Owning a directory = owning a free infinite marketing channel

After reading this, you will want to make one 😁

Oct 31, 2024

What is a Directory and Why You Need One?

Owning a directory = owning a free infinite marketing channel. I build at least 1 new directory per month. It is my investment in the future 😊

In this inspiring article, let me explain what is a directory and why you need one too.

What is a Directory?

A directory is a website with a list of useful links.

An owner of a directory has experience in the niche, so the items' set is better than you would find on Google.

Let's take a look at one of mine's as an example: https://stripealternatives.com/

I gathered all alternatives to Stripe in one place.

Why my directory is better than any of the top pages from Google? Because in the SERP, you will only see articles written by SEO experts. They have no idea about billing systems. They never managed a SaaS.
Their set of links is 15 random items from Crunchbase or Product Hunt. Their article has near 0 value for the reader, because the only purpose of the article is to bring traffic to the company's blog.

What about mine? I tried a bunch of Stripe alternatives myself. Not just signed up, but earned thousands of real cash through them. I also read 100s of tweets about experiences of others. I'm an expert now. I can even recognize good ones without trying them.

The set of items I published is WAY better than any of the SEO optimized articles you will ever find on Google. That is the value of a directory.

Fun fact: Do you know what is the most popular product ever launched on Product Hunt? A directory! 🙂

Why Should You Care as a Maker?

A directory brings free traffic!!!! 😎 You can use it to boost your main projects' sales.

Imagine you have 10 directories, each brings you 2k visitors per month. That is 20k/m.
Assume 5% will click the banner and 5% of those will buy your SaaS. That is 50 sales every month with zero effort. If your SaaS is $50/m that is +$2,500 MRR per month.

The sweetest part that if you start a new SaaS you will already have that marketing machine ready to be used 😎

Not only that. The swarm of directories gives you flexibility:

You can boost DR of your projects by linking them from your directories.
You can sell ads on directories and get passive income.
You can sell a directory and get quick cash.
You can turn a directory into a SaaS if you see it is getting good traction.

My Directory Portfolio

I've created 10 directories in 2024:

https://launching.pro - all Product Hunt clones in one place.
https://stripealternatives.com - all Stripe alternatives in one place (for the folks who do not have access to Stripe).
https://acquire.website - marketplace of small projects (you can sell your directory here btw!).
https://isora.me/tools/ - the list of tools I use to build startups.
https://cmscrawler.com - a directory of all CMS and website builders.
http://aivideo.tools - AI video tools, self-explanatory 😁
https://seoai.tools - AI tools for SEO (not only text generators!).
https://screencapturetools.com - WIP, the tools are picked by AI for now. This one is gonna go well with my video-related SaaS, paracast.io
https://startupideaspodcast.com - i needed a site for my podcast. So I did not miss the chance to make yet another directory of all startup podcasts 😁
https://opensourceai.software - open source AI projects (not only LLMs)

The Plan

My next step will be SEO optimizing the directories. That'd include cross-linking, keyword research+optimization and writing blog posts. Then I plan to create 25 more! 😎

My directories saga started in 2017 (https://isora.me/my-secret-weapon/) but back then I could not realize the entire potential of this kind of side-project. Kudos to @johnrushx for opening my eyes! You should check his directories course if you want to learn how to build and grow those.