I’ve been working on my local city directory for about the past two weeks. It combines two popular Content Management Systems.

In the root directory of the site is Wordpress, which will act as an article directory, event calender, photo directory, etc for the city. It will have some of the flashier, more fun, introspective look at things to do in the area and hits/tips from an insider’s perspective. The left hand sidebar add features with various widgets and the right hand sidebar will be one large text widget.

In this text widget I will feature an alphabetical list of text links that lead directly to categories in the other CMS I am using – PHPMyDirectory. My first experience with this directory has been a bit difficult as there are a lot of ins and outs of working with it but, it’s a lot like learning Wordpress for the first time. Luckily, I found a friend on the support forums and we’ve been helping each other out with various tasks over the last few weeks. (Shout outs Cindy!)

The most difficult part of this whole endeavor (thus far, fingers crossed) has been matching my Wordpress Theme and PHPMyDirectory Template to create a seamless integration. I don’t want users to feel like they’ve navigated from one site to another. And, I’m really really really close… for the most part I’m making simple style changes on each to improve their looks. I also got a tool from KrazyJosh on WickedFire forums which can scrape a specific category from a city on YellowPages.com and put all the information into a neat and tidy CSV for easy uploading. Creating the listings is going to be SOOO much easier now.

I’m excited because I have another great domain sitting on the shelf ready for a local directory. I also have 2 other domains waiting for national “niche” industry guides so the success of this directory could mean some really big things down the road.

Something I’m going to look into is using direct mail for promotion. Since I already have the contact information for thousands of businesses who I’m putting into this directory for free… why not send them a letter to let them know. And while I’m at it, tell them how they can upgrade their listings. Not only will it drive traffic to the site but it SHOULD lead to advertising sales, return links and a bit of buzz too. That is… if the letter is well written, intriguing and persuasive. That’s what I consider a strength so I’m eager to get to that step.

Over the coming weeks I’ll be researching the costs of direct mail promotion so you can look forward to a post on that. There are positives and a negatives with what I plan to do. First of all it can be expensive to purchase lists but I’ve got the companies in CSV form already so my list is free. Secondly, it’s targeted because I’m telling these companies they have ALREADY gotten something for free. I’m pretty sure most of them reading the letter will check out the site. The downfall is that since I’m not purchasing the list I don’t have a name/contact info… that means a smaller percentage of people will OPEN the envelope if it’s from someone they don’t know or care about.  Fortunately, I’ve got a pretty killer domain name and if I print nice looking envelopes emblazoned with my domain name in large letters… I’m pretty sure they’ll give it a peek.

This is a project I’m pretty darn excited to work on… as usual… I just wish I had more time. My girlfriend is headed to Las Vegas this week (newly un-single as of about a month ago) so it’s a great excuse to do TONS and TONS of work.