The Most Overlooked Way to Make Money On the Internet — Transcript

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1. 0:00trip Adviser Care.com Happyc hundreds of  directories making multiple millions and many more
2. 0:06making over six figures That one backlink that  got me to rank one has resulted in 2 years worth
3. 0:11of like completely passively $2,300 to $3,000  a month It's just one of those businesses that
4. 0:17people don't even think of They've all interacted  with them but they don't see it as an opportunity
5. 0:21There's still so many untapped opportunities out  there where there's more demand than supply 100%
6. 0:26I think once you see it you can't unsee it So if  someone's starting from complete scratch where
7. 0:31should they [Music] start What is a directory  and why should you care Travel velocity.com
8. 0:39that's a directory billion-dollar business Dry ice  nearme.com that's also a directory It's a five-f
9. 0:45figureure business Why should you care Because  there are millions I'm not exaggerating millions
10. 0:51of opportunities out there to start a directory  website for almost no money It's just math There's
11. 0:56a simple template There's about three tools  you need You log into the tools You see where
12. 1:01there's more search demand than supply You build  a directory with WordPress or Web Flow And then
13. 1:06you wait for it to rank And then you profit And  you do that over and over and over again until
14. 1:11you have a portfolio of websites maybe five maybe  500 making you hundreds to thousands of dollars
15. 1:17a month passively Does passive income exist No Is  this as close as you get Yes Freychu is a guy that
16. 1:23I found on Twitter and all he does is talk about  directories and he builds directories and he tells
17. 1:28people how to build directories He has nothing to  sell you He just wants to talk about what he does
18. 1:32in his free time So thrifting directories balloon  animal directories dog park directories Yes yes
19. 1:38yes All the above Anyone with about 100 bucks can  start a directory and learn and hopefully profit
20. 1:45when and or if they start ranking So enjoy this  interview share it with a friend and we'll see you
21. 1:49next time on the Kerner office You shut down your  business You were bummed out You had to flip items
22. 1:53at garage sales to make rent That sucked That  got you thinking creatively because constraints
23. 1:59equal creativity You just started looking online  passive income websites how to make money what's
24. 2:04scalable You came across directories You thought  "Okay if this isn't the thing then this could
25. 2:08be the thing that helps me learn SEO to do other  things." You started your first directory Months
26. 2:13later you found out it worked What was that  directory like do you mind telling us what the
27. 2:17actual website was and what made you choose that  niche Yeah I'm happy to share as much as possible
28. 2:24without giving the domain just because the first  time I did that it invited like three copycats
29. 2:29within 24 hours And yeah it's it's just one of  those things but it's in the thrifting niche
30. 2:36And I really just found it scrolling on Tik Tok  actually I noticed these viral videos of people
31. 2:43showing their thrifting hauls like a lot of Gen  Z They had millions of views and all the comments
32. 2:49were like location-based queries They were like  "Where is this Is there one in Pennsylvania?" You
33. 2:54know people were very curious and I was like  "Why aren't people just going to Google Maps
34. 2:59looking this up and then visiting it nearby?"  And that's when I discovered that there was a
35. 3:04bottleneck Like Google Maps was not very good at  very specific location-based queries If you typed
36. 3:10in the keyword that I built this directory around  it pulled up like a bunch of irrelevant businesses
37. 3:17and locations So yeah I researched it I saw one  website that did cover it and it was getting a
38. 3:24100,000 monthly visitors and I was like I could do  better than this I could I could I could improve
39. 3:29on this So I did combine some of the stuff I  learned from from YouTube and that's kind of
40. 3:35how I landed it Did you use Similar Web to look at  their traffic I use Hrefs Hrefs is always my go-to
41. 3:42Oh you look use that for traffic as well Mhm Yep  All right So and then you use AHFS I imagine to to
42. 3:49find the demand And you're I'm guessing you're  looking at keyword difficulty as in difficulty
43. 3:54to rank highly for it on Google and keyword volume  and you're looking for asymmetric bets there right
44. 4:00Yep Exactly You always want to find the balance  between something that's low keyword difficulty
45. 4:05with high search volume And then there's some  deeper stuff like sometimes keyword difficulty
46. 4:09is not the best metric to really uncover the  competitiveness of a niche but it's good enough
47. 4:16at a top level And yeah that's essentially what  I did also always find a bounty So like finding
48. 4:22a website that already succeeded that looks like  kind of a mom and pop publisher That was really
49. 4:28really nice to see You call that a bounty like a  template basically I call it someone that's gone
50. 4:33before you Yes Yes So someone that's come before  me that's successful that's not like a Forbes
51. 4:39looking like website So I know it's like viable  And I call it a bounty because SEO is a PVP game
52. 4:45Like I don't know if you played video games  but like not everyone can rank on the top 10
53. 4:49So you're gonna have to be okay taking them over  and completely dominating them And so that's why
54. 4:55I call it a bounty And it's it's a good sign It's  a green flag in my eyes when you're looking for
55. 4:59directory ideas A lot of the times you don't need  to take them over Like you can be second or fifth
56. 5:04and still do really well 100% Oh 100% There's so  many niches where people are like "Oh like can't
57. 5:10win in that." Well actually like the food niche  is a great example If you look under the hood of
58. 5:16any like like I think food near me is searched 13  million times a month or something like that and
59. 5:22there's so many directories that are winning in  that space because they're specializing in like
60. 5:27only food trucks that do Mexican food for example  and they just have a directory around that So yeah
61. 5:33100% What's a good example of a food directory  that you know is just crushing it There's a
62. 5:38couple that come to mind There's one for food  trucks I think it might be like foodtruck.com
63. 5:43I would have to double check but the other one  that came to mind was Happy Cow That's a really
64. 5:48famous directory I've heard of it's for vegan  vegan restaurants and vegan food And my f like
65. 5:55I have a lot of friends and family who are vegan  So that has just become such a sign of trust Like
66. 6:03when you go to a restaurant and you see the Happy  Cow badge you're immediately like you trust that
67. 6:07restaurant So it's definitely grown to something  really impressive And that's a good example of
68. 6:13like a food niche that's crushing it So Happy  Cow just started as a directory and now they're
69. 6:19kind of a vegan authority then They're almost like  the Trip Advisor but for finding vegan restaurants
70. 6:25Interesting Okay I think what people often find  when they go down this rabbit hole I found this
71. 6:31myself I'll get an Ahf's account and it's not  cheap It's like 150 bucks a month and it's like
72. 6:35"Okay I'm going to get the most out of this for  30 days because I'm probably going to churn."
73. 6:40And then I go in there and I start digging around  and I I'm like "Oh my gosh this one's good Oh this
74. 6:44one's good Oh this one's good." Is it just me or  there's still like so many untapped opportunities
75. 6:50out there where there's more demand than supply  100% I think once you see it you can't unsee it
76. 6:57And like if you just think like where's the last  place you and your friends or you and a partner
77. 7:03went that that you were really excited about Or  another framework I like to use is think about
78. 7:08the most meaningful or impactful like things that  happen in your life Graduations you know getting
79. 7:14into a relationship or getting married finding a  new job moving to a new city like a lot of those
80. 7:20can stir up new ideas for directories and they're  everywhere A personal example is I'm I'm actually
81. 7:26in the process of moving right now So I've been  obsessed with like water quality and looking up
82. 7:32like gravity filters and like stainless steel  dispensers and everything Yeah Everything So
83. 7:39I've been finding myself on these directories  that help me understand what the like best way
84. 7:46to find water quality is And something that  niche can be a directory So it's like yeah
85. 7:51there's there's so many untapped opportunities  Okay So how many directory sites do you own today
86. 7:57So I own six but technically like I've spoken  about this recently in my community where you know
87. 8:03I I have six but I've really only put like full A  through Z effort in three of them Like I'm talking
88. 8:10keyword research like organizing the data properly  building out the website doing the SEO monetizing
89. 8:15it like everything Luckily I've been three for  three in that sense They're all cash flowing and
90. 8:21profitable and ranking So I think two are like  basically dominating the first page of Google
91. 8:27The other one is in a very high competition niche  It's in plasma donation Yeah it's a little smaller
92. 8:33one It gets around 6,000 monthly visitors but that  one's interesting too What was the signal that you
93. 8:37saw that made you want to launch one in that niche  even though you knew there was high competition I
94. 8:42think it's because my first directory was B TOC  So I wanted to try a B2B one and I wanted to try
95. 8:49a different way to monetize So the original game  plan with the plasma donation one was okay like
96. 8:55let's go B2B and let's let me try to get this $300  million revenue a year plasma company to like pay
97. 9:02me thousands of dollars to either promote their  business And that didn't really end up working
98. 9:07as planned cuz the market for plasma donation I  learned is very small There's like eight plasma
99. 9:13companies that might be able to buy your sponsored  listings But yeah it was like a combination of
100. 9:19a challenge because I felt pretty confident and  even though it was really high keyword difficulty
101. 9:24like it was like in the 70s or 80s there was a  lot of search volume and there were definitely
102. 9:28like few competitors like it was competitive but  there were only like 10 or 15 competitors So the
103. 9:35quantity of competitors was small So I was like  okay well maybe there's room for for me to take
104. 9:41a little bit of this market share So what is your  monthly traffic across all your directory sites
105. 9:46The first one gets around like 60,000 monthly  visitors The second one's around like 8 to
106. 9:5510 kind of fluctuates And the last one six So  probably like it it ranges from like probably
107. 10:0270 to like 90,000 monthly visitors cuz yeah it  really fluctuates The the first directory at one
108. 10:09point was getting 85 90,000 monthly visitors So  it does fluctuate a good amount And it's like 100%
109. 10:16organic or 100% organic Yep That's really my main  distribution channel I only deal with organic and
110. 10:22I mainly deal with like passive evergreen niches  So that's kind of my favorite And what kind of
111. 10:29revenue do those three pull in combined It also  ranges but like completely passively it's probably
112. 10:35around like 2300 to $3,000 a month So nothing  crazy but with my specific like high standards way
113. 10:45of finding niches and building directories I think  you do give up some revenue like as opposed to if
114. 10:51I were to go with the sponsored listings route or  there's a lot of other ways to monetize where you
115. 10:55can have a much higher ceiling for much more work  right It's the trade-off between profitability and
116. 11:01work And you'd rather have multiple sites doing  500 to 5,000 each than a couple sites where you're
117. 11:08going out and like at a certain point you become  a sales business You're just finding sponsorships
118. 11:12and selling ads and that's a that's a grind And  one site could be a six-f figureure business
119. 11:17but it's it's a different lifestyle It's a  different strategy 100% You're essentially
120. 11:22a marketing agency at that point you're handling  clients and to put it in perspective like I don't
121. 11:27think I've touched any of the my websites for like  six months and they just continue to to bring that
122. 11:33in So that's my preference It's not everybody's  you know people who you can build a directory I
123. 11:39mean I think you know tripadvisor care.com happy  all there there's hundreds of directories making
124. 11:46multiple millions and many more making over six  figures in the 100 to 500k range I just want like
125. 11:54a very hands-off like I just want some lunch money  at the end of the day Yeah Yeah Okay Where is your
126. 12:01revenue coming from Is it affiliate links Is it  ads like AdSense or Mediavine So yeah right now
127. 12:08I'm on Mediavine and I'm on Mediavine Journey So  it's for Mediavine's main network is for websites
128. 12:15I think doing over 50 or 100,000 sessions which my  first directory qualifies for but it actually got
129. 12:22denied for some reason but I got into Mediaine  Journey I think it's depending on the type of
130. 12:27content But yes Mediavine Journey is my display ad  revenue And then I also sell digital products on
131. 12:32one of them It's just like a $19 PDF that I built  in Canva like a year and a half ago and it sells
132. 12:38like almost every day Wow Okay So plasma niche  thrifting niche What are the other kind of niches
133. 12:46One of them is like kind of adjacent to thrifting  and like you can think kind of liquidation stores
134. 12:53Maybe that's a better way to describe it I have  ones that are kind of halfbaked in the portaotti
135. 12:58rental space Flea markets I think that that's  the one I'm building out right now And then I
136. 13:04do have a dog parks directory that I built that's  really underoptimized that I need to tweak a lot
137. 13:09But yeah Sniff Spot right Sniff Spotspot is Yeah  that's not my directory No I know I But similar
138. 13:16similar They're kind of like an Uber for you know  backyard dog parks but they're broadening the
139. 13:22market for people like you to come in and pick up  the leftover traffic Yep Yep Sniff Spotspot does
140. 13:27like private dog park rentals Mhm I kind of just  created a directory for all the public free dog
141. 13:33parks just to give people some more options and a  easier way to navigate those I would love if you
142. 13:40could share your screen go to AHF's or I I can  I have a paid a AHFS account I could do the same
143. 13:46and like let's just kind of dig around and show  me what you look for what stands out to you Sure
144. 13:52let's do it And for anyone listening on audio  only I'll I'll be describing what we're seeing
145. 13:57So let's share this screen here So do you want to  kind of understand how I find ideas Are we looking
146. 14:05at a specific niche Maybe even Let's do both Let's  let's go inside your brain for a minute and see
147. 14:09how you find ideas and then we'll go from there  Okay So I think one that I talked about on like
148. 14:16pretty publicly is just typing in near me Okay  And the reason I do this is he's on the keywords
149. 14:23explorer part of ahrefs.com Yes So right now I'm  looking at the AHFs I just typed in near me in
150. 14:30the keyword explorer And this is just one way  to kind of you know find ideas in a very kind
151. 14:37of random and broad way And I basically don't look  at anything here I stay away from branded keywords
152. 14:44for the most part like Target near me McDonald's  near me Those aren't good directly What are you
153. 14:48going to do with that Yeah exactly Like people  have no problem finding McDonald's near me So I
154. 14:54usually just scroll all the way to like you know  sometimes the 10th page right So I'm just going
155. 15:00to keep on clicking down and we can see that of  course the volume every month is going down Show
156. 15:07us show us in the columns where the keyword  difficulty and the search volume are So right
157. 15:12there Yep So here's the keyword difficulty And you  can see it's a range between 0 to 100 Zero being
158. 15:18the easiest to rank for 100 being the hardest to  rank for And search volume is a number for monthly
159. 15:24search in the country that you're filtering  for in the United States Okay So yeah like
160. 15:31I'll just scroll down this list There's so many  random ideas because it's by default showing us
161. 15:36the keywords that have the most search volume and  I'll look for green right Green indicates that the
162. 15:43keyword difficulty is lower So interesting Dubai  chocolate bar near me Zero keyword difficulty
163. 15:5082,000 searches So if I'm you I'm seeing wow like  on the surface that's amazing Zero and 82,000 But
164. 15:57then because of the fact I just posted content  about this this is probably a viral Tik Tok trend
165. 16:03And I don't know if this is going to be around in  two years so I'm going to pass Is that what you
166. 16:06would say I think that's very valid I also think  of anything product based you're going up against
167. 16:13e-commerce stores Yeah You know if you're looking  to buy chocolate Yeah Those are going to dominate
168. 16:18the search engine results page So it's not really  like it doesn't make sense for people to go to a
169. 16:24directory to find Dubai chocolate Yeah I did see  towing If you can scroll up back up towing near
170. 16:32me was like a 26 Mhm Yeah 26 difficulty and 84,000  What do you think about that one Towing is not bad
171. 16:40I think that it seems too broad for me and I would  be curious to see something like emergency towing
172. 16:48maybe you know overnight towing or something  really really specific So in that case why is that
173. 16:55Just because this is lacking the like to me it's  not clear what the search intent is right Like
174. 17:01okay you're towing near me Are you probably like  infer that people are looking to tow a car near
175. 17:08me But do they need their car towed Has their car  already been towed Are they looking for an impound
176. 17:12lot Exactly You're going to get lower volume on  emergency towing near me but you're going to get
177. 17:18lower competition and it's probably a higher like  cost per click It's a higher ticket item because
178. 17:25it's higher intent right 100% And so actually  that's a good example because I might even see
179. 17:30that and I'm like well let me look into it deeper  So I'll look up the keyword explorer and I'll
180. 17:34just type in towing and then I'll go to matching  terms And one thing I'll do is I'll also sort in
181. 17:41hrefs by keyword difficulty So I can say I don't  want to see anything above a keyword difficulty
182. 17:4720 which I think is generally a good rule Is that  kind of your your rough barometer Very rough It's
183. 17:55not a hard rule Generally speaking yeah it's  it's a rough rough estimate for what's lower
184. 18:00competition to rank for So video is cool but you  know what's better Long form audio via podcast and
185. 18:06my newsletter tkopod.com Go there to subscribe for  free to my newsletter It's one email a week very
186. 18:12tactical And then go to my audio podcast Three  episodes a week stuff like this You're going to
187. 18:16love it All free No sleazy sales pitch tkopod.com  So this is interesting There's lizard liquid
188. 18:25towing So there's like this is interesting because  sometimes you can build a successful directory
189. 18:31just leveraging the search volume and reputation  of other businesses right Maybe they're famous
190. 18:36So if you if you were to build a directory and  mentioned lizard towing then you might be able
191. 18:42to get a little bit of traffic from that you know  and that starts to add up if you were to create a
192. 18:46nationwide directory Cheap towing kind of gives  us a little bit clearer of intent of what people
193. 18:52are looking for There's interesting keywords  around specific like Tacoma towing capacity
194. 18:59Towing capacity Yeah But essentially I would  look through this and I'd ask myself you know
195. 19:05what longtail keywords exist in the towing niche  that might be worth it Nothing I'm seeing too much
196. 19:11A lot of this it seems like towing capacity  is actually a very commonly searched query So
197. 19:18maybe I'm thinking okay is there opportunity to  make a directory around just towing capacity for
198. 19:24different trucks or different types of vehicles  Because look at this There's literally zero
199. 19:30keyword difficulty for toy to Toyota 400 towing  capacity gets searched 4,000 times a month and
200. 19:37that trend continues throughout tons If you add up  all those all that search volume across thousands
201. 19:43of makes and models it's a lot of traffic starts  to add up And I do kind of take a look at this
202. 19:48too SV at the very top says 2 million So this  is saying that of all the keywords that contain
203. 19:54the the keyword towing and that's under a keyword  difficulty of 20 there's 2 million people a month
204. 20:01or two million searches a month being being made  So that's a lot Even if you get 20,000 of that
205. 20:08you know 30,000 now you're scratching the surface  of what could be like a $1,000 a month directory
206. 20:14Well and you look on the left side the the most  commonly appearing word in towing is capacity
207. 20:20They're not looking for to get their car car  towed at all which perfectly proves your point
208. 20:25It was too broad of a keyword Exactly Yeah that's  a great observation And I didn't even know that
209. 20:31Like this is I think we stumbled upon like lowkey  a pretty interesting directory niche Look at that
210. 20:38Someone listening towing capacity website Yeah I  guess like one thing I would be concerned with is
211. 20:48if this is a you know likeformational content  I think we've seen in the last few years with
212. 20:54the Google core updates are pretty vulnerable  to AI So that's like one angle that I might be
213. 21:00a little bit concerned about But just I would  research it and try to understand where people
214. 21:05are getting this information If if I look it  up on Reddit you know if I copy and paste this
215. 21:10and type Reddit and there's a lot of people  asking like this person a year ago as Tacoma
216. 21:16towing capacity question mark as 20 comments  20 plus comments how much can you tow in your
217. 21:22Tacoma Like these are good signs that people  are looking elsewhere Like people may not be
218. 21:27satisfied with the AI overview or going to chat  GBT So what a what a great framework in general
219. 21:33of if you see something appearing over and over on  Reddit it's probably because they're not getting
220. 21:38what they need on Google which probably means that  something needs to be on Google that answers that
221. 21:42question because we'd all prefer to go to Google  first right 100% Yeah And just to add on to that
222. 21:49like I'm sure there's nuance Like I don't really  tow anything so I don't know anything about this
223. 21:54niche but I would be willing to bet if we spent  like two hours going through every single Reddit
224. 22:01thread there would be nuances to why people are  asking this question Like it's not that's not as
225. 22:06simple as seeing like you know Subaru Outbacks  can pull 7,000 pounds And so that's your answer
226. 22:12It's like there's probably some nuance within  this niche that you can use and make your
227. 22:18directory more valuable All right I didn't want  to derail you from what you're doing on the near
228. 22:22me page Yes If you want to go back to that Yeah  So essentially I This is a good starting point
229. 22:29This is a good starting point And what I just  showed you is really what I do whenever I find
230. 22:34something interesting And truthfully I would never  have researched towing near me So like but you it
231. 22:41was interesting to you and and I think that's  where a lot of the opportunity lies Like what
232. 22:46I think is easy to rank and and the vision that  I see for my directory is very different than
233. 22:50than literally anyone else So yeah I'll just keep  scrolling down I find a lot of promise in keywords
234. 22:57that hover around like 15,000 monthly search  volume to like 60,000 I think I found the most
235. 23:05opportunity in that range Not a hard rule but just  mentioning just observations Batting cages that
236. 23:14looks I coincidentally I have a friend that lives  across the street that just opened a batting cage
237. 23:18and they are thriving Really Okay Great So yeah  So that's that is interesting And right off the
238. 23:24bat my mind goes to affiliate plays people I used  to go to the batting cages all the time I played
239. 23:30baseball for the first 14 years of my life and  we'd go and sometimes you forget your bat and like
240. 23:35it's just like there's opportunity there where  you can you know yeah sell something related a
241. 23:42glove a bag whatever it is So that's another angle  Whenever I'm going through this I don't just look
242. 23:49at the keyword difficulty or the search volume I'm  thinking about what the monetization potential is
243. 23:54here How passive is this You know according to my  standards if I want something really passive and
244. 23:58evergreen batting cages might be a decent move  because the chances are batting cages aren't
245. 24:04going to change in the next 20 years very much  It's just going to be a metal cage and a a ball
246. 24:10that dispenses at a high speed and and that's it  You just It's very simple So that might be worth
247. 24:16researching more for someone like me What are some  other like overarching trends similar to near me
248. 24:23like other ways that I find ideas Yeah That  you could use to start your search For sure
249. 24:28Yeah that's a good point I like to research  successful directories that are already getting
250. 24:36a lot of traffic and I like to kind of snipe their  keywords and get some ideas there So so I do have
251. 24:43another way to find ideas but I do want to show  you a few different directories first And what
252. 24:50I'd like you to do is just guess the traffic and  then we can go into how I find ideas from these
253. 24:55successful directories So if that sounds good  then I will show you the first directory here
254. 25:02Drag it around here Okay I have a story about this  actually for those listening He's on penguin dry
255. 25:08ice.com And it is so funny you brought this up  because I ownund and something domain names and
256. 25:17you know a lot of them are stupid but I used to  own a third party logistics company that we we
257. 25:23helped food brands ship their food and we were  getting dry ice on a regular basis and there was
258. 25:27no directory of dry ice We'd have to go to Kroger  or Albertson's and buy it and you didn't know the
259. 25:32cost or whatever and so I bought the domain name  dollarry ice.com to be like a directory of dry
260. 25:38ice facility So here you are showing me penguin  dry ice.com which seems to be a dry ice directory
261. 25:44Mhm Yep And yeah just like you It's a very ugly  website Very ugly website A single page website
262. 25:51So the directory just lives on this page There's  Wow Not a lot of detail It just sort of says the
263. 25:57name the address the proximity how far it is But  if I'm like buying dry ice like for example my
264. 26:05dad has a family business where he ships frozen  food across the country We're not looking for like
265. 26:09Albertsonsized dry ice We're looking to buy a lot  of dry ice Mhm B2B business There's not really any
266. 26:18clear data enrichment around Hillsboro New Jersey  dry ice on the quantity You know what about their
267. 26:25service I want to know so much more So based on  what you see how much traffic do you think this
268. 26:32directory is getting Oh man So if if I understand  this correctly Penguin is the company that sells
269. 26:38dry ice And this is just a directory of their  facilities that sell it So many of these are
270. 26:44probably just grocery stores I'm going to say 40  40,000 a month All right let's take a look I'll
271. 26:53head over to the site explorer So a little bit off  This is a small directory but it still shocked me
272. 26:5915,000 monthly visitors and from climbing  it's climbing and at its peak it was getting
273. 27:09an estimated on target of 83,000 monthly visits  back in October of 2024 So it does peak and I
274. 27:17would guess that maybe there's some seasonality  to this but you know pretty consistent you know
275. 27:23they've had some some of their LOLs but pretty  impressive for just a dry ice directory And they
276. 27:29don't have separate pages for all those which is  not optimized at all Right It depends It just kind
277. 27:34of depends how you structure your data But yeah  this is a single page website And you can see
278. 27:39that this single page ranks for a 100,000 keywords  Holy kind of crazy Dry Ice Boston Dry Ice D Like
279. 27:48yeah they're completely dominating the space and  I'm sure it does wonders for Penguin as a brand
280. 27:55So very niche though Like this is so niche and  they're This is believe it or not not the only dry
281. 28:02ice directory I found Otherwise they're smaller  but it's just proof that you can go that niche
282. 28:07and still win to some capacity Can you speak for  a second about authority because that's probably
283. 28:13why they're winning because like they're doing  the hard thing They sell dry ice It's relevant
284. 28:17Like Google wants us Google wants to show us  things that are relevant that have high trust and
285. 28:22have high authority And Penguin has all the all  those things right Yep How do you get around that
286. 28:27If you're not a Penguin and you want to build a  successful directory is it helpful to go in niches
287. 28:32that don't really have a high trust high authority  player Sure that's definitely one way to do it
288. 28:39Ultimately the game is back links You know I think  a lot of people whether they're in SEO or not they
289. 28:45know backlinks have been the main driver And so  to your point yeah Penguin is pretty authoritative
290. 28:51It's a 37 domain rating which is an indication  of how authoritative a website is but in my mind
291. 28:59like I think this is still viable to overtake And  the reason is one of the competing directories for
292. 29:05dry ice that I found it looks really bad and  I'll pull it up here It's this website right
293. 29:11here Oh okay For those listening one of the worst  websites I've ever seen in my life That's just all
294. 29:17I'll say It's really bad Holy cow Like 97 Yeah So  just just for a quick comparison right Like if we
295. 29:25just see because obviously this directory dry  ice directory.com Yes It gets a little bit less
296. 29:32traffic It has its moments as well but I actually  analyzed and did a side-by-side comparison between
297. 29:38these two websites and they're not too far off If  we look at the keywords it's ranking for let's see
298. 29:45this is dry ice near me There was I mean dry ice  near me now rank five They have some keywords on
299. 29:54the first page Penguin dry ice is more or less  like dry ice for for sale near me They're rank
300. 30:02they're position sixish So it's not like a massive  difference If I were Dry Ice Directory this ugly
301. 30:08website I think there's a world where you just  do a lot of link building and you can start to
302. 30:14slowly overtake Penguin Dry Ice But from what I  see it's like dry ice is pretty competitive right
303. 30:20Like would you enter that space based on what  you've seen If I'm okay with a directory that
304. 30:26just based on the volume that makes like maybe  tops $500 a month passively then yeah I would And
305. 30:33I've done that before I mean I could probably make  this in like a week and be a decent competitor I
306. 30:38would give it like a a B minus in terms of like  grades opportunity opportunities Yeah Just just
307. 30:45for me would you agree that people often put too  much weight in the appearance of a website Like
308. 30:50I'm over here making fun of this website and it's  it's objectively ugly but it works And if someone
309. 30:55goes through seven clicks to get to this website  and it has what they need they're not going to
310. 30:59click back and find a prettier website right So  like all else equal yes make a pretty website but
311. 31:05like these are winning because they're answering  questions not in spite of how their website looks
312. 31:10right Yeah Yeah I don't want people to listen to  this be like I'm going to go find an ugly website
313. 31:15and then compete with them It's like that's  like it I don't think it moves the needle all
314. 31:18that much in the grand scheme of things I would  agree I would agree I think people do put way
315. 31:24too big of an emphasis on design I think there's a  difference between having something really modern
316. 31:29and and and looking good and something that's  mobile optimized which is much more important
317. 31:34Like across all my directories I think it's like  80 to 82% of website visitors are on mobile So
318. 31:40yeah you can have a pretty website but if it's  not really easy to navigate on mobile then then
319. 31:46that's that's a really big missed opportunity  Yeah Did you want to show me a couple others
320. 31:51The next one one that I talked about recently and  it's called movie locations It's to help you find
321. 31:58the locations that certain movies and films were  were were shot Movie-loations.com is what we're
322. 32:05looking at Lot of ads going on is what I see very  cluttered More updated than the ones we've looked
323. 32:11at but still fairly outdated Movie films places  Yeah this is there's a lot going on here There
324. 32:19is It's hard to know where your eyes should look  but it's a very simple directory So I'm going to
325. 32:26think this is like movie theater locations This is  just like if you were curious where Harry Potter
326. 32:31was shot or if Lord of the Rings was shot in a  certain country or something like that Yeah Yeah
327. 32:36I mean this is huge TAM total addressable market  Like everyone's watching movies A lot of people
328. 32:43want to know I would think this is six figures  worth of monthly visitors over 100,000 Okay
329. 32:51let's take a look here I'll just grab this root  domain and let's take a look All right overshot
330. 33:00it a little bit but 81,000 monthly visitors  Wow And I think I was still surprised by that
331. 33:07I know there's a large addressable search market  for this niche but how many of the millions of
332. 33:12people who watch Fast and Furious actually care  to know where this was shot Like it's probably
333. 33:16got to be a very small percentage But this is a  great example of an evergreen niche because you
334. 33:23can always just keep this information It doesn't  go out of date And just look at this graph It's
335. 33:28so consistent Like it's just been like that for  the last 5 years So whoever whoever owns this is
336. 33:34making I would assume close to around $5,000  $6,000 passively a month maybe more because
337. 33:41they have a lot of ad placements And yeah walk  us through that math That's the question I was
338. 33:47going to ask you next anyway How do you convert  81,000 visitors a month to $5,000 a month Yeah So
339. 33:54it's really honestly difficult because it's not  arbitrary but it's very depend there's a lot of
340. 34:01variables So it depends on could be affiliate  could be AdSense could be Mediaviaine could be
341. 34:06e-commerce like so yeah that's that's exactly  one angle like how many monetization strategies
342. 34:12are there even if there's ads is it a private ad  partnership or not and then not only that it's
343. 34:19like nichebased gaming is a notoriously low RPM  niche if you're monetizing through display ads so
344. 34:26you might need like a million monthly visitors  for a gaming directory that earns the same as
345. 34:32a directory that gets 50,000 monthly visitors in  the finance niche or something along those lines
346. 34:37So it's very difficult and I always just use  what I get as far as RPMs in my thrifting niche
347. 34:43in my other niche directories because they're I  would say pretty in the middle of the road So you
348. 34:49know decent RPMs nothing insane but for me those  listening RPM is revenue per thousand views Yep
349. 34:58So it is an educated guess At the end of the day  it's very very difficult to say Not only that but
350. 35:04Hrefs is third party data So we can only kind of  take this 81,000 monthly visitors with a grain of
351. 35:10salt I know with Hrefs it shows my thrifting niche  to get like 35,000 monthly visitors and it's just
352. 35:16off by like 20 20 30,000 So they could be getting  more and so that makes it even harder Okay So but
353. 35:25what is like what is the RPM that you get on your  thrifting niche for example I think it's right
354. 35:30right around $16 or $17 ballpark That's good  And it fluctuates too Like sometimes it really
355. 35:38fluctuates So it's it's hard to say And I think it  scales based on how much traffic you get because
356. 35:44it gets more it's get it gets higher RPMs than my  healthcare directory which is not what you would
357. 35:48think but I think the more traffic you get maybe  it's the case that advertisers are willing to pay
358. 35:54more I'm not really sure how that works but yeah  it is interesting Outside of AHFs what other tools
359. 36:00are in your tool belt for building these sites and  for researching opportunity in these sites Yeah
360. 36:06for research it's really just a combination of  href's Google Maps reviews I look at these Google
361. 36:12Map review tags a lot which we can we can pull  up and Reddit I would say those and then Tik Tok
362. 36:18of course was kind of naturally one I feel like  people don't filter their true thoughts on Tik
363. 36:25Tok when they're leaving a comment which makes it  a great area to do some social listening And then
364. 36:30what do you use to build this your directories  It really depends but I guess WordPress has been
365. 36:36the chosen CMS for me in the last couple years  Right now I'm kind of diving deep into Lovable
366. 36:44and trying my hand at AI coding But yeah so I'll  use WordPress and it's funny like I use Elementor
367. 36:51Pro which is like the most basic theme I've used  that And yeah it's like a lot of people which
368. 36:56gets a lot of hate by the way People are like  "Oh it's slow and clunky." And I'm like "Yeah
369. 36:59but if you can build fast sometimes brute forcing  your way to an MVP is way better than trying to
370. 37:05automate everything and then like forgetting the  big picture of what you're doing which is like
371. 37:10consolidating valuable data on the internet  that people are looking for Do you use any
372. 37:15like thirdparty tools Not like a WordPress plugin  but stuff outside of WordPress to connect things
373. 37:21Sometimes I'll play with I've used Geodirectory  which is a dedicated directory plugin It's more
374. 37:26for programmatic builds So what I mean by that is  with a plugin like that you know if you have a a
375. 37:33directory that has 2,000 business locations it  would take forever to make to create those pages
376. 37:39individually So you can publish those all at once  because kind of it's it's built with a database
377. 37:45You can just fill out the information and you can  publish that So that's pretty good For other types
378. 37:51of directory builds I've used WPL import just to  bulk import my data and jet engine which helps
379. 37:57you filter the data Right If I'm looking for a  dog park specifically like a specific type of
380. 38:06dog park that offers like fenced in area for small  dogs only like you might want to create a specific
381. 38:12filter and that's how you can accomplish that  You can use that jet engine and build that out
382. 38:18How much weight do you give an exact match keyword  as the domain name It's a leg up for sure Like
383. 38:24exact match domain names are they're effective I  mean it's been proven I don't I think it might So
384. 38:29that would be like dry ice near me right I'm just  trying to explain to those listening what an exact
385. 38:34match domain name is Yeah like petcremation.com  would be in insane Like that'd be amazing You
386. 38:40don't need to mention near me in the actual domain  because any query that says near me like dog parks
387. 38:47near me It's like it's based on your location So  like you don't need to include that You can just
388. 38:52include the main keyword And you always want to go  for tldds if possible I like to choose.org or if
389. 39:02it's really if I'm out of options but I would  rather have a hyphen in my name and I choose
390. 39:09a.com than than just go straight to a.org But yeah  you want your your main keyword for sure Are you
391. 39:15using AI at all to build these or to do research  Directories is a multi-step process and AI is used
392. 39:22in multiple steps of that process In terms of  ideiation sometimes but I like to rely more on
393. 39:30user generated content because it more accurately  depicts what the challenges are in terms of like
394. 39:35finding dry ice right I'd much more I'd be more  interested in what people are saying But yeah AI
395. 39:43is definitely a very big part especially when  it comes to data enrichment You know you have
396. 39:50your idea How do you bring it to life How do you  make it an actually valuable directory people want
397. 39:56to visit Well you have to enrich the the hell out  of your directory You know you have to offer data
398. 40:01and information that's going to save people time  And if you had a horse that needed to be cremated
399. 40:07you might go to Google Maps and type in horse  cremation But what realistically might happen is
400. 40:14a lot of business profiles will will show up and  you'll have to spend a lot of time sifting through
401. 40:17the reviews maybe typing a keyword in review to  see if anyone's cremated a horse at this specific
402. 40:23cremation service It's it's timeconuming So AI is  used to essentially automate parts of that process
403. 40:30where you can essentially enrich your data I built  a enrichment tool called enrich.directory and it
404. 40:36essentially does that You can type in horse and  it'll look at all the cremation companies in the
405. 40:42in the United States and look for the keyword  horse and then you can prompt it and say can I
406. 40:47cremate a horse at this place and it'll say yes  So that's cool Yeah So long-winded way to say
407. 40:54yes AI is definitely used in in the process So if  someone's starting from complete scratch the only
408. 41:01thing they know about directories is hearing  this one podcast Where should they start and
409. 41:06how do they get from where they are today  to they have a website built ready to go A
410. 41:12lot of my recommendations and advice actually  has less to do with practical tactical advice
411. 41:21I think people who see directories think it's like  super simple which relative to other businesses
412. 41:27they are But I think what led me to succeeding  with my first three directory websites initially
413. 41:34it was just to learn SEO Like I think people  realize they have to believe that SEO works And
414. 41:40a lot of people I'm noticing are choosing the  wrong niches and they can't rank and then they
415. 41:45just give up They're discouraged They're like  "Oh this doesn't work Directories don't work."
416. 41:48So I guess my tactical recommendation is use  your unique personality and character your
417. 41:55life experiences the same way I did with the  thrift stores and try to come up with unique
418. 41:59and quirky niche directory ideas that probably no  one's building a directory in There's literally
419. 42:05thousands of opportunities There's thousands of  people looking for very specific information on
420. 42:11the internet and you can cater to those people So  that's kind of what I would recommend But start
421. 42:17in a low competition niche Don't go for something  broad like towing near me That's an intermediate
422. 42:23niche Intermediate to advanced You you need to  know the fundamentals of SEO and know need to
423. 42:28know what you're doing to succeed in that niche  So prove to yourself that it works Could you dive
424. 42:33deeper on that on why something like towing near  me is too advanced for a beginner Yeah it's part
425. 42:39of just me and my experience knowing that anything  service- based with a high with the opportunity to
426. 42:46make a lot of money right Like towing companies  is like I don't think you have to be a genius to
427. 42:50know that there's a lot of towing companies Why  is that Well people are making money towing cars
428. 42:55So there's naturally going to be more competition  which if you place all that knowledge in an SEO
429. 43:01environment you know that you're going to need a  lot of backlinks to rank for a directory website
430. 43:05or any website for that matter Yes it's the driver  of SEO but with that said you need high quality
431. 43:11backlinks It's not that easy for someone who's  just getting started right Requires a little bit
432. 43:17of creativity being crafty being knowledgeable  about all the ways you can acquire these back
433. 43:22links So in that sense intuitively I'm saying that  I think it's an intermediate niche What would be
434. 43:29a more beginner niche A beginner niche I would say  the dry ice if we're if we're staying on topic Dry
435. 43:34ice is a pretty low competition niche I mean it's  it's it's pretty pretty in there The thing is like
436. 43:41every competitive niche typically has some low  competition niche layered underneath Is there like
437. 43:48a generalized keyword difficulty or or search  volume that you'd look for on a more beginner
438. 43:54niche or is it just totally industry dependent  Keyword difficulty is is a big one I would look
439. 44:00at zero to five Like if we if we looked up the  near me method that I described and and you set
440. 44:08your keyword difficulty at a maximum of like five  or even three I'm sure you'd find some pretty low
441. 44:14competition stuff Backlinks could be a three-hour  long conversation But in your experience what's
442. 44:20the 8020 of getting good backlinks Like the the  growth hacky clever way in your experience Before
443. 44:28even thinking about the clever ways you have to  decide how black hat you want to be how if you're
444. 44:32okay crossing the lines of you know Google toos  and here's a secret that's not so secret Everyone
445. 44:41breaks the rules in SEO No one really plays fair  They do what works But if I'm just strictly saying
446. 44:47okay here are some ways that you can go get back  links One thing that's really worked well for me
447. 44:51is to look at a bounty right A existing directory  in your space use hrefs or a tool similar to hrefs
448. 45:00and look at their back links Reach out to those  people giving those back links to your competitor
449. 45:06and you can pay them You can leverage anything of  value that you have You can say "Hey my directory
450. 45:11gets 10,000 monthly clicks We're proud to be the  most accurate pet cremation directory online and
451. 45:19I saw that you linked to this this website Can I  pay you 50 bucks to swap out the link for ours You
452. 45:25know we we we think we do a better job Not just  to add mine but to swap it That's the key To swap
453. 45:31it And so you have this situation where now your  competitor loses a very good backlink You gain
454. 45:36that backlink without overpromising anything Like  it's literally taken me one strong backlink with
455. 45:43that exact method to rank one in a low competition  but high search volume niche which is kind of
456. 45:48bananas That is like one Now the domain authority  of the backlink is is everything right If you have
457. 45:56a backlink from CNN.com versus an a backlink  to Martha's Pet Cremation Facility Nashville
458. 46:03Tennessee.com it makes all the difference It makes  a big difference So like if I were to break down
459. 46:08what makes a high quality backlink it's definitely  like domain authority domain rating That's that's
460. 46:12a great indication But it's also how much traffic  is that referring page getting right If that CNN
461. 46:18page that's backlinking to your website if  it's getting zero visitors yes it's kind of
462. 46:25worth something But what would be way better is  if it was getting 500 monthly visitors and people
463. 46:31are scrolling the article then clicking on the  backlink landing on your directory Now Google's
464. 46:37like "Oh wow This is a highly relevant blog post  or article." And people are engaged Those user
465. 46:42signals are becoming increasingly important in  a world of AI spam So traffic for the referring
466. 46:48page is a biggie Link domains right So if that  CNN page is linking to a 100,000 websites it's
467. 46:55like there's not that much link equity or link  juice as people call it And a simple way to
468. 47:02think about that is like imagine trying to split  a birthday cake a 100,000 ways It's just not going
469. 47:08to you're going to get like a crumb So that's  kind of the same you know thing that happens
470. 47:14with with a backlink that's refer you know linking  to a bunch of pages So you want low link domains
471. 47:20Okay What about those many services that sell back  links 500 bucks a month for X number of backlinks
472. 47:26Do you put any stock in those I think it could  work You just have to be really careful I think a
473. 47:31lot of gray hat stuff going on there Oh black hat  Gray or black hat Yeah Like I feel like a lot of
474. 47:36those backlinks that you pay 500 or thousands of  dollars a month for very low quality I would for
475. 47:41the most part never just go on Google and type in  backlink services and choose the first one I think
476. 47:47that's kind of crazy Same with Fiverr backlinks  Like oh $5 for like a thousand back links Those
477. 47:52are spammy backlinks They may result in well first  of all they're not going to help Second of all
478. 48:00it might even get you penalized which could lead  to being de-indexed which is like the worst case
479. 48:06scenario Like your your website will not be able  to be searched on Google So it's just really risky
480. 48:13and you want to be very careful buying backlinks  is like I guess technically against Google to but
481. 48:18again no one really plays by the rules there So  you just have to be very yeah you have to trust
482. 48:23the backlink vendor If you don't trust them you  can always buy the backlink and then don't send
483. 48:29it to your direct site Send it to a you know an  article that backlinks to your website So you're
484. 48:39bumping up the backlink if that makes sense and  there's less risk there There's a lot that we can
485. 48:44talk about around backlinks The best way to get  back links in your opinion like let's say it's
486. 48:48a pet cremation site is I'm gonna go find like a  high domain authority a very relevant site in in
487. 48:55this case maybe about like end of life care for  pets and I'm going to reach out to them manually
488. 48:59because the harder way is often the better way  and say "Hey we provide a really good service
489. 49:04Would you would you mind linking to us If no then  like can I give you 50 bucks to link to us?" Like
490. 49:08that's the 8020 of it That works That's reliable  I think it's the best balance between what's like
491. 49:15in your control right You can aggressively  reach out to people and like yes it's out
492. 49:20of your control that you respond and accept the  offer but it's the balance between like highest
493. 49:24quality backlink speed and like being aggressive  with your link building and price That's because
494. 49:31if you were to buy the same quality backlink if  they knew what they were giving you it would be
495. 49:37500 bucks 1,000 bucks for that backlink Because  like I said that one backlink that got me to
496. 49:42rank one has resulted in like two years worth of  like $2,000 a month you know to $2,500 a month
497. 49:48revenue you know and I bought it for 50 bucks  So wow Which niche was that in That that's in
498. 49:54the thrift store niche Okay That's And I've tested  buying back links I've spent thousands of dollars
499. 49:59on different link building services and like I  can say that yeah this is the best bang for your
500. 50:06buck and for for quality any other like closing  best practices you'd like to leave people with
501. 50:12on just how to build a profitable directory Any  advice that you could give that would help them
502. 50:19save themselves a world of hurt that you you had  to go through Oh man there's a lot You know it's
503. 50:25funny because the best advice is oftentimes the  most cliche like just just build it Learn learn
504. 50:33while building right That's what I did I didn't  have a massive emphasis on making money from my
505. 50:39directory website As I mentioned it was more of  a playground to learn the skill It's very hard
506. 50:43because once you start building and you have a  successful directory you never know what's going
507. 50:48to follow Like you literally don't know if you're  end up you're going to end up like talking about
508. 50:53it and then people want to hire you and become  an SEO consultant and that's going to lead to
509. 50:57building an SEO agency like this is a very common  route and so I would say just like be convinced
510. 51:04yourself that SEO works Choose a low competition  niche Try to focus on the skill development not
511. 51:10just the monetization efforts because those will  come Once you have traffic it's like you have like
512. 51:15a dozen ways to monetize You get you can just  choose but you need to get traffic before that
513. 51:20And yeah it's a slow game Like that's a really  big one People are like I don't see any progress
514. 51:25two weeks after I launched my directory I'm like  "Dude show me one business in general where maybe
515. 51:31SAS but that's like with years of experience  where you can whip something up that quick and
516. 51:37it gets like a lot of organic traffic." Yeah  Like while you wait go build another one and
517. 51:42then another one and then next thing you know  it's going to be six months later you have 15
518. 51:46sites and seven of them are cranking Yep Yep A  numbers game Yeah So it's all the cliche stuff
519. 51:53you know It it it's true It's it's Yeah At the  end of the day it is true Well this was amazing
520. 52:00Thank you for your time Frey Where can everyone  find you No this was awesome This was really fun
521. 52:05I post on YouTube just under my name Freychu  You can follow me on X or Twitter also Freychu
522. 52:13Yeah if you want to join a free community I  have that as well People are building their
523. 52:17directories so you can hop in there if you'd like  And yeah I'm around I'm around on the internet
524. 52:23What' you think Please share it with a friend  Someone could use this episode about directory