Hi all! My first post, been reading through a lot of useful posts and thought I'd pick your brains.

 

Quick introduction, I'm Ben and from the UK. I'm by no means a professional web designer but I have used Wordpress a lot and made a few sites for local business some years back and worked a lot on a previous site of my own in a niche I used to work in.

 

I find myself with spare time on my hands and thought about starting a project I'd had in mind for some years.

 

Around ten years back I bought a nice .com domain name that has local meaning and always intended on making a website about my local town as a small project.

 

Fast forward to the now and that idea had evolved where I'd began to think of ideas for creating a local directory for businesses, useful to those that don't have their own websites, they would list themselves for free and customers would be able to leave reviews and use the site to find local business, the usual stuff. This has all been done before but I was prepared to go door to door and approach the businesses offering to list them and to advertise locally.

 

I spoke with a friend about this idea and he pointed out that people jump straight to Google nowadays and there's sites such as Yell, big directory sites where this has already been done and that's if people even make it past local listings.

 

I knew all of this and hence planned to do the work locally in person, my idea isn't fully formed and this already seems like a lot of work for little or no return so I've not gone ahead with this idea as of yet.

 

So my first question: Are local directory sites dead? Is this an area best avoided now?

 

My previous successful website was in an arena in which I worked for 3 years, I spent a good couple of years writing all the content myself, designing and building additions to the site such as a forum (which never took off) - the most successful part of it was my content documenting what I was doing and my training. I was approached by various training schools and businesses from the niche and the site made a small amount of money through advertising and adsense, nothing worth the time I put in but I didn't do it for that. I now no longer work in that niche and that site is finished with.

 

I only call the site successful because it helped a lot of people and gained a lot of interest in it's specific niche - I'm in a new job now so have nothing further to contribute.

 

What I do have is time and I find myself wanting to work on something new, I've figured out that it would be best if I were interested in the topic to make creating content less painless.

 

I kitesurf and had thought about making a site based on that however equipment is expensive so I couldn't afford to review much and although I produce pictures using my GoPro it's not enough for a site and the niche is very small.

 

I would like this site to make money eventually, even just a small amount.

 

How do you pick a niche or a project you are going to give so much time to?

 

I question whether a site about my hobby can ever really generate enough interesting content so maybe I need to look in another direction.

 

TL;DR

 

I have the spare time and inclination to begin a new personal website project but don't know what it should be. Ideally it should have the possibility of becoming mildly profitable given enough time and effort.

 

Thanks for reading my ramblings, at least I began to focus my thinking

Edited December 8, 201510 yr by FlipFlop

As someone who lives in a very small village I would make use of a village website if it existed, local business info and reviews, general goings on at the village hall and church and whatnot. There have been many times I've attempted to google something very local and gotten no results. I really can't see a project like that making any money though unfortunately, even with ads the visitor rate would be so low it would barely be worth putting them there.

 

Perhaps you should start with a blog, and write about whatever tickles your fancy. If you find yourself gravitating towards a specific subject or any become particularly popular you can go from there and re-evaluate.

I agree, the audience would be so small that it's be viable as a hobby but that's about all. Our town has around 100k population and I would say that local traffic from that would be low for any site I did.

 

Thank you for that suggestion it is probably far more sensible than any of my ideas. I shall mull it over and see if I can think of things to write about.

Hi Ben,

 

I've thought about this quite a bit, but have deleted most of it to leave the reply as follows :-)

 

Test your assumptions. Go and talk to the business owners and propose the idea. Ask them what they need help with.

 

Cheers

 

Simon

Directory sites are all but dead, apart from the few big ones like Yelp that struggle on.

 

Local sites can work if a) there's no competition, they're genuinely useful and provide things other sites don't. As you say it's really a hobby site then I'd say just go for it and see where it goes.

 

You mentioned starting a Kitesurfing site and how equipment is too expensive to review. The trick with this sort of thing is to wangle tests with manufacturers where you don't buy anything but provide a written review for anything you test out. Obviously that requires a lot of effort and legwork but if you can get that rolling it could be worth it.

Yeah if you do well enough to become an influential content creator within a niche you can do quite well with sponsorships and get a nice bit of free stuff, the struggle is getting to that point. All the niche sites I frequent had very humble beginnings and did seem to be created just for the love of the subject - eventually going on to become full fledged money makers. If you have something you like doing that has less expensive start-up costs you could be on to a winner, starting up a content based website purely for the profit will be an uphill battle I think if you aren't interested in the subject.

Thanks to all of you for your helpful and insightful responses, not to mention making it over my wall of rambling text

 

Hi Ben,

 

I've thought about this quite a bit, but have deleted most of it to leave the reply as follows :-)

 

Test your assumptions. Go and talk to the business owners and propose the idea. Ask them what they need help with.

 

Cheers

 

Simon

 

Thanks Simon, I wish you'd left it all in so I could see all your thoughts

It's a good idea, would feel a bit strange going in with nothing but it would be a good way to test the waters, especially with those that don't have a website.

 

 

Directory sites are all but dead, apart from the few big ones like Yelp that struggle on.

 

Local sites can work if a) there's no competition, they're genuinely useful and provide things other sites don't. As you say it's really a hobby site then I'd say just go for it and see where it goes.

 

You mentioned starting a Kitesurfing site and how equipment is too expensive to review. The trick with this sort of thing is to wangle tests with manufacturers where you don't buy anything but provide a written review for anything you test out. Obviously that requires a lot of effort and legwork but if you can get that rolling it could be worth it.

 

Yeah if you do well enough to become an influential content creator within a niche you can do quite well with sponsorships and get a nice bit of free stuff, the struggle is getting to that point. All the niche sites I frequent had very humble beginnings and did seem to be created just for the love of the subject - eventually going on to become full fledged money makers. If you have something you like doing that has less expensive start-up costs you could be on to a winner, starting up a content based website purely for the profit will be an uphill battle I think if you aren't interested in the subject.

 

"Directory sites are dead", I've read that sentence many times I believe you're correct.

 

My thinking was (thus far) to make the site manual, at least to begin with. I will create the page for each business myself, and rather than marketing it as a directory site, I can target local small businesses that don't have a website. The page would be their own little website on my domain, charging a monthly or annual fee. The limitations of this are that without free, front end listings I won't have nearly as many businesses on there, so it can't be a directory, I'd be relying on making money from the clients who want a page as opposed to from traffic.

 

My last site was in the commercial diving niche and somewhere between years 1 and 2 I began to be approached by schools offering me to go visit and write about them, and by businesses who wanted to advertise directly so yes I believe it's possible to go from small beginnings with the kitesurfing niche. My concern is that I'm a beginner myself, been doing it just over a year so I'm still learning and worry if I can offer much of value. I've built a decent following via Instagram doing it but writing content requires knowledge and I'm still at the beginning of that journey.