You can use SEO tools to explore who is ranking higher for the searches. Having a list of popular long-tail keywords is one thing, but that will be less useful if there are directory websites serving them already. Check Whether There Are Any Websites Already Serving Your Niche: More information on optimizing your website’s SEO can be found in Kinsta’s SEO checklist. As an example, the query “pool builders near me” is a popular research you might want to create a dedicated section for on your directory website. But there’s more: thanks to this research, you’ll be able to see what types of builders people look for. Here’s a list of them: Ahrefs result page for a given queryįrom this, you’ll see what keywords you should target to get your website ranking higher. I used Ahrefs to find search terms that are popular (above 200 searches a month) and are not too competitive (a keyword difficulty rating of less than 50). Here’s what I mean: let’s imagine you have decided to create a directory website for people to find local builders. The key point here is to find the right long-tail keywords, which have that magic combination of high popularity and relatively low competition. To do so, there are plenty of SEO tools you can use, such as Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs or Moz. One of the most effective ways is looking at what people are searching for online. Once you’re clear on what you’d like to sell, you can then move on to doing some in-depth research to uncover the most popular businesses in your preferred niche. This provides you with the right type of knowledge you could use to start targeting specific restaurants, which you know they’re great, instead of wasting resources on others. If you start with this goal in mind, you’ll be more passionate about your project and it’ll hopefully come easier to you to find four or five types of industries, niches, or verticals that you can use as the foundation for the rest of your research.įor example, if you enjoy going out to eat with friends, you’ll have a good idea of the most popular restaurants in your town/city, the type of food they serve, and what their best dishes are. Think About What You Would Be Interested in Selling:Īt first, it is important to think about what types of products, industries, and services you’re interested in. Here are the steps you should take to evaluate what your directory website will specialize in. Identifying your market could be the difference between your next profitable business and one which will simply become yet another failed project on the web. What exactly are you going to list on your directory website? See how Kinsta stacks up against the competition.