John Hasson

I was talking with a friend about an idea they had for a site. It was essentially a directory site. You know.. kinda like a yellow pages site for their particular niche. There are a two ways to do this.

1. By Hand. Create a page for each city and add listings by hand.
   This is only for people who don’t want to learn anything new and have time and patience to do it this way.
2. Build it with a database and a simple web application.
   I personally use .NET and SQL Server, but that is only because I’ve been using them for a while now. PHP and MySql isn’t that hard either though. If you are starting fresh and just want some simple things I’d say go with PHP and MySql. The hosting is usually cheaper and there are plenty of free tutorials and examples out there.

Now that you know how to build it, here is how I would make a directory site.

1. Organize your listing by city/region/whatever you are going to use.
2. Build your template/site reading off of a simple database you have put together
3. Test.
4. Test
5. Optimize for SEO
6. Test
7. Populate the data from sources that you have permission to use.
8. Test

Constantly Update The data. Building a list slowly over time “organically” will do better for you in the long run then a quick full blast of everything you can find.

Bonus Points: Build a system to automatically find new data (that you have permission to use) and have it add the new listings daily so your site grows a little bit each day.

Extra Credit: Allow people to correct listings/add reviews or comments and rank the listings.

So.. thats how I would do a listing/directory site.

Tags: Online Moola //