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Q&A: "Is the directory website model outdated?"
Hi, Chris, this is Elgin from just outside Boston, Massachusetts. I've been listening to the show for years now and love the inspiration and advice. My current side hustle is a small moving business, basically myself and a friend. My question is about potentially creating a directory website of movers from around the country and charging lead referrals, sponsored listings or other ad related revenue. I'm choosing the moving business since I already know the industry, and it seems like a good fit. Now is the directory model outdated? What a simple Google search of moving companies might suffice.
Is it outdated? Sure! Does that matter? It depends.
Makes sense that you would choose this industry as a natural next step.
What matters most is qualified traffic. Imagine that you had a good amount of quality traffic coming to this directory website. You had leads! They wanted to hire movers! Would that be valuable? Of course.
But now imagine you have a website that no one visits. Is that valuable to movers? Not really.
So it's the gap between those two experiences where value is created. Elgin said "a simple Google search might suffice"—but all those searches have to end up somewhere, right?
The question you need to answer is: can you build a site that ranks for the right queries and drives qualified traffic? If yes, the model isn't outdated at all.
