In this article, we’ll show you some effective strategies to drive traffic to your WordPress directory website and increase your visibility. Please note that for the sake of this tutorial, we’ll use “directory website” as an example, but all the strategies work for any kind of website.

Before diving into the article, feel free to check our overviews of the best:

• Directory plugins
• Free directory themes

Now, let’s get started!

Create a Blog

The first tip we’d like to give you – start blogging because it is one of the most effective ways to drive traffic to your website. By consistently creating high-quality content, you can attract more visitors to your directory website and keep them engaged. When starting a blog, keep these things in mind:

• Content plan – create a content plan for 10-15 articles before even writing the first post. It’s necessary to focus on a specific keyword (depending on your niche) and write a few articles that fully cover the topic; 
• Structure – make sure all your content is well-structured (i.e., you avoid text walls, use bullet points, use headings, etc.) and easy to understand for your readers;
• SEO – it’s crucial to check out the best SEO practices before starting your blog to ensure that your content SEO-friendly. You should research how metadata, header tags, and internal linking are used. Also, how to optimize your content for relevant keywords without overstuffing and have a balance between readability and SEO.

Please note that you can create your content plan using mind maps and other interactive tools, or you can start with a simple spreadsheet like the one shown below.

By following these tips, you have a higher chance that your blog will drive traffic to your website. However, please note that blogging is a long-term strategy that starts to pay off only after months of consistent blogging.

Start a YouTube Channel

We recommend creating a niche YouTube channel for your directory website for several reasons:

• Additional traffic – by running a YouTube channel and making videos for some niche, you can drive traffic to your website by simply indicating it in every video description; 
• People preferences – nowadays, many people prefer watching short and engaging videos instead of reading articles. So it’s necessary to create videos and articles to cover both audiences;
• SERP – relevant YouTube videos appear on the search engine results page, so it’s a great way to promote your directory website.

As well as, for a blog, it’s recommended to create a content plan in advance, so you can create videos regularly, at least at the beginning. In that case, your channel may gain traction faster.

Here are a few recommendations on how to optimize your videos for YouTube:

• Keyword research – use Google Keyword Planner to find the most relevant keywords and get a better idea of what people are searching for. Then obviously include that keyword in your title;
• Relevant tags – YouTube allows you to add video tags, so it’s also crucial to use proper ones (e.g., semantically relevant keywords). Also, it’s a good idea to check other well-performing videos for your main keyword and check their tags;
• Links – don’t forget to add relevant links to resources you’ve mentioned in your video;
• Cross-promoting – it’s a good idea to promote some of your other videos & articles in each video and vice-versa – promote your videos in your blog articles. It helps broaden your reach and attract more viewers to both your YouTube channel and website. 

By consistently creating valuable content for your YouTube channel and promoting it effectively, you can significantly increase traffic to your directory website. Always stay true to your niche and try to maintain your “upload schedule”  to keep your viewers engaged.

You can make use of an online video editor that can offer you various features to make the task easier and faster. Some of these features that you should watch out for are AI voice and avatar generator, screen recorder, video translator, file compressor, voice dubber, and video to text converter.

Take Care of SEO

It may sound obvious, but SEO can make or break your directory website. So it’s crucial to take care of it from the beginning. Here are a few general tips related to your website content.

To drive traffic to your website, start by focusing on on-page SEO. This involves optimizing your content with relevant keywords, writing properly-chosen headlines, and providing valuable information to your readers. Simply saying, making great content, using relevant keywords.

Here are a few questions you should answer before publishing any article in your blog:

• Have I mentioned my keyword enough times?
• Does my header include target keywords?
• Have I put internal links to other content on my website?
• Do I have at least one external link to a powerful resource?
• Have I written alt texts for my images?
• Is my URL no more than 75 characters long?
• Do I have keywords in my meta descriptions?

These are just a few basic recommendations mostly related to the content, and we recommend checking out a complete SEO checklist for your website to better understand all parts of SEO, including on-page & off-page and technical SEO. Also, we recommend installing an SEO plugin like Rank Math to have different insights like the ones shown below that help you create articles that drive traffic to your site.

Keep in mind that SEO is an ongoing process, so monitor your progress and make adjustments as needed to maintain a strong online presence.

Reach Out Influencers

Another effective way to reach a wider audience and drive traffic to your directory website is by working with different influencers. Depending on your website niche, there may be influencers on different platforms like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, etc. But for most directory websites, focusing on YouTube video creators and personal blogs is better.

The starting point is to make a list of influencers within your niche and then analyze all the metrics. Here are a few tips on how to assess YouTube channels and personal blogs to understand whether it’s worth cooperating.

Analyzing YouTube Channels

Once you find a promising YouTube channel that regularly makes a lot of content related to your niche, it’s necessary to check a few things before offering cooperation and making a payment. We recommend taking a look at the following:

• Ration – check out the ratio between the number of subscribers, the average number of views, and the number of comments. There are no “perfect” numbers that can tell whether all the views are fake or not, but if a video has 1000+ views and only 2-3 comments, you should check it twice;
• Comments – read some of the comments left by viewers to get a better idea of whether the audience is engaged;
• Statics – check out the channel’s stats using SocialBlade. This tool gives you some insights about any YouTube channel (pay attention to the graph showing monthly gained subscribers to assess whether it looks natural).

Analyzing Blogs

If you decided to order an article about your website, here are a few tips on how to do that properly:

• Stats & Website Health – you should check the website traffic, the backlinks ratio (dofollow & nofollow), domain authority, spam ratings, etc. You can do that all using Ahrefs or SEMrush tools, even the free versions;
• Link Type – make sure you agree that the link will be dofollow (it’s necessary to pass some link juice to your directory website);
• UTM Mark – every time you pay for a review from some website, it’s better to give a link with a UTM mark, so you can later check the traffic from a particular website.

Don’t limit yourself only to website blogs and YouTube channels when looking for an influencer for your directory website. It’s just a starting point, but later you may find other platforms even more useful for your niche that drive traffic to your website even better.

Use Paid Advertising 

You can drive traffic to your directory website through various online advertising channels. In this section, we will focus on two popular platforms: Google and Reddit.

Google Ads

Google Ads can be a powerful tool to drive traffic to your website. By targeting specific keywords, you can display your ads in Google search results to potential customers actively searching for your products or services.

The best part about Google Ads is that you can focus your ads on specific keywords associated with products or services you list on your directory website. It means that you’ll show your ads to users that are already interested in the products & services you offer.

Reddit Ads

Reddit Ads allow you to reach a niche audience within subreddits relevant to your industry. By using this platform, you can create targeted ad campaigns in an environment where users actively engage with content related to their interests.

There are tons of different subreddits, and you can easily find a few that relate to your directory website niche. Here are two tools that can help you find relevant subreddits:

• Map of Reddit – it shows related subreddits to the keyword you choose;
• Similar Reddits – this one shows what other subreddits people read along with the chosen one.

The main advantage of Reddit Ads is price. It’s much cheaper to run ads on Reddit compared to other platforms, so you should definitely give it a shot.

So, by running ads on Google and Reddit, you can reach different audiences and drive traffic to your directory website. Don’t forget to continuously analyze and optimize your ad campaigns to ensure that you are not wasting your budget.

Work with Emails

Email marketing is often an underrated method of driving traffic to your website. However, if done correctly, it may bring good results. 

Building an Email List

An email list is a valuable asset for any kind of website because email marketing may generate about $36 for every $1 spent. You should start collecting email addresses once you launch your directory website. Simply create a form for subscribing to your email list or offer various discounts or other bonuses for joining your newsletter. It will pay off later.

Email Campaigns

Once you build an email list (it’s enough to have a few hundred email addresses at the beginning), it’s time to start your email marketing campaign and drive traffic to your directory website. 

You should decide what will be included in your emails. It may be a newsletter where you can show the new interesting listings and blog articles on your website, or it can be an overview of all the recent news in your niche or even personalized discounts, etc.

Use engaging subject lines that encourage people to open your emails. Ensure your messages are mobile-friendly, and consider incorporating visually appealing elements such as images and gifs.

Don’t forget to add relevant CTA buttons or links to your website, so readers can easily go to your directory. Also, create a schedule to send your emails regularly but avoid overwhelming people with too many messages (2 emails per month should be fine at the beginning).

Crowd Marketing

One more thing we highly recommend trying is crowd marketing. It’s a powerful strategy that helps you drive traffic to your website by engaging with your target audience in online communities and forums. 

Now, let’s briefly discuss how to effectively use crowd marketing on popular platforms such as Quora, Facebook, and Reddit.

Quora

Quora is a question-and-answer platform where people ask and answer questions on various topics. To use Quora for crowd marketing, you should:

• Create a complete and informative profile showcasing your expertise;
• Follow topics relevant to your niche and location;
• Answer questions within your area of expertise, providing valuable and actionable insights;
• Include relevant links to your website, blog, or Medium articles where it adds value to the answer (remember – only when relevant).

Facebook Groups

Facebook groups are communities where users gather around shared interests, making them an ideal place for connecting with your target audience. Here are a few tips on how to do crowd marketing on Facebook:

• Join relevant groups within your niche or location. For example, if you have a restaurant directory website, you can join some tourist groups or cuisine groups;
• Participate in discussions, ask questions, and share your expertise;
• Share your own articles, blog posts, or other content when appropriate and allowed by the group rules.

Reddit

Reddit, known as “the front page of the internet,” is a community-based platform with thousands of subreddits dedicated to specific topics or interests. Using Reddit for crowd marketing involves:

• Identifying relevant subreddits for your niche or target audience (if you read the previous sections, you already know how to do it);
• Engaging with the community by commenting and upvoting useful posts;
• Sharing helpful advice, answering questions, or providing information related to the subreddit’s topic.

Reddit users appreciate genuine, helpful, and knowledgeable contributions. Consistent and authentic engagement in relevant subreddits can significantly boost your website traffic.

Also, when doing crowd marketing, there are two main pieces of advice. The first is to read the group or subreddit rules and guidelines. The second is to avoid spammy behavior and not put links to your directory website everywhere.

Monitor and Measure Success

Finally, we’d like to talk a little bit about website analytics. Without properly measured analytics, all your marketing efforts may be a waste of time and money. Let’s check the main tool you need for measuring your traffic – Google Analytics.

It is a powerful tool for assessing your website’s performance. Using it lets you track your visitors and identify the traffic sources. Once you set it up, Google Analytics provides insights into the following metrics:

• Users – the number of unique visitors to your site;
• Sessions – the interactions users have on your site within a specific time;
• Bounce rate – the percentage of users who leave after viewing just one page;
• Pageviews – the total number of individual pages viewed on your directory site;
• Sources – shows where your visitors come from (e.g., search engines, social networks, or referral links from other sites).

We mentioned only a few metrics, but there are dozens of them, so feel free to check them on your own. This data helps you understand user behavior and identify areas to optimize. We recommend regularly reviewing the reports to make necessary adjustments and improve your website’s performance.

Wrapping Up

That’s all for now, and we hope this article was helpful to you and know you understand how to drive traffic to your WordPress directory website.
Additionally, we recommend checking out our article about the most common mistakes people make when starting a directory website and how to avoid them. It may be a helpful handbook that increases your chances of building a successful directory website.

In this short and simple guide, we’ll walk you through the essential steps to secure a WordPress directory website, from understanding common security threats to implementing some good practices. Also, please note that this guide is applicable to any type of WordPress website, not only directories.

So, without any further ado, let’s get started!

A Few Words About WordPress Security

First of all, let’s briefly cover some general aspects of how to secure a WordPress directory website and look at the various risks and threats such websites face.

General Concepts of Website Security

When securing your WordPress directory, it’s essential to understand the foundation of website security, namely:

• Updates – keeping WordPress core, plugins, and themes updated is crucial. Updates often address security vulnerabilities;
• Backups – regular backups of your website ensure that you can restore the site in case of data loss or a security breach;
• Limited Access – it’s pretty obvious advice, but still, you must grant user permissions judiciously, providing only what’s necessary for users to fulfill their roles;
• Strong Credentials – implementing strong usernames and passwords is a simple yet effective way to bolster security. 

These principles are pretty common and may look a bit obvious to you, but believe us, many people still don’t do these things. 

Risks and Threats to WordPress Sites

Any WordPress website faces specific risks and threats, including:

• Malware – malicious software can infect your site, leading to data theft or loss. It’s especially true for WordPress websites since there are many different plugins, and many of them have a poor code structure that makes your website vulnerable.
• Brute Force Attacks – in some cases, hackers can attempt to access your site by guessing login credentials.

We mentioned only two threats since the others are pretty technical and require a certain level of tech knowledge to understand them. However, you can prepare and implement effective security measures to protect our WordPress directory site from most threats. 

Let’s discuss that in more detail!

Securing WordPress Directory Websites

Even if you are not a tech guru who can implement comprehensive security measures, you can still do a lot for your directory website security. You should focus on secure hosting, regular updates, stringent password practices, and encryption as your primary defenses against threats.

Regular Software Updates

You should maintain a strict schedule for updating all WordPress components, like:

• WordPress itself
• WordPress theme
• All your WordPress plugins

Keeping these elements up-to-date is critical, as updates often enhance the security of your directory website. It’s simple – a community discovers new threats and vulnerabilities every day, so there are some additional security features in all future updates.

Sometimes, it may be a bit annoying to see “updates” in your WP dashboard, especially if you have many plugins, but it’s important not to ignore those notices and keep your software up to date.  

Strong Password Policies

It may sound obvious, but you should take care of your passwords and make sure that they are: 

• Complex – it should be a mix of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols;
• Unique –  use different passwords for each user account and service;
• Frequently updated – try to update your passwords from time to time.

This approach minimizes the risk of unauthorized access due to compromised credentials. By the way, you can use different password generators or tools like LastPasword and 1Password to ensure that your passwords are reliable.

Using Security Plugins

Security plugins may defend your WordPress site pretty well. We recommend looking for the following security features when selecting plugins:

• Web Application Firewall (WAF) – WAFs help prevent common attacks like SQL injection and cross-site scripting by filtering and monitoring HTTP traffic;
• Limit Login Attempts – look for a plugin that can restrict the number of login retries allowed within a specified time frame;
• Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) – add an additional layer of security to the login process by requiring users to provide a second form of verification, such as a code sent to their mobile device.

Reliable Hosting

Finally, we want to emphasize the importance of using a reliable hosting provider that offers different security features like regular security updates, firewalls, intrusion detection systems (IDS), and DDoS protection.

We recommend using one of the hosting providers mentioned in this list. Once you pick a provider that meets your needs, simply reach out to their pre-sale team and ask what security measures they offer and so on.

Additionally, we recommend checking out this short video with 7 WordPress security tips.

Preventative Measures

Now, let’s talk about some preventative measures that you can take to protect your directory website. If you google something like “preventive measures to secure your website”, you’ll get tons of suggestions that often are too complicated and require some coding knowledge. That’s why here we’d like to give you two simple recommendations.

The MalCare team created this extensive security checklist so anyone can take some steps to secure their WordPress websites.

However, this list is pretty long, so implementing everything at once may be challenging. That’s why we recommend you start with the basics mentioned below.

Backup Solutions

The first and probably most important thing is regularly making website backups. You can set up automatic scheduled backups to ensure that you have recent snapshots of our website. You can do that with any WordPress backup plugin or ask your hosting provider how often they are making backups.

It’s better to store backups in multiple secure locations, including off-site storage options, to prevent data loss. Also, depending on your website, you should take care about:

• Frequency – daily backups for active sites, weekly for less dynamic content;
• Verification – monthly checks to confirm backup integrity and successful restoration tests.

Monitoring and Auditing

We recommend checking your website health from time to time to check how everything is going. To do that, you can use different tools, like:

• Security plugins
• SEO services (like Ahrefs or Semrush)

While security plugins can identify potential threats and vulnerabilities, tools like Ahrefs and Semrush can help assess overall website health, including the presence of black hat SEO techniques (check our article on how to improve WordPress SEO).

Compliance and Legal Considerations

Finally, your directory website should be secure not only for you but for your site visitors as well. That’s why we decided to briefly cover some “legal components” that you should keep in mind.

Data Protection Regulations

You should check the data protection regulations to align your WordPress directory website with legal standards. The most popular one is the General Data Protection Regulation (aka GDPR), applicable to all sites dealing with EU citizens’ data. This law requires explicit consent for data processing and grants users the right to access or delete their information. The key requirements include:

• Obtain clear user consent for data processing;
• Enable users to access, correct, or delete their data;
• Report data breaches within stipulated timelines.

The good news is that you don’t have to deal with all these manually and think about how to set everything up. There are already different WordPress plugins that make your website GDPR-compliant. For example, you can choose the GDPR Cookie Compliance plugin or any other and set everything up in a few clicks.

Conclusion

That’s it! We hope this article was useful to you and that you now know how to secure a WordPress directory website and users’ data from different threats and vulnerabilities.

Additionally, we recommend you to check our articles on:

• The most popular mistakes people make when starting a WordPress website;
• List of best WordPress directory plugins;
• The most popular free WordPress directory themes.

However, what if you don’t know how to choose a WordPress directory plugin properly? What features should you look for, and how should you test everything? Answers to all these questions you’ll find in this article.

Let’s get started!

What Directory Plugins Are Used For

Simply saying, you’ll need a directory plugin every time you want to create a directory website or any other listing website like job boards, classified ads websites, etc. Basically, listings on such websites can represent various entities, including businesses, individuals, events, and locations.

The core functionalities typically offered by directory plugins include:

• Data Organization – you can create listing categories and tag listings for easier user navigation;
• Search Capability  – create your own listing search filters so users can search listings by different criteria, such as keywords or location;
• Listing Submission – enable users to submit their listings from the front end of your site;
• Custom Fields  – create specific fields relevant to the listings. It allows you to tailor your directory website to any niche.

Here are some other examples of websites that you can build with a directory plugin.

• Business Directory – organize businesses into categories and provide contact details;
• Real Estate Directory – showcase property details with images, prices, and amenities;
• Event Directory – list events with information like dates, locations, and tickets;
• Local Sports Directory – showcase all the sports activities in your region;
• Staff Directory Website – create a website that shows all your staff members and their contact details;
• Lawyer Directory – create a website where all the best lawyers are present and can be filtered depending on their experience and expertise.

These are just a few examples of websites that you can build using a proper directory plugin. However, everything depends on the plugin you choose and its features. So, let’s jump in and find out how to choose a WordPress directory plugin.

Evaluating Plugin Performance

When choosing a WordPress directory plugin, it’s important to understand how it will impact your site’s performance.  You should look for a plugin that has a clear code and won’t cause any slowdowns or conflicts on your website.

If you don’t have tech knowledge, it may be challenging for you to assess the plugin’s code and so on, so you can simply examine the plugin’s landing page on WordPress.org and check its compatibility, updates, reviews & support.

Compatibility with Themes and Plugins

Make sure that the plugin you select works seamlessly with your current theme and other plugins. You can check the plugin’s description or, if necessary, contact its developers to clarify whether it’s compatible with your theme or other plugins on your website.

Incompatibilities can cause issues that range from styling problems to critical site errors. Before installation, review the plugin’s documentation for any known conflicts and test it in a staging environment if possible.

Reviews, Regular Updates &  Support

Here are the next important things you should check:

• Reviews
• Updates
• Support

Firstly, check out the reviews left by other users. In most cases, it’s one of the best ways to evaluate the plugin’s quality. Just spend 5 minutes reading comments, and you can save tons of money and time on fixing potential bugs of a low-quality plugin in the future.

Choose a plugin with a strong track record of regular updates. Frequent updates typically mean better security, improved features, and ongoing optimization (check our guide on how to secure a WordPress directory website). Also, it shows that the plugin is in the active development stage, and you can rest assured that there’s some team behind it that is improving it.

The easiest way to check how often the plugin is updated is to check the Development > Changelog section on the plugin’s landing page in WordPress repository. 

Finally, you should check out the support policy and a knowledge base. A reliable plugin should have a dedicated support team that can help you fix any potential issues or bugs as well as guide you through the setup process. So, simply take a look at the support policy of your future directory plugin.

User Experience and Customization

Now, let’s talk a little bit about customization capabilities, extensibility and, of course, ease of use. All these components are really important if you want to create a robust directory website for any niche.

Ease of Use

What do we mean by ease of use? Basically, you should be able to understand how to set up the plugin without any special knowledge and skills. Everything should be intuitive and, if necessary, should have hints and clear descriptions of different features. So when testing a plugin, check whether it has:

• Intuitive back-end interface;
• Hints over different features;
• Clear descriptions of features.

Also, check the front end as well (helpful advice, isn’t it?:). But seriously, everything should look intuitive and without any redundant design elements or menus. Among other things, check:

• Vendor dashboards;
• The whole listing submission process;
• The registration process.

Customization Options

Choosing a highly customizable directory plugin that allows you to set everything up in the way you need is crucial. You should definitely check whether your plugin offers:

• Unlimited Listing Categories – some plugins limit the number of listing categories you can add. Avoid such tools.
• Custom Listing Fields & Search Filters – you should be able to add your own fields and create filters that are specific to your niche.
• Vendor Profile Fields & Search Filters – check whether you can customize the vendor profile fields by adding your own, not only default.

We mentioned a few of the most important ones, but, of course, you should also find out what other customization options your plugin offers. Keep in mind that the fewer hardcoded parts it has – the better.

Extensibility

Often, when building a website, it’s difficult to predict all the features you may need to have. That’s why choosing a directory plugin that offers different add-ons is crucial. These extensions may allow you to:

• Add new features;
• Customize your website even more;
• Optimize your directory website.

We recommend visiting the official websites of the plugins you are interested in and checking whether developers offer free or premium add-ons.

Documentation and Tutorials

Next, it’s necessary to check whether the plugin’s developers offer comprehensive documentation with clear explanations on how to set everything up. Additionally, it will be much easier for you if devs also provide you with different step-by-step tutorials (articles or videos), so you can simply open a tutorial and follow all the steps. Just read the guide, follow the steps and get the same result.

Monetization Functionality

Finally, when starting a website, you should think about monetization in advance to choose a directory plugin that supports the necessary monetization models. Here are some of the most popular business models for directory websites:

• Paid Listings – ensure the plugin supports charging for listing submissions. It’s probably the most popular monetization model for directory websites;
• Featured Listings – users should be able to pay additional fees if they want to make their listings featured (for better visibility);
• Claim Listings – choose a plugin that has the claim listing feature, where businesses can pay to claim and manage their listing (it’s optional and works only for particular niches);
• Memberships – for some niches, it’s necessary to charge users for viewing certain content, so make sure your plugin allows you to sell membership plans (check our guide on creating a members-only website).

Also, you should check what payment gateways your directory plugin supports. Usually, most plugins have integration with WooCommerce, which offers dozens of payment gateways around the world.

Final Words

So, we hope this article will help you to choose a WordPress directory plugin that suits your needs and requirements. If you still haven’t chosen a plugin for your project, you can check HivePress. It’s an all-in-one directory plugin that allows you to create listing websites of any type without any coding skills, so you can simply plug and play.

Also, if you haven’t chosen a directory WordPress theme for your website yet, you can check our articles on:

• Best free directory WordPress themes
• How to choose a theme for a directory website

So, without any further ado, let’s jump in!

A Few Words About WordPress SEO Fundamentals

Before we dive into the “recommendations” part of this article, let’s briefly cover some core principles of WordPress SEO that you should keep in mind when optimizing your directory website.

When optimizing your directory website for a better website presence in search engine results, you should always focus on:

• Keywords – identify the terms your target audience uses when searching for listings in your directory website, and include these in your metadata and content. You can find the best keywords using tools like Google Keyword Planner or Ubersuggest, etc.;
• Site Structure – try to organize your website logically with a clear hierarchy and easy navigation to make it easy for users to navigate. Moreover, in that case, it will help Google crawlers crawl and index your website faster;
• Mobile Responsiveness – it’s a pretty common recommendation, but many people still ignore this ranking factor and focus solely on desktop optimization. Make sure that your directory site is accessible and performs well on all devices;
• Page Load Speed – work towards a swift, smooth loading experience, as slower pages are generally ranked lower by search engines (check what Google says about loading speed);
• Proper Linking – it means that you should think about the linking structure of your website in advance (e.g., create pillar content, work on content clusters, take care of anchors, etc.). Also, it’s crucial to avoid buying spammy backlinks.

Okay, now you have a short outline of what we are going to talk about in this article. Now, let’s dive deeper into each of the SEO principles.

Technical SEO 

Technical SEO is the backbone of a directory website’s ability to rank well in search engines. By focusing on technical aspects such as site structure, page speed, mobile responsiveness, and security, you create a solid foundation for your website’s performance (check our guide on securing a WordPress directory website).

Simply saying, it’s a starting point for optimizing your website.

Optimizing Site Structure

Your directory website’s structure should be logical and easy to navigate. It’s better to use a hierarchical layout with categories and subcategories that accurately reflect the information on your website. 

Ahrefs recommends using a pyramid navigation structure for easy crawling and a better user experience.

This structure has three main benefits:

• Easy Navigation – everything is intuitive and pretty easy to understand;
• Good “Link Juice” Distribution – usually, homepages tend to have most of the website’s backlinks, so having important pages close to the homepage improves their page rank;
• Contextual Internal Links – categories link to their respective subcategories and vice versa.

Improving Page Speed

As we mentioned before, page speed is a crucial ranking factor. So, if you want to improve your website visibility on SERP (search engine result page), you should optimize the page speed of your directory website. The basic steps for improving page speed include:

• Converting images into WebP format;
• Setting up caching on your website; 
• Optimizing embedded media;
• Removing unnecessary plugins;
• Minifying CSS and JavaScript files.

We mentioned only a few basic recommendations on how to optimize your page speed. But it’s better to check out our article on how to speed up a WordPress website using the LiteSpeed Cache plugin. It includes step-by-step instructions that will make your directory website faster.

Mobile Friendliness

Ensure your website is optimized for mobile devices. Here, we’re not only talking about responsive design since it’s a default thing, and if you are using a modern WordPress theme, everything should be okay.

When optimizing your website for mobile devices, try the following:

• Use PageSpeed Insights – test your website using this tool and go through all the recommendations provided there to optimize your site for mobile devices;
• Avoid pup-ups – they work well on desktop versions of websites but not on mobile devices;
• Avoid large chunks of text – large chunks of text can be difficult to read on a small screen. They can also make a website feel cluttered and overwhelming;

Now, let’s jump into the next part of this article and talk about on-page SEO.

On-Page SEO Techniques

On-page SEO is like sprucing up your website’s interior. It involves fine-tuning elements directly on your pages to make them more appealing to both users and search engines. Effective on-page SEO ensures that your directory website is accessible to search engines and can significantly improve your site’s ranking potential. 

We’ll cover the most important things you should improve on your directory website.

Keyword Research and Optimization

Your website’s visibility starts with keyword research. You should identify relevant keywords that users are using to find websites similar to yours. It’s easy to find these keywords using tools like:

• Google Keyword Planner;
• Ahrefs Keywords Explorer;
• Ubersuggest;
• AnswerThePublic 

By using these tools, you’ll be able to find out which keywords are the most searched and relevant for your niche.

Once you identify all the necessary keywords, it’s time to optimize all your content for the most important keywords (i.e., those that are most relevant to your business). To make it easier for you, here’s a checklist of the “things” you should examine and optimize:

• Page titles;
• Headings (H1, H2);
• Meta descriptions;
• Blog articles (create keyword-optimized content);
• URLs (all new links should include proper keywords);

Just to clarify, proper keyword research is not something “optional” or “desirable”. It’s a must-have process that can make or break your business. So, it’s better to spend some time on research and optimization.

Now, let’s discuss some of the mentioned content elements in more detail.

Importance of Content Relevance

Content relevance plays a huge role when it comes to search engine optimization. Your content should be:

• Matching User Intent – it has to align with what users are searching for, which means listings should be detailed and categorically organized;
• Quality and Unique – high-quality, unique descriptions for listings help distinguish your website and make it more valuable to both users and search engines;
• Up to Date – try to maintain current and accurate listing information, as outdated content can negatively impact UX on your website.

Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

Meta tags and descriptions are critical components that impact how search engines and users view your website. 

• Title Tags – ensure each page has a unique and descriptive title tag that includes the primary keyword;
• Meta Descriptions – write short but compelling meta descriptions for each page that include relevant keywords and encourage click-throughs from the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Simply saying, title tags and meta descriptions are like a “cover of a book”, so make sure that they are compelling enough so users want to click on the link and check your website.

URL Structure

Another important component of your on-page SEO is a proper URL structure. It improves user experience and helps search engines understand the hierarchy and relevance of your content. Here are some recommendations:

• Keep URLs Short and Descriptive – use clear, logical URLs that include keywords and reflect the content of the page;
• Use Hyphens for Readability – separate words in URLs using hyphens;
• Avoid Numbers – don’t use numbers in your URLs, especially years (e.g., “best themes in 2024”) because you won’t be able to change it when you update your article.

So, that’s all for on-page WordPress SEO, and now let’s move on and talk a little bit about off-page optimization.

Off-Page SEO Elements

What is Off-page SEO? When people mention off-page SEO, they usually mean tactics applied outside of a website to improve its rankings. These strategies often include link building, guest posting, social media marketing, and so on.

The main goal is to make your website more trustworthy and authoritative for visitors and search engines. 

Building Quality Backlinks

The first and probably the most effective way to improve your off-page SEO is to start building backlinks from authoritative websites. But the question is, “How to build backlinks?”.  Ahrefs already simplified the answer to this question. Basically, you can:

To make it more clear, here are several popular ways how you can get backlinks to your website:

• Making Great Content – the most natural way to gain backlinks is to create outstanding content that will be useful to people, and other websites will be linking to it naturally (just like we linked in this article to Ahref’s article);
• Guest Posting – if you have excellent expertise in certain fields, you can reach out to different websites and offer to write an article for their blog, and if you are lucky enough, you’ll be able to link back to your own website;
• Directories – you can search for different industry directories and try to get your website listed there.

We mentioned only a few ways, but there are many more of them. However, not every backlink is worth getting. Here are a few recommendations on what you should avoid doing:

• Purchasing Backlinks – Google prohibits that, and you can get in trouble by doing so (e.g., Google can stop indexing your website);
• Spammy Backlinks – avoid spamming with links to your website on different forums or directories with the purpose of improving your DA (domain authority);
• Low DA Websites – don’t create guest posts on websites that are spammy or have a low DA since it will only make things worse.

Social Media Promotion

The next crucial off-page SEO strategy involves boosting your social media platforms’ presence. Social signals from platforms like Facebook and Reddit can positively impact your website’s search engine rankings.

By default, links from social media platforms don’t help your website increase domain authority. However, they can still bring a lot of traffic to your website when people share your content, and they can introduce your website to different audiences. So, we recommend creating accounts for your business in:

• Reddit
• Facebook
• X (formerly Twitter)

You can engage with your audience to promote social shares and direct traffic back to your site. Also, if it’s applicable to your niche, we highly recommend creating a YouTube channel for your business. It’s just a great source of traffic when used properly.

Measuring SEO Efforts

Now, let’s talk about measuring your SEO efforts. Accurate tracking and regular audits of your website are critical for long-term success. 

Analytics and Reporting Tools

First of all, you have to decide which analytics tool you gonna use. The most common choice is using Google Analytics 4. It will provide you with most of the necessary insights into user behavior, conversions and traffic sources. Some of the “WordPress SEO metrics” include: 

• Organic Traffic – keep an eye on the number of users reaching your site through search engines. This is probably the most important metric when talking about SEO since it directly indicates how easy it is to find your website organically;
• Bounce Rate – monitor how quickly visitors leave your site because this can show you whether the content on your website is relevant & quality or not;
• Conversion Rate – measure how often visitors complete desired actions, such as signing up or making a purchase. Basically, it’s the main metric of most of the websites. Usually, it’s pointless to have a lot of traffic that doesn’t convert.

It’s also important to:

• Set Goals – define specific, measurable objectives in your analytics tools to evaluate the efficiency of your WordPress SEO tactics (e.g., it may be “10k users in a month”);
• Segment Data – break down data by categories (like device type or location) for targeted analysis.

These are the “fundamental” metrics that should be tracked regularly, but there are also many other useful metrics that you should check, such as engagement time, returning visitors, etc.

WordPress SEO Audits

Also, it’s crucial to make regular SEO audits. It will help you to identify areas for improvement on your website and more importantly, you’ll notice if something wrong is going on (e.g., black SEO, broken links, etc.).

Unfortunately, you’ll probably have to use some paid tools like Ahrefs, Semrush or similar ones to make such audits. However, this is not an area to cheap out on because if you are going to invest money in WordPress SEO, then you have to be sure of what results it brings.

When making a new audit, try to break down the process into:

• Technical SEO – check for crawl errors, site speed, mobile-friendliness, and proper use of HTTPS.
• On-Page SEO – ensure proper use of title tags, meta descriptions, headings, and that content matches search intent.
• Off-Page SEO – evaluate your backlink profile and pursue high-quality backlinks from reputable sources. Also, check whether you have some spammy backlinks (remove them if necessary).
• Content Quality – from time to time, check the analytics of your content pieces to understand how they perform.

As a rule of thumb, reviewing this data once or twice a week will be enough. In that case, you’ll be aware of all the changes on your website.

Installing WordPress SEO Plugins

Finally, we recommend installing a popular SEO WordPress plugin on your website. You can choose RankMath or Yoast since both of them offer many features that help you optimize your website for search engines. Some of the default features of both plugins will include:

• Content Readability Analysis – plugins can help you evaluate the readability of your content and provide suggestions to make it more user-friendly;
• Schema Markup – such plugins offer options for adding schema markup to your content;
• Focus Keyword Optimization – tools can help you optimize focus keywords for your content, ensuring that you are targeting relevant terms.

Please note that we mentioned only a few features, but usually, such plugins can help you optimize your website significantly. However, keep in mind that simply installing plugins won’t make your website SEO-friendly and bring you more traffic. You have to use all the other techniques mentioned earlier to get some significant and permanent results.

Final Words

That wraps up our article on how to do WordPress SEO for your directory website (or any other). We hope it was useful to you, and now you have a better idea of the improvements you have to make to get higher rankings on SERP.

Additionally, we recommend checking out our article on the most popular mistakes people make when starting a new website, so you can avoid them in the future.

In this article, we’ll show you the essential site metrics that every website owner should track. Please note that you have to integrate Google Analytics with your website to get all the necessary data and metrics that we’ll discuss in this article.

Additionally, we recommend checking out our article about the most popular mistakes people make when they create and run websites.

So, without wasting time, let’s get started!

Essential Website Metrics

First of all, let’s take a look at the essential site metrics that you should track on your directory or marketplace website.

Overall Web Traffic

The first metric you should keep your eyes on is website traffic. Tracking the overall traffic on your website is essential for understanding its performance, as it gives you an insight into how many visitors your site attracts. This metric has two main aspects:

• Unique Visitors  – it’s a count of unduplicated users (individuals) who visit your site in a specific time frame (e.g., within 30 days);
• Traffic Sources – simply saying that’s origins from which users access your website (e.g., paid search).

By monitoring website traffic, you can identify which of your marketing strategies are bringing in new users and determine which channels drive the most traffic (e.g., paid ads or reviews on third-party platforms).

Bounce Rate

Another important website metric is the bounce rate, which measures the percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page. 

This metric can help you identify potential issues with your website’s user experience, content, or design. A high bounce rate could indicate that your site is difficult to navigate, lacks engaging content, or has technical issues. 

But what is an average or a “normal” bounce rate? Let’s take a look at the stats:

If you are running a niche directory website or a marketplace of services, the average bounce rate for your website will be somewhere between 50 and 70%. 

If you see that some particular pages have a higher bounce rate than average (depending on your industry), you should try reducing it by analyzing the possible technical issues, changing the page’s content, playing around with UI and so on.

Pages Per Session

One more cool metric that you should definitely track is the number of pages viewed per session, as it reveals how engaged visitors are with your website’s content. If you have many viewed pages per session, it shows Google that your website visitors find your site valuable and are more likely to stay and explore further.

By analyzing this metric, you can find out which pages or content pieces keep users engaged, allowing you to adjust your content strategy and understand what works and what doesn’t.

Session Duration

Lastly, it’s essential to monitor the average session duration on your website. This metric tells you how long, on average, users spend on your site during a single visit. The longer session durations typically correlate with more engaged visitors who consider your content valuable. 

Here everything is simple. The longer session – the better. Usually, it works great with blog articles that require at least a few minutes to read, and if you manage to refer users to some product page or another article after that – you are a rockstar, and Google will like it.

Website Performance & User Engagement Metrics

Now, let’s take a look at some other site metrics that can tell us a little bit about user behavior on your directory or marketplace website.

Top Pages

Understanding user behavior is crucial to optimizing your directory website or marketplace and improving user experience and conversions. One key aspect is determining the top pages on your website.

Knowing which pages are most popular among your website visitors is essential, as this shows the content that resonates well with your audience. Moreover, it’s important for your SEO (search engine optimization) since you can add internal links from top pages to other pages on your website that you want to rank higher.

 Usually, when you have a brand-new website, the top pages will be:

• Homepage
• Product page (if there’s such)

However, as your website grows, more pages will generate a lot of traffic (hopefully). For example, if you are running a blog (in a proper way), sooner or later, you’ll see that particular articles bring more traffic than others. For you, it means – creating more content on that topic.

By analyzing the top pages, you can improve your content strategy and make content your audience likes.

Entry and Exit Pages

Another important metric to track is your website’s entry and exit pages.

• Entry pages are the first pages that users land on when they visit your website; 
• Exit pages are the last pages they view before leaving. 

By examining entry pages, you can understand where your visitors are coming from and what content drives them to your website. Similarly, analyzing exit pages can help you understand potential issues with content that may not be useful or interesting for your visitors.

Mobile vs. Desktop Visitors

It’s vital to track the proportion of mobile and desktop visitors to your website for several reasons:

• Potential tech issues – if your website generates good traffic on desktops, but the mobile traffic suddenly drops, you should check whether the layout for mobiles isn’t broken;
• Advertising – if you know that most of your conversions come from desktop traffic, you can turn off mobiles and laptops in your advertising campaigns to save your budget and focus only on desktops.

So, it’s crucial to understand what devices your customers usually use to prevent any potential tech issues and not waste your marketing budget.

Source and Channel Metrics

Now let’s talk about the site metrics, which show us where our users are coming from to our website. Are they coming from YouTube, Facebook, Google, or probably another website?

Let’s dive in!

Organic Search Traffic

We’ll start with organic search traffic since it’s usually the most important one. Organic traffic refers to the number of users visiting your site from search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.), which doesn’t include paid ads.

This is the most “wanted” traffic since it’s free. You don’t have to pay for ads or for placements on other websites to get new customers. Moreover, by tracking this metric, you can assess the effectiveness of your SEO efforts.

Besides assessing the organic traffic in total, it’s important to pay attention to:

• Keyword rankings – check the keywords your content ranks for. It will help you to optimize your content and target high-converting search terms later;
• Click-through rates (CTRs) – analyze the percentage of people who click on your website after seeing it in search results. It will help you to assess your meta titles and descriptions.

Social Media Traffic

As you can understand from the title, social media traffic refers to visitors coming to your website via links shared on various social platforms like YouTube or Facebook. 

By monitoring this metric, you can measure your SMM efforts and decide whether it is worth the investment. Here are a few key aspects to track:

• Platform-specific metrics – by analyzing traffic from each social media platform separately, you can understand which one works for your business better and where the audience is more engaged;
• Posts’ or videos’ performance – it’s important to identify which types (formats) of posts or videos work best for your audience.

Referral Traffic

Referral traffic refers to users that visit your website through hyperlinks on other websites (this traffic doesn’t include organic and social media ones). By tracking this metric, you can understand the success of your backlink-building activities and find out which partnerships work better than others. 

Here, like with social media traffic, it’s crucial to check the particular websites where traffic comes from. It gives you a better idea of websites that have a “warm” audience for your business, so you can search for more similar websites and collaborate.

Demographics and Audience

Here, we’ll briefly discuss why it’s important to know the age, location and language of your website visitors.

User Location and Age

Understanding the age of your audience is not essential for all websites since there are some niches that cater to people of all ages. However, by analyzing user location, you can identify the regions that generate the most traffic, allowing you to adjust your marketing efforts. For example:

Imagine that you are running a restaurant directory website in the US and want to start Google Ads to promote it. If you are tight on budget and cannot run ads for the whole US, you should spend your budget as effectively as possible, and you have two options:

• Run ads for specific states – you can limit your ads only to the people from states that are already well converting (e.g., Colorado & Kansas);
• Exclude specific states – if you want to reach a new audience, you can exclude people from the states that already often use your website and focus your ads on the other states to promote your directory there.

Knowing the age of your audience is important when you have a business in a specific niche where age matters, like an influencer marketing platform or some kind of event directory website. In these niches, you have to know the age of your users to adjust your content strategy and overall marketing, so you can target different age groups.

Language

Language is another critical factor in developing and maintaining a successful website. Imagine that you are running a niche micro-jobs platform that operates in Europe. By analyzing the primary languages your website visitors speak, you can optimize your content for the most commonly used languages (e.g., English, German and French). 

It may help you to deliver content that is accessible and easy to understand for your target audience.

E-commerce Site Metrics

Finally, let’s discuss the crucial metrics for e-commerce websites selling goods or services online. In this section, we’ll discuss three vital site metrics: Conversion Rate, Customer Acquisition Cost, and Lifetime Value.

Conversion Rate

The conversion rate is an indicator that shows how well you’re turning website visitors into customers. It’s essential to continuously analyze your conversion rate because it helps you identify areas for improvement and potential bottlenecks in your sales process.

In order to track conversions and conversion rates, you have to create and set up goals in your Google Analytics. But if you haven’t done it yet, you can calculate the conversion rate on your website manually. Simply divide the number of completed transactions by the total number of website visitors and multiply it by 100. 

For example, if your website had 5,000 visitors last month and 100 of them made a purchase, your conversion rate would be:

(100 / 5000) * 100 = 2%

A good conversion rate depends on various factors like our industry, product offerings, and target audience. Currently, across industries, the average landing page conversion rate is 2.35%.

In any case, your conversion rate should always be a priority, as it directly affects your revenue.

Customer Acquisition Cost

The next metric is customer acquisition cost. Simply saying, this metric shows you how much you have to spend on marketing to get a new customer. To calculate it, you can simply divide the total marketing and sales expenses for a specific period by the number of new customers acquired during that time.

For example, if your business spent $5,000 on marketing last month and acquired 50 new customers:

$5,000 / 50 = $100

In the case at hand, you understand that it costs you $100 to get a new customer, and now you can adjust your marketing budget and set a reasonable price for your services.

Lifetime Value

The last one is a lifetime value (LTV). It shows the total amount of revenue a unique customer generates for your business while using your products or services. It’s a bit vague metric, and you should have enough data to calculate it (i.e., run your business for at least 1 year).

But calculating it may be helpful since you can set realistic expectations for your marketing efforts.

To calculate LTV, you can multiply the average purchase value by the average number of purchases a customer makes and the average customer lifespan. For example, if your customers, on average, make two purchases per year, spending $50 per purchase, and stay loyal for three years, the formal will be the following:

$50 * 2 * 3 = $300

In this case, your average LTV would be $300. It gives you a rough estimate of how much you can earn from one customer and how much you are ready to spend on their acquisition to stay profitable.

Final Words

That wraps up our article on the essential site metrics for your directory or marketplace websites. We hope this article was helpful to you and now you better understand what “numbers” you should track.

If you haven’t built your website yet, you can check out our guide on how to create a rental marketplace like Airbnb.

That’s why we created this article and collected several tips on how to choose a theme for a WordPress directory website. We hope it will be helpful to you and make the whole process a bit easier for you.

So, without any further ado, let’s get started!

A Few Words About WordPress Themes

First of all, we’ll briefly explain to you what types of WordPress themes there are and where you can find them.

Free Vs. Premium Themes

Simply put, you can divide WordPress themes into two types – free and premium. Of course, they can differ in niches like real estate directory, car directory, restaurant directory, and so on. If you want to learn more about possible niches for directory websites, you can check our article on the types of directory websites.

But for now, we’d like to compare free and premium themes to help you decide which is suitable for you.

Where to Find WordPress Themes?

The two main places where you can look for a WordPress theme are WordPress.org and Themeforest.

• On WordPress.org, you can find a lot of free themes reviewed and approved by the WordPress community. It’s a great starting point for beginners or those experimenting with different designs; 
• On the other hand, Themeforest is a popular marketplace for premium themes. While these themes come with a price tag, there are often better designs and more advanced features.

It’s better to check both websites and check everything on your own, according to your needs, budget, and desired features. But to make the whole process a bit easier for you, we created a handpicked list of the best free directory WordPress themes with detailed overviews, so you feel free to check it.

Things to Keep in Mind When Deciding on a Theme

When choosing a theme for your directory website, you’ll want to keep your eyes peeled for these things.

Design and Layout

The first and most obvious thing is to check whether a directory theme has a visually appealing design with clear menus, good fonts & and colors and so on. The look and feel of your website play a vital role in the success of your business, so check everything carefully.

Nowadays, all WordPress themes come with a responsive design, but just in case – make sure it will look great on different devices and screen sizes.

Functionality and Customization Options

At this point, you should be careful. If you check some of the themes on Themeforest, you’ll see what features they have, how powerful they are and so on. But a golden rule says:

 “Choose themes for design and plugins for functionality”

So when looking for a WordPress theme for your directory website, check whether it integrates well with other plugins and avoid themes that control both a design and add functionality. In that case, you won’t be stuck with one theme and will be able to switch it when you want (the functionality will remain since it’s powered by a separate plugin).

When talking about customization, you should be able to change colors, fonts, and other design elements to create a unique, branded website (we’ll talk about customization a bit more later in this article). 

Theme Performance

A lightweight and fast-loading theme is a must if you want to have a good user experience on your directory website. You should pay attention to the theme’s speed and optimization to ensure fast load times across different devices. 

Let’s move to the next section, where we’ll explain how you can actually estimate the WordPress theme quality.

How to Evaluate the Theme Quality?

Often it may be a tough deal to understand whether a theme is good or not, especially if you don’t have much experience and some basic coding skills. In this section, we’ll show three “things” that you can check to understand whether a theme is reliable or not.

Reviews and User Feedback

Before installing a theme, it’s crucial to read reviews and check user feedback. A theme may look great on the surface but may have some pitfalls. By reading feedback from other users who have used the theme, you can better understand how well it performs and whether it suits your needs.

Look for themes with positive reviews, a high rating, and a large number of users. Fortunately, both WordPress.org and Themeforest have a reviews section where you can check all the reviews hassle-free.

Here is how it looks on WordPress.org. You can simply check this section and read all the reviews.

Developer’s Reputation

Another good thing to check is – the people behind a theme. You can check the theme authors, their other projects, reviews about them and so on. It’s always better to choose a theme created by people with a solid track record of creating WordPress themes with good reviews.

Here are some tips on how to learn more about theme developers:

• Check the official website;
• Check the developers’ account on GitHub if you have coding knowledge;
• Check other projects and customer feedback for such projects;
• Ask people on Reddit in relevant communities like r/Wordpress or r/WordPressThemes.

Updates and Ongoing Support

It’s crucial to check whether a theme is regularly updated. Regular updates ensure a theme remains secure, compatible with the latest WordPress version, and up-to-date with current design trends. Also, frequent updates, improvements and bug fixing show that developers are “involved” and maintain the theme’s quality. 

Finally, check out what is the support policy for your directory theme. Make sure that there’s:

• A knowledge base with tutorials and tips;
• Documentation;
• Support forum or a support ticket system with an adequate turnaround time.

It’s important to have a “helping hand” if you get stuck with some issues or don’t understand how to set everything up. So, before installing a theme on your directory website, make sure that there’s dedicated customer support – just in case. 

By carefully examining reviews, assessing the developer’s reputation, and checking updates & support, you can pick the right theme for your directory website.

How to Get Started with a New Directory Theme?

Once you choose a WordPress theme for your directory website, it’s necessary to test it. 

If you decide to use a free theme downloaded from WordPress.org, you are not limited by time to test it and check how it works. However, if you purchased a premium theme (e.g., from ThemeForest), there’s a time frame called a “money-back guarantee” within which you can return your theme if it doesn’t fit your needs.

So we recommend testing your theme quickly, so you can check whether it’s a good option for you and ask for a refund if it’s not.

Here are two main tips on how to test your directory theme.

Use the Customizer

As we mentioned before, a theme is responsible for your website design, so the first thing you should check is how it can be customized. Once you activate your directory theme, you can now use the WordPress Customizer to make changes to its appearance and functionality.

Go to the WP Dashboard > Appearance > Customize section and try customizing the following parts to see how it works:

• Header & Footer –  change the header image or text to match your brand;
• Menus – organize and customize your site’s navigation;
• Widgets – try adding different widgets like calendars, search bars, and recent posts;
• Fonts & Colors – play with colors and check the available fonts.

Also, it’s crucial to test how your theme works with block editors. We recommend using the native WordPress builder – Gutenberg, because it keeps your website lightweight. However, if you want to customize your website with some other page builder like Elementor, then checking compatibility is a must.

Add the Necessary Plugins

The next step is to test how your theme works with the different plugins required for your directory website. If you don’t know yet which plugins you need for your directory website, you can test the theme with the following ones:

• WordPress Directory Plugin – obviously, you should check how your theme works with popular directory plugins like HivePress (check our guide on how to choose a directory plugin);
• eCommerce Plugin – if you want to enable monetization on your directory website, you’ll need an eCommerce plugin like WooCommerce;
• SEO Plugin – you can install RankMath or Yoast;
• Optimization Plugin – to make your website fast, you’ll need something like the LiteSpeed Cache plugin or WP Rocket.

These plugins are essential for any directory website, so test them with your theme to see if they match together like peanut butter and jelly.

Final Words

That’s all for now! We hope this article on how to choose a theme for a WordPress directory website was helpful to you and now you understand how to assess themes and pick the right one for you.

Keep in mind that it’s crucial to find the right balance between customization and simplicity when choosing a theme. That’s why we recommend checking out the ListingHive theme. It’s probably the most popular free directory theme in the WordPress depository, with 8000+ active installations. It includes everything you need to start a directory website, so you can just plug and play.

When launching a niche micro-job website, there are a lot of factors to consider, and in this article, we’ll give you a few tips on how to choose a niche for a micro-jobs platform.

Let’s start without any further ado!

Niche Websites vs Unspecialized Platforms

To begin with, let us explain why the choice of a niche is so important.

Some people mistakenly think that the more comprehensive and all-encompassing platform will attract more customers and thus bring more money to a website owner. However, this approach is nothing than erroneous.

“Less is more” is a core idea of contemporary design influenced by the minimalist movement. The same approach is valid for creating a website. Let’s compare the key characteristics of niche and unspecialized websites and see why opting for a specific sphere is a far better choice.

That’s why we highly recommend avoiding reinventing the wheel and instead focusing on finding your niche.

Let’s see how to do it in the next section.

What to Consider When Choosing a Niche?

So we’ve agreed that being a Jack of all trades isn’t the best business strategy when launching a freelance platform. If you want your micro-jobs website to succeed, here are several crucial moments to take into account.

Do Your Research

Don’t just sit there and wait for some great ideas to come to your mind; instead, go online and search for all the available data on people’s interests, current trends, and top queries. Knowing what people are looking for will help you to define the market needs.

Here are some tools that you can use for your research:

• Google Keyword Planner – this instrument shows how often Internet users search for certain keywords;
• AnswerThePublic – it gives you a list of the most frequently asked questions about specific keywords people are interested in;
• Google related searches – although sometimes overlooked, it’s probably the simplest way to get to know what people are looking for on the internet.

Using these instruments may give you a hint of what direction to take when developing your micro-jobs platform.

By studying figures, you can check if there’s demand for a certain sphere. Then you can continue to search for all the valuable data to deepen your understanding of the topic. Sticking to a specific field will allow you to conduct extensive research and learn all the nuances of a particular niche.

Once you have accumulated enough information, you can identify what’s in high demand in the market and create a micro-jobs website to close this gap.

Learn From Dogs, Top Dogs

Learn from those who’ve already made it in the micro-jobs market: study business strategies, marketing techniques, successes and failures of all the most influential existing niche platforms. 

Spare no effort to define the unique characteristics of these websites:

• What do they do differently compared to other micro-jobs websites? 
• What helped them survive the competition and become the best in their spheres? 
• How do they attract clients?
• How do they make money?
• What do they lack?

Finding the answers to these questions will help you figure out the winning strategies of different successful micro-jobs platforms. Use them as inspiration for building your own website. Analyze their strengths and think about how you can avoid similar weaknesses on your micro-jobs platform. 

All this work will eventually enable you to come up with a bunch of great ideas for your niche website.

Create a Unique Approach

The next essential point is the uniqueness of your website.

As we mentioned above, one of the biggest threats when starting a new micro-jobs website is getting lost among the established key players in the market. Investing huge sums of money in advertising will not lead to significant results unless you can also offer your potential clients some more competitive services compared to other platforms.

You should make your micro-jobs website distinguishable in the market to gain the necessary visibility. Think of ways of providing extra value or adding unique features. For example, you may offer your customers lower service fees, focus on some extraordinary fields, guarantee top-quality services provided by exclusively experienced freelancers who have passed the platform’s selection process (like Toptal), etc.

Suppose you want to develop a micro-jobs website for voice-over actors. What can be your key characteristics? Maybe, you’ll offer the freelancers a fee-free first order or a discount for repeated projects with the same specialist for the customers. The choice is yours but do your best to find your highlight.

Put Yourself in Your Potential Customers’ Shoes

Think about the people who’ll use your services.

Remember that your website visitors fall into two categories:

• Freelancers
• Customers

Take into consideration their unique and different needs when building your website.

Find the answer to what their main pain points are.

Check out what people share on niche forums and in any communities specialized in your sphere of interest. If possible, ask them about their experiences and expectations:

• What do freelancers say about service charges on other platforms? Are they satisfied with the conditions, or do they consider fees too high?
• Are there enough payment methods available on other websites?
• Do customers find them trustworthy? How enjoyable is their overall experience of using the micro-jobs platform to find service providers? Do they lack any features, such as specific search filters?

Don’t hesitate to interview people you know about their needs and preferences. You may also ask people:

• What catches their attention and convinces them to use a particular platform?
• What features do they find the most helpful?
• What commission would they agree to pay?

These are just a few questions you can ask your family, colleagues, and friends. Get creative and try to cover all the essential aspects in your survey. 

Think About Monetization Beforehand

Having followed the previous steps, you’ll know your potential clients’ requests and will be able to foresee what they’ll be willing to pay for. It’s better to think about all possible business models for your freelance marketplace before even launching a website.

Here are some of the most common monetization models for micro-jobs platforms:

• Charging commission fee – it means that the website gets a percentage as a service fee from every transaction made on the platform;
• Featured listings – this method is based on the natural desire of freelancers to improve their visibility in search by highlighting their profiles in the list for a fee;
• Hosting ads – once you reach a necessary level of traffic, you can sell advertising space using any available tools, such as Google AdSense.

Check out our other article to learn more about the most popular ways to monetize a service marketplace website.

Conclusion

Making decisions isn’t easy. It requires courage, knowledge, and luck. We hope this article gave you a few ideas on how to decide on a niche for your future micro-jobs website and now you have a better idea of what to do next.

If you haven’t chosen a theme for your micro jobs platform yet, you may consider TaskHive, it’s a versatile WordPress theme with tons of features right out of the box. You can check its overview to get a better idea of all the features.

You might also be interested to read about:

• Best Fiverr-like WordPress themes
• Top 8 freelance marketplace themes

In this article, we’ll cover essential tips for successfully managing a WordPress business directory website.

If you haven’t yet created your platform, we recommend checking out the following posts:

• A tutorial on launching a business directory website with WordPress for free.
• Some key points to keep in mind when choosing a niche for a business directory website.

So, let’s start!

Attract Business & Users

Once you’ve built your website, you have to think about promoting it to attract more customers.

In a case of a business directory, you need to focus on two types of users:

• Business owners & service providers.
• Customers.

To run a flourishing platform, it’s necessary to attract both target groups.

Let’s move straight to the first piece of advice on how to get more website visitors.

Business Owners & Service Providers

You can start by gathering information on service providers and posting it on your website. For example, you can create listings for any maintenance services companies. Invest the necessary time to do good research and create a complete list since it’ll be the key to attracting a faithful audience.

Even if you don’t have enough traffic, keep scaling up your website and adding various business listings.

Later on, when you reach a decent number of website visitors, you can proceed to draw the attention of business owners and single service providers to your directory website. You can offer them to claim their listings. It’ll enable service providers and business owners to check the information and keep it updated, answer clients’ questions in messages and react to their reviews, all of which is a must to gain consumers’ trust and attention.

Furthermore, you can invest in targeted ads, e.g., on Facebook or Instagram, to get specialists familiar with the advertising space on your platform and encourage them to register on your business directory website.

Customers

Simply having business listings displayed isn’t enough for the successful functioning of a directory platform. You should also take care of attracting service consumers to your website. Remember that an increase in the number of visitors is also responsible for an increase in the number of business owners and service providers interested in advertising.

Therefore, the next step would be to think about clients’ needs and foresee what they’d like to find on such a platform, e.g.:

• Short service description.
• Contact info.
• Relevant and easy search by categories and location, etc.

To attract more customers to your business directory, check out the following tips.

Make Sure that Your Directory is SEO-Friendly

Posting on the internet is like sailing in deep waters; you need to know how to navigate to avoid getting lost.

When developing a business directory website, it’s crucial to apply the best SEO (i.e., Search Engine Optimization) practices for traffic acquisition. 

The common recommendations include:

• Posting quality content – Keep in mind that useful and informative material is what users look for and expect from a business directory website in the first place.
• Using keywords – You may want to research the most relevant words or phrases in your sphere of interest and do your best to display them on your business directory website (e.g., Google Keyword Planner is an excellent tool for this purpose).
• Creating SEO-friendly page titles and meta descriptions – This tip is a must for every website owner as these two things give internet users the most information on what to expect from your website. If you want to build an appealing directory platform, invest enough time in selecting the right keywords to include in pages’ titles and meta descriptions.
• Building descriptive URLs – Instead of incomprehensible permalinks, go for easy-to-read and identify URL structures. Make sure they illustrate page content, as it’s another SEO trick that may help you gain more visitors.
• Inserting links – As in real life, more connections mean better chances of reaching the right audience. Therefore, do your best to include referrals to reliable sources and get them to do the same to your website since it’ll improve your credibility “in the eyes” of search engines.
• Speeding up your website – It’s a significant Google ranking factor. Some studies even show that about 50% of internet users close the tab if the website loading takes more than 3 seconds. In our other article, you can find more tips on boosting your platform’s performance.
• Maintaining your website up-to-date – As we’ve already mentioned in the previous chapter, when building a business directory, it’s crucial to keep content as relevant as possible. Delegating a part of the responsibility for content actualization to business owners and service providers will kill two birds with one stone: save your time and help raise your website to appear in top search results without any extra effort on your part.

Run a Blog

During the whole history of humankind, people have told stories. This fact demonstrates that narration constitutes a significant part of our value system and has the power to influence our choices.

Writing a blog right from the launch of your website will give you the following advantages:

• Attract a broad audience – the more people visit your website, the more likely someone will become interested in what you do. Give it your best shot to create fascinating and unique content, as it’s one of the most efficient marketing channels. 

• SEO improvement – running a blog gives you almost endless possibilities to boost your website operation by applying various SEO techniques, e.g., inserting effective keywords, making references, engaging your readers, etc.
• Establish your brand – writing a blog may be the fastest way to attribute your platform some personality, which will result in increased brand loyalty.
• Compile a mailing list – it’s a discreet way to create a list of users, which will especially come in handy when you decide to inform your audience about the targeted business listings.

So, we highly recommend considering running a blog starting from the initial stage and opting for niche content rather than the general one.

Use Paid Ads

Another proven, yet not the cheapest, way to attract more visitors is by paid advertising. Depending on your niche, you might want to try Google Ads or Facebook audience targeting. You can also experiment with influencer marketing which has been at its peak over the last few years. The options are numerous, and you can choose whichever you prefer. Just make sure that when investing in paid advertising campaigns, you already have a fully-featured business directory website and are ready to deal with the new flow of customers.

Retain Website Visitors

The difficulty lies not only in gaining website visitors but also in retaining them. Neglecting the necessity to establish long-lasting relationships is a common mistake of a lot of emerging website owners. So don’t forget that attracting people to your business directory is only half the battle, and you also need to maintain their interest in your product.

Here’re some tips and tricks on how to retain your website users:

• Statistics – providing business owners and service providers with relevant numbers on their listings demonstrates the usefulness of your services and helps you gain their trust. Check out the Statistics extension to give your website users a tool to measure the performance of their ads on your business directory platform.
• Search Alerts – Since users often struggle to find what they are looking for on the first try, they may appreciate being notified of newly added listings that match their search requests. You can use the Search Alerts extension to add this feature to your website.
• Emails – setting up a newsletter about new articles in the blog or personalized listings can be a great way to encourage your platform users to stay active.

Don’t Rush with Monetization

If you’ve built a directory website, chances are you’re considering turning it into a source of income. You should definitely assess various business models in advance, perhaps even better, before launching your website. It’ll give you a clear picture of what features to configure to monetize your business directory platform. 

However, avoid making the beginner’s mistake of scaring your few users with paid services. Bear in mind that your initial interest should be to create value for your website visitors by solving their pain points. Start by putting yourself in your customers’ shoes and answering questions about how to meet their needs.

After succeeding in gaining recognition and reaching a sufficient and stable number of visitors, you can proceed to implement any monetization strategies of your choice:

• Setting up a fee for placing listings.
• Including listings promotion feature to advance them in search results.
• Charging users for accessing some information on business owners or service providers (e.g., their contact details).
• Allowing businesses to claim their listings, etc.

You can combine different models, add various pricing plans, and test them to figure out which ones work better for your particular needs. Although, until you develop your business directory platform in a high-traffic website, focus on acquiring new customers and keeping the existing ones. 

Measure Analytics

To know your website inside out, you need some good analytics tools. Whether free or paid, they’ll provide you with essential information that’ll help you increase traffic to your business directory site.

We recommend using all available analytics from the start to make data-driven decisions when building your business directory.

The starting point would be to integrate Google Analytics with your site, a free service offered by Google to track your website’s data.

Setting it up will supply you with the following essential metrics:

• Website users – the number of visitors, including current active users, their demographical data and geolocation, etc. These insights can be useful for refining targeted marketing.
• Display & Interaction – knowing such things as bounce rate (the percentage of visitors that leave without performing any action) and the type of device used to access the platform can significantly improve your website performance when analyzed and used wisely.
• Traffic channel – the analytics tool will give you information on the most popular ways for internet users to get to your business directory, e.g., via browser search, following the links on social media, or by referrals. Also, you’ll learn what pages generate the most traffic and improve those that attract no users at all.

These are just a few examples of what you can do with analytics.

Also, we strongly encourage you to set up Search Console, another free service from Google that helps you optimize your website to enhance its visibility on Google.

In short, when running a business directory, make sure to do enough research and keep abreast with the latest trends in this fast-paced world.

Conclusion

These were some of the crucial steps to upgrading any WordPress business directory website. We hope they’ll help you to run a successful platform, highly appreciated among users.

Check out the ListingHive theme, a customizable, free, and easy-to-use solution for launching directory and classified ads websites of any type.
You may also want to check the following articles:

• Overview of the best WordPress directory plugins;
• Comparison of the most popular free directory WordPress themes;
• Mistakes to avoid when building a directory website.

Since more and more investments are being made in giving a brand some personality, influencer marketing seems to have a flourishing future.

If you haven’t still created your website, feel free to check out our tutorial on launching an influencer marketing platform.

When considering building an influencer marketing platform, you should first realize that it’s not a hassle-free process. The competition is high and will only grow over time. Yet, if you’re ready to take the challenge, we’ll be happy to guide you through the initial and most crucial stage – choosing a niche.

Pay attention, as it can either doom your website to failure or become your lucky ticket.

In this article, we’ll explore how to choose a niche for an influencer platform.

So let’s dive in!

Follow Your Passions

As trite as it sounds, following your passions can not only be your source of joy and inspiration when creating a website but will also help you to figure out the pain points of the people who are enthusiastic about the same things that interest you.

Remember that you’ll be responsible for placing content, market research, and coverage of the actual news, to name a few, to attract users looking for a solution to their problems. Therefore the chosen sphere must fascinate you personally.

For example, if you’re a big fan of fashion, know all about textures and color combinations, and are aware of all current trends, it’d be a good idea to launch a platform related to this niche. Knowledge of the subject will allow you to develop creative solutions and find a common language with influencers with whom you share the same passions.

Moreover, dedicating time to work in a niche you are most interested in will keep you from emotional burnout and ultimately ensure a long life for your website.

So, the first tip when choosing a niche is

Go with your heart

Be Specific

So, you’ve chosen a field that interests you and are ready to move on to the next step:

Focus on a specific area or a social media platform

When building an influencer marketing website, always do your best to be as specific as possible since it’s one of the keys to the success of your project. There are two proven ways to do so, namely:

• Choose a particular sphere (e.g., fashion, sports, traveling, food, etc.)
• Choose a social media platform (e.g., YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, etc.)

Let’s quickly go through the pros and cons of these two strategies.

Focusing on a Particular Sphere

Suppose you opt for a certain area of interest. For example, let’s take the following case.

It’s been estimated that more than half of the world’s population are pet owners. If you also have a four-legged friend, be it a dog, a horse, or a lizard, you know how many care products they may need. Due to the increasing popularity, more and more companies selling personal hygiene and grooming aids are emerging on the market. At the same time, there’s a vast audience of pet owners on the Internet who are eager to buy these products.

Thus, launching an influencer marketing platform focused on uniting customers and influencers specializing in the care of animals can be a profitable business idea (by the way, check out our guide on how to launch a pet care website).

Advantages

Dedicating your website to a particular sphere may give you the following advantages over non-specialized platforms:

• Firstly, choosing to specialize in a particular area rather than social media will make it easier for business owners to select the right influencer since all content creators registered on your website will work in the requested sphere.
• In addition, you’ll be able to offer businesses the possibility to run comprehensive advertising campaigns that reach a diverse audience. Suppose an organic cosmetics company wants to spread the word about its products to people of various age groups. The winning strategy would be to advertise to each group on the social media platform they most frequently use, e.g., YouTube and Facebook in the case of millennials, and YouTube and Instagram to target the younger Gen Z audience.

Disadvantages

The most significant disadvantage of a field-specific website is the necessity to research various social platforms’ metrics.

Since you’ll deal with influencers from different social networking, you, as a website owner, will have to know:

• How to correctly assess the audience reach?
• In what way to track influencers’ performance on each platform?
• Which key parameters should be used to measure the success of advertising campaigns?

Understanding these decisive factors will allow you to develop a fully-featured influencer marketing platform that’ll be able to satisfy your customers’ needs.

Focusing on a Social Media Platform

If you strongly believe that 15-second video advertising will soon substitute product placement in full-length movies, you may go for a specific social media platform (e.g., only TikTok and not Youtube) and work exclusively with its influencers. As in the previous example, this strategy has positive and negative sides.

Advantages

The advantages of running a website of this type include:

• Since you’re not limited by one particular sphere, your services may be suitable for a larger number of various businesses that look for different influencers for their advertising campaigns.
• Focusing on one social network will allow you to study its functioning better and, as a result, improve the influencer selection system. It’ll enhance the quality of the services you offer.

Disadvantages

Among the common drawbacks we can mention:

• The Internet is full of different social networks, and by focusing on just one of them, your customers risk losing a large part of their potential audience. Their losses can be reflected in your website’s diminished profits.
• Unlike a single-sphere website, owning a multi-disciplinary platform, you’ll have to keep up with rapidly evolving social media platforms and be ready to continually adjust your platform, e.g., by adding new categories, search filters, and so on.

It’s worth mentioning that such division is conditional, and you can always choose to combine the two approaches. Sometimes, this can be the best solution. Take your time, research, and test before coming up with the final idea.

Know Your Audience

To understand your clients’ needs, you must know who they are.

Remember that influencer marketing platforms are a place where two worlds meet – businesses aiming at advertising their products or services and content creators able to influence their target audience’s tastes. Accordingly, you’ll have to address both groups and, thus, focus on their diverse needs.

For example, business owners want to be able to customize search filters to select the most suitable content creators. For this reason, they’d highly appreciate the history of previous fulfilled orders and statistics on the work of influencers.

At that time, content creators require the tools to illustrate their skills in the best possible way, so you’ll have to add custom fields and success rates from all social media represented on your platform. In addition, influencers may be happy to use the opportunity to promote their profiles in search and increase their visibility.

With this in mind, you have to pay close attention to your customer’s necessities and aim to upgrade the user experience (moreover, it can also be a great way to monetize your platform, we’ll talk more about it later on).

To sum up, before building an influencer marketing website, you’ll have to get to know and assess your future audience to learn how to resolve their pain points. It should be noted that working with customers and content creators, you’ll have to develop two different marketing strategies. Your efforts will pay off in the form of productive and long-lasting relationships.

The one thing that is important for both customers and influencers is for you to – be an expert in your field.

Let’s talk about it in the next chapter.

Be Good at What You Do

Despite numerous studies showing that people trust other people better than plain brands devoid of any personal story, many companies still stand aside from influencer marketing. The two main reasons are the underestimation of the impact of content creators and the difficulty of finding and establishing contacts with the right influencers.

In order to convince companies to invest in influencer marketing, you should

Learn all the nuances of influencer marketing campaigns

To develop a great platform, you’ll first need to research the selected social media trends and identify the metrics that measure content creators’ performance.

Suppose you’ve decided to launch an influencer marketing website to help baby care product manufacturers connect with family lifestyle bloggers. You’ve checked the statistics and found out that some of the most popular TikTok hashtags in 2022 reflect the interest of this social media platform users in the content addressed to young mothers. As a platform owner, you should know these details to ensure successful cooperation between businesses and content creators. 

A lot of in-depth research is the key to the successful functioning of your website.

Know Your Enemies

In addition to studying your customers, you should also analyze your competitors’ strategies.

Do your research to be able to answer the following questions:

• What are the main characteristics of other influencer marketing platforms that differentiate them in the market?
• What advertising methods and marketing channels do they use?
• What are their monetization models?
• How do customers and influencers communicate with each other on those platforms?
• Have these strategies been effective over the years?
• What can you improve in their functioning to become a better alternative?

Make sure there’s room for competition in a selected field

Don’t neglect the analysis of your competitors, as it’ll bring you essential information when building your own website.

Evaluate Your Niche

Having researched your competitors, get ready to dig deep into the study of your niche. Before developing an influencer marketing platform, make sure it’s worth the effort.

Ask yourself:

• Do you have the necessary subject knowledge?
• What is the coverage of the audience interested in the topic?
• Will you have enough customers?
• Will you be able to find enough influencers eager to work with your website?

Let’s imagine you’re thinking of launching an influencer marketing platform specialized in cryptocurrency. Before building a website, roughly estimate the number of existing influencers who work with this subject. Check if they already cooperate with any brands. Try to find out on which platforms they find their customers. These steps will help you to get a clear picture of the actual situation in your field of interest and the possibilities to occupy the niche.

Only after a detailed assessment of the niche can you proceed to create a website. Moreover, don’t forget about the ways of monetizing your platform. Let’s move on and talk about it in the next section.

Monetize an Influencer Platform

Evaluating available monetization methods in advance might help you to better understand what functionality you’ll need to build your platform.

We can suggest the following ways to make money on an influencer marketing website:

• Paid listings – you can charge content creators a fee for posting their services.
• Promoting influencers – adopting this option will allow you to set a price for advancing some users’ profiles in the search.
• Charging a commission fee for every transaction – it can be either a flat fee or a percentage of the payment that business owners make to content creators; e.g., a 5-10% fee is the most common among similar websites.

These are the main, but not the only, methods of monetizing a service marketplace. Be creative, and the sky is the limit for you!

Bottom Line

Influencer marketing platforms have a prosperous future. Detailed market research will allow you to understand in which direction to move to choose a niche that has the greatest chance of success.

We hope that now you have a better idea of how to choose a niche for an influencer platform, and wish you the best of luck! 🍀Also, we recommend checking ExpertHive, a fully-featured service marketplace theme for WordPress that allows you to create a service marketplace without any coding skills. Feel free to check its overview article.

However, if you are still thinking about launching your own influencer platform with WordPress, then feel free to check our quick video on how to build it hassle-free.

Additionally, you may want to check our article on how to build an Upwork-clone website with WordPress and the overview of the most prominent freelance marketplace WordPress themes.

There are several common ways of making money with classified ads websites, such as Craigslist. In this article, we’ll explain what prerequisites you’ll need to successfully monetize a classifieds website and how to set up each business model.

Let’s get started!

What is Craigslist’s Business Model?

The monetization model used by Craigslist is pretty straightforward. The company uses the freemium model. Most publications are free, but the platform charges a fee for listings publications in specific categories, such as Job postings, Apartment rentals in selected regions, Real Estate, etc. The prices for posting in these sections are pretty small, which constitutes Craigslist’s advantage over classic newspapers and other classified ads websites.

Prerequisites to Monetizing Your Website

Before considering monetization, ensure that your classifieds website generates sufficient traffic and that you’ve set up a suitable payment system.

Website Traffic

A good amount of monthly visitors is a must if you want to monetize a classified ads website. For sellers to be interested in publishing on your platform, it needs to attract them with sufficient numbers. Craigslist is one of the most popular platforms in the world; it wins users over with democratic prices and the presence of its websites in numerous countries and regions. However, its impressive audience coverage has both positive and negative sides. Let’s see why.

Consider vintage car dealers. They’re interested in getting their ads seen by as many people as possible, but there’s a catch. On Craigslist, their ad will be viewed by ten website users, of whom approximately one or two share a passion for antique cars, and the rest will simply pass by in search of a new minivan model.

Suppose you’re an owner of a classifieds website for vintage cars, and your platform receives enough traffic to attract potential sellers. In that case, you can easily compete with more extensive and non-specialized platforms. Let it be 3-5 website visitors instead of 10, but all of them will be interested in the product you advertise. Thus, thanks to the already formed and selected target audience, you can increase ad publication prices and prevail over larger classifieds by aiming at quality, not quantity. Thus, the more restricted your website’s niche is, the better it is for attracting potential ads sellers.

Reliable Payment System

You should find and set up a payment system that supports different payment gateways to accept and process payments. It should be convenient for users and guarantee secure money transfers.

Popular Business Models for a Classified Ads Site

There are three main ways of monetizing classifieds websites:

• Charging users for posting listings – it’s the primary way to earn money on your classified ads platform. You can set the price for customers to pay for the publication of each ad or a package of ads.
• Charging users for promoting listings – you can also create a paid option to display listings in the top search for an additional fee.
• Displaying ads – finally, you can enable third-party paid advertising on your website as an extra source of income.

How to Monetize a Classifieds Website with HivePress

Now we’ll show you how to set up each monetization model.

For the sake of this tutorial, we’ll use a classifieds website built using the multifunctional HivePress plugin with its extensions and the free ListingHive theme.

Installing the Necessary Plugins

If you’ve already installed the HivePress plugin and the ListingHive theme, proceed to add the HivePress Paid Listings extension; it’ll allow you to charge users for adding, featuring, and renewing listings. To do so, go to HivePress > Extensions, search for Paid Listings, click the Install Now button, and Activate it.

Then install WooCommerce, the most popular eCommerce plugin. It supports dozens of payment gateways and ensures secure and fast transactions.

Once you activate WooCommerce, it will launch its setup wizard. Follow the instruction and keep in mind that completing all required fields is essential to configure payments of your platform.

When the necessary plugins are set up, you can proceed to the next section.

Charging a Listing Fee

Let’s start with the overview of how to charge users for adding listings.

Take, for example, a classified website with the following categories: For Sale, Real Estate, and Jobs. Similarly to Craigslist, we’ll leave the first category free of charge and make the other two the paid options. 

Create WooCommerce Products

The starting point is to add the WooCommerce products that will be used for payments. To create them, go to Dashboard > Products > Add New. Write the product name, tick the Virtual box, and set the price. As you finish, click the Publish button.

If you want to charge different prices for listings in different categories, it’s necessary to create a separate product for each category. To show it with an example, we’ll create another product for the Jobs category, following the same steps.

Add Listing Packages

Once you’re done with the products, go to the Dashboard > Listings > Packages section. Here you can create listing packages.

Click the Add New button, set the package name, description, and listing limit, i.e., the number of listings included in the package, and select the WooCommerce product. Optionally, you can also add the expiration date, in other words, the duration of a listing publication on your classified ads website. 

You can do as general packages as the category-specific ones. To show it with an example, let’s make a package for the Real Estate category. Assign the package to a corresponding Category, and click the Publish button.

As with the WooCommerce products, if you want to charge users different prices for adding to different categories, you should make a separate package for each category. To illustrate it, we’ll create another package for the Jobs category. 

Type the package’s title and description, proceed to Settings, link the package to the correct Category and WooCommerce product, and choose the listing limit and expiration time. As always, end up by clicking the Publish button.

Add New Listing 

To check how everything works, you can go to your website and try adding a new listing. In the case at hand, we’ll add a new listing to the Jobs or Real Estate categories. 

Once you fill in all the details in the submission form, you’ll get a notification with listing packages. As you can notice from the screenshot, you’ll have to purchase the package to get your listing published.

After selecting the package, users will be redirected to the checkout page to complete the billing information and place the order.

Moreover, you can always add more than one package to a category. For example, you can create packages with different listing limits, expiration periods, and other features, e.g., Free, Standard, Premium, etc.

Now you know how to charge users for publications on your platform. Let’s move on and configure the second monetization model.

Charging for Listing Promotion

As you remember, a listing promotion fee is another monetization option for classified ads platforms. 

If you develop a great classifieds website, it’ll attract many visitors, resulting in competition for the top places. As a consequence, some users will want to increase their visibility on your website. Thus, you may consider offering them to advance their listing in the search list.

In this section, we’ll show you how to charge users for their listings promotion.

Add a WooCommerce Product

As in the first monetization model, you should create a product that will be used for payments. Start by navigating to the Dashboard > Products > Add New section, add a preferred title, mark it as Virtual, set the price, and click the Publish button.

Enable Featuring

Next, go to the Dashboard > HivePress > Settings > Listings > Featuring section. Select the WooCommerce Product you’ve just added and indicate the Featuring Period, e.g., let’s make it two weeks. As you finish, click the Save Changes button.

Feature a Listing

Now you can test how it works. To do so, go to your website, click the User dashboard and mark the desired listing with a star sign.

After selecting the listing, users will be redirected to the Checkout page to fill in the details. Once the payment is made, the listing will be assigned the featured status for the previously chosen period.

That’s it. We’ve set up the second monetization model. Now let’s see how to enable advertising on your website.

Selling Advertising Space

As we mentioned earlier, displaying ads on your classified ads website, such as banners, text, video, or image ads, is another way to monetize your platform. If you choose to adopt this model, we’d recommend you opt for Google AdSense due to its simplicity and automatic advertisement placement and optimization.

Register a Google AdSense Account

Firstly, you’ll need to create a Google AdSense account. To do so, click the link and follow the suggested steps to enable all the necessary features.

Install & Set up Site Kit

Next, install the WordPress plugin to connect your classifieds website to your AdSense account. You can add Google’s official Site Kit plugin by navigating to Dashboard > Plugins > Add New. When you install and activate the plugin, click the Start Setup button and proceed to customize your account.

Once everything’s set up, move to the SiteKit dashboard and click Connect Service. Follow the plugin’s instruction of adding the AdSense code, a snippet allowing the auto-display of ads on your classifieds website. 

When your account is approved and your website’s reached the necessary level of traffic, you’ll be able to access the AdSense metrics and start earning money from advertising.

Summary

Now you know the most popular methods of how to monetize a classifieds website. Choose the one that best suits your business model, or combine all three to start making money from owning a classifieds platform.

You may also be interested in checking out: 

• An overview of the best free WordPress classifieds plugins;
• A comparison of the best free WordPress classifieds themes.