Is Building a Local Directory of Businesses on a Subdomain Good SEO?

[Daaveey]

Hello Fellow Moz'ers:

I own a small digital shop in a major US city. We had a marketing idea which I'd like some input on the soundness of. We are creating a professional services directory of 'digital professional services providers' in our hometown. The directory's membership will only be open to firms located within our city limits. The directory will be curated and maintained, ongoing, by us.

Our motivation is 75% selfish and 25% benevolent. The idea is that, by building the directory on our subdomain, we hopefully will collect links, which ultimately will enhance search visibility. But I'm concerned about the devaluation directories have incurred in recent years and I've even seen advice given to the effect that listings in some directories might be harmful to a site's link profile. It is not our intention to harm those who might list in our directory.

Any thoughts on this matter would be greatly appreciated!

[Vizergy]

I would say--and many may disagree with me--that if you are building a directory to honestly help users than that is great.  However, to do so on a subdomain of your company's website is very likely going to seem fishy.  I wouldn't do that, personally.

[Bigb06]

I think you can do better things before, like try to find opportunities on existing local directories, town halls, local events...

If your shop was in a small city it could be a good idea, but in big one ...

[Daaveey]

Thanks for the answer, Billy. Since we've already built it, I'll launch it on another domain. The intentions are all above board.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi David!

Interesting topic! I'd like to show you something here on Moz that might help hash this out bit more. This our our recommended companies list:

https://moz.com/rand/recommended-list-seo-consultants/

This section of our site (which resides on the main domain, not a subdomain) helps people find various types of marketers they need for different services. I don't believe it has earned a ton of links; it's just a pretty straightforward resource for the marketing community that many companies feel proud to be included on. So, that's one approach - if you feel your customers would benefit from knowing of other digital service providers you trust in your city, then build the resource on your own website for the sake of usefulness, and maybe you'll earn a few links to it. Better, maybe some networking opportunities would arise for you for real-world work with related agencies in your city.

The alternative I see would be to start a completely separate business - a directory - on its own domain. Depending on the size of your city and the number of companies offering these types of services in that city, management could be a minor effort or become a full time job. I've never build a directory, but I did curate one back in the good 'ol days once and it was a big hassle, so my view of this is a bit biased, based on that experience. That was back when you could plonk a bunch of Adsense on something like a directory and earn a bit of money. The challenge today would be how your business would directly benefit from undertaking this second path of running a free-standing directory.

I'm no authority when it comes to directories. Yes, many have been devalued over the years, but local ones can still be useful in markets that aren't too saturated. The question mark for me in this scenario would be whether you would see some form of ROI for the effort.

Hope these thoughts are helpful!