It has never been easier to start doing business on internet than nowadays. Whether you want to gain passive income only or whether you aim to run full-time business. You can make money online as part-time job or dedicate most of your time into it. Thanks to a directory theme you can start running the catalogue business with the minimum capital investment. So convenient, risk-free without big investments. Let’s have a close look at WordPress business themes for creating directory & listings websites. How can you use them for your needs?
The secret of earning money with Directory Themes
WordPress directory theme is a catalogue theme that facilitates addition of various listings from different areas into relevant categories, lists and their presentation to the website visitors. It could be listing of restaurants, coffee places, doctors or promotion of the upcoming events that visitor can find on map based on the location, type, radius etc. The individual items can be inserted directly by yourself or by the users (item owners) who register on your directory website.
Money making strategy
And this is the time when we’re getting to the business model that directory theme can offer to you. The sale of packages for a certain fee to the users who register on your portal. It is one of the money making strategy. By offering different subscription packages (each of the packages can allow for a specific limit of number of items which can be added, variable expiration periods etc.) at different prices for each of the packages you can build your own pricing strategy.
It’s a win-win situation – user can advertise himself by placing items on your website and you get money from him for this service. Sounds good, right?
Fully customizable Directory WordPress Themes by AIT Themes
3 steps to your own directory business
At first glance it may seem that starting up directory business is a complicated thing. But if you follow these 3 simple steps, it’s gonna be no problem at all.
1. Selection of WordPress directory Theme
Before you start, it would be good for you to consider what type of directory business you’re planning to start – if you want to focus on various kinds of items from several fields of business, or just 1 concrete type of business. AitThemes.club website contains a list of themes you can choose from. Some of the themes, for example Business Finder+, Directory+, or alternatively City Guide are more suitable for a complex directory portal. FoodGuide Theme is an excellent choice if you want to focus on gastro business owners and Event Guide can be best used for the events presentation. You can get a better overview in the simple guide to directory themes.
Each of the directory themes made by AitThemes can be used for any type of business, as their themes are extraordinarily customisable.
Our tip: Now you can try the universal Business Finder + Theme completely free of charge so that you can find out, if the directory website is the right thing for you.
2. Selection of WordPress directory plugin
Directory plugins are used for simplification of work with the directory theme and for extension of its basic functionality. Apart from the list of themes, AitThemes provide a wide range of WordPress directory plugins.
For the beginning of your directory business we recommend using for example PayPal Payments plugin, which will process the payment and update the payment status of the users who registered on your directory portal. This way the plugin will save your time and you can rather dedicate it on more important things, e.g. on searching of new, potential clients or advertisement. Automatization is one of the key thing how to make money online.
Another must-have plugin is the extension plugin AIT Permissions Manager that will make you the real manager of your web project. This plugin will let you assign additional unique permissions to your registered users – e.g. rights to insert ads, job offers, own articles or services… You can also give users permissions for letting them steer their own portfolio.
Everything for an unbeatable price. Full Membership entitles you to use absolutely all themes, plugins and graphics from AitThemes (premium and directory) i.e. everything you need for enrollment of your directory business. And what’s the best now is the privileged sale price!
3. Selection of domain and hosting for directory Theme
If you want to start with the directory business, you have to register a domain first and choose the suitable web hosting. Hosting should facilitate the installation of WordPress and provide sufficient storage. It is essential that hosting can handle large number of data / number of items for the smooth operation of directory Themes. May be at the beginning you will have only thousand, five thousand, or perhaps ten thousand of items, but you should envisage this for the future. The summary of technical requirements for hosting and a guide for Changing File Permissions.
It is certainly better to pick a better quality hosting to avoid unnecessary issues with the portal hosting once there will be thousands of items added to your website. For the really fast item loading we recommend the latest PHP version 7.1.
If you are not 100 % sure that your hosting is sufficient, during the installation process of any WordPress Theme developed by AIT Themes, Requirements Checker is launched automatically which will help you identify if your hosting meets all the necessary technical parameters to run your new website.
Directory Themes will save you money
Starting your business by using directory Theme is the best solution for you because it also eliminates high initial costs that you would need otherwise for launching “standard” online portal. In other words, if you decide for one of the directory themes, you don’t need large capital investment. How is that possible?
- Full Membership can be bought for a fraction of price of a tailor made portal. Membership price is comparable to the price of one good dinner 🙂
- You don’t need to hire external designer – you can start creating your own directory portal directly, from the prearranged demo version that comes along as a part of your membership.
- You don’t need to pay for the developer’s work – directory theme is ready for instant use without any unnecessary developer interventions. Moreover you can rely on 100% security and free updates throughout the whole duration of your membership. Of course it is still just a template, therefore it cannot contain specific functionality, but it is still a strong tool at low price that can be used as a basis.
- Utilise available language translations and create a website in your own language. You don’t need to spend hours on translations, you can simply select the desired language in theme options.
- You gain free technical support.
- The only significant investment is your own time, dedicated to your directory portal.
Summary
The beginning of online business is never that easy. But why not to simplify things with AitThemes WordPress directory themes? The most important step is to choose the appropriate directory theme from a reliable developer. A theme that will best suit your type of business. During the initial phase you should not forget also on selection of a domain and capable hosting. This will ensure smooth operation of your directory website and at the same time, you will have space for further growth. Only this way you will handle the expanding number of items once your business takes the full speed.
Author:
Ivi – This is a guest blog post written by the member of AitThemes.club team. AitThemes has 10 years experience with directory portals.
