4 Signs To Build A Digital Product For Your Directory
written by Frey Chu
This month, one of my directories saw a small downturn in display ad revenue:
Display ad revenue from Feb 26th-March 27th, 2025
But back in July 2023, I built a $19 evergreen digital product that I sell on this directory.
On average, it brings in ~$500/month in revenue. Yet, for some reason it really popped off this month, bringing in $883.96 month-to-date.
Since launching the digital product, I’ve done zero marketing or ads.
It just sits on my directory’s location pages and sells almost daily, purely from the organic traffic.
Anytime someone buys it, a PDF automatically gets sent to their email.
No fulfillment, no return policy. It’s the dream product.
March 2025 month-to-date revenue
Last 30 days revenue (btw lifetime total closer to ~$10k)
While digital products are amazing “build it once, sell it twice” opportunities, it’s deceivingly difficult to identify high demand digital products opportunities.
Here’s the truth – the only way to successfully sell a digital product on your directory is to have repeated evidence that points to your idea being hyper-relevant to your website visitors.
Duh, right?
Yeah, duh. But that’s where I think most people approach it wrong.
Most people take a spray-and-pray or throw-spaghetti-at-the-wall approach to digital products. They launch a bunch of things hoping one takes off.
But the low barrier to creating digital products means that it should be a calculated, thoughtful and evidence-based maneuver.
Before reaching this point, you need to spend time:
Social listening on multiple social platforms. Interacting, reading and observing comment sections of videos and forums related to your niche to find problems that can be solved.
Achieve a constant flow of website traffic, proving that your directory is valuable in someway or another
Unless you’re really honed in on the community surrounding your directory niche, digital product ideas are nearly impossible to spot from a birds eye view.
With that said, I’m proof that it’s absolutely viable.
Especially if you know how to spot the signs.
4 Signs You Should Monetize Your Directory with A Digital Product
Looking back, there were 4 signs that made my digital product idea a no-brainer.
Repeat reddit comments asking you to add the same feature to your directory. If you’re familiar with my directory process, you know I always post on a small subreddit whenever I launch a new directory. If you notice multiple comments asking for a specific “thing” on your directory, that’s a green flag.
Repeat comments on viral social media posts related to your niche. One of the simplest hacks to finding digital product ideas within your niche is TikTok. Look up target keywords within your niche and start reading the comments section. Noticing a pattern? That’s another green flag.
Someone reaches out to you via Reddit DMs or email. Maybe you don’t see a ton of consistent demand on public forums or comment sections. That doesn’t mean the demand isn’t there. I’ve been inspired by a single email or direct message that came through Reddit, requesting me to add a specific type of data enrichment on my directory. If, intuitively, you know it would have massive value to your website visitors, it may be worth isolating that type of information on a landing page behind a pay-wall for a small price.
Your directory lead magnet has a high conversion rate. This one is a bit trickier to explain quickly and without context (which is why I’ll likely make a YouTube video on this soon), but here’s the gist. I don’t build email lists for every one of my directories. But whenever it makes sense, I test an email lead magnet to see if I can create a niche-specific newsletter (of sorts) that I can monetize later down the line. If your lead magnet has high conversion (i.e one of mine has an 80% subscribe rate from people who land on my lead magnet landing page), then it’s a huge green flag for a potential digital product. If you get to this point, again, package it up, create a landing page, and pay-wall it as an experiment!
Btw, for my mobile users, sorry for the big block of text.
I plan to make more videos around diversifying your directory monetization soon, but hope this was insightful.
Announcing Ship Your Directory Pro, A Private Directory Community (Coming April 2025)
For months now, I’ve wanted a way to connect with directory builders looking for deeper insights on their personal directory projects.
1:1 consulting is cool, but I want a way to extend my SEO consulting services to more people without having to charge $150/hr.
A lot of the challenges that come with directories are hidden in the nuances.
That’s why I’m building an ever-growing educational hub that offers weekly livestreams (featuring AMAs, guest speakers, member spotlights, website roasts, etc), an idea database of vetted directory niches to build in, discounts on directory tools and much more.
Here’s the most important info:
🗓️ SYD Pro Launch Date: April 10th, 2025
💲 Membership Pricing: $35/month (billed annually) or $45/month (billed quarterly) for anyone who joins in April 2025.
If you’re already in the SYD Free Community, I just made a post that covers everything you need to know about SYD Pro (Link to the community post under #generaldiscussions).
Highly recommend checking out the post, if you’re interested in learning what’s included in SYD Pro + future plans.
T-minus 11 days until launch. Just wanted to give you a heads up 🙂
