept sometimes, but its definately worth it.
• Digital Point - DP has a big forum of members waiting to submit their website to your directory, so create an account and post your directory in the Announcements in the Directory section. It will definately get you a few more submissions.
• Other Directories - It doesn’t do much harm in submitting your directory into other directories. It gets you more backlinks, and may even get you more submissions!
• Social Networking - This probably won’t get you much traffic, but its worth a shot. If you use Social Networking to advertise, you might create more awareness of the directory. As you can see below this post, there are numerous bookmarking icons which lets you bookmark this blog post for others to read.

There are some key methods of advertising your directory. Keep it at, and make sure you accept the links quickly to please the users!

Stumble it!