A Must Have 10 Mods for Your Directory
One way to create a unique and profitable directory is to have a number of useful mods. First of all mods are really useful since they improve user’s experience. Secondly, mods show to potential advertisers that you are serious about your directory and will submit a number of featured sites.
Here is a list of 10 mods for phpld directory script (since phpldirectory is the most widely used script at the moment):
- Contact Page - Users and advertisers must always have a possibility to contact you
- Suggest Category - Sometimes users might suggest really useful categories that are going to improve your directory in a long-term
- Statistics Mod - Let your users know how many sites, categories and subcategories your directory has
- Alexa Thumbnails - Display site thumbnails next to each listing
- Report Link - Allow visitors to report inappropriate sites
- Pages - Add pages to your directory, such as About Us, Terms & Conditions etc
- GZIP Compress - Speeds up your directory
- Rate Links - Let users rate sites that are in your directory
- Recommend Listing - Used to recommend listing to others
- Three Way Linking - In reciprocal mode, submitters will not link to your directory but will link to a third site.
5 Tips in Building Your Directory
Here is a list of 5 tips for beginners in directory business. Only by following these steps you will ensure that your directory is successful and profitable.
- Always invest your money, time and energy if you want to get something back.
- Build a directory not a link farm!
- Accept only useful and unique sites into theme related categories.
- While building your directory keep it as useful resource for users rather than money making machine.
- Create unique directory with unique template, useful mods and unique category structure.
- Work really hard since directories don’t become successful over one night.
How to Build a Directory?
In order to establish a directory you need to have hosting, domain and script.
Let’s start with hosting. Most of the time, a directory doesn’t require a lot of space and bandwidth. I think that Shared plan from Hostgator would perfectly suite your needs.
Once you have a hosting plan, you will need to register a domain. .com domain is more preferable than any other domains such as .net or .org for a directory. Domain can be ordered at GoDaddy and Namecheap.
Finally, now let’s talk about directory scripts that are available out there.
The most popular and the most widely used directory scripts are:
- Php Link Directory - The best script at the moment. I suggest to use this script since it has a lot of free/paid mods and templates. Demo is available here.
- eSyndiCat Directory Software - eSyndiCat is a powerful web directory software with link exchange options. You can easily build a great yellow pages portal, link directory with no PHP programming skills. Demo is available here.
- phpLinkBid - phpLinkBid is a turnkey auction script allowing Webmasters to start their own paid link directories with an easy way to sell links and get paid instantly with PayPal. Demo is available here.
If you have any questions about building a directory please leave them in the comments.
