Building a business directory and charging money for subscriptions has long been a great business model. It has never been easier. When you look for a business directory, consider the following:
- Responsive theme which automatically adapts itself to mobile devices.
- Geo-location - put businesses on a map. Location-based search.
- Ability to charge money for premium listings.
- Affiliate support.
- Ability to turn the premium listings into full shops.
Wordpress or Drupal?
- A Drupal business directory is not hard to do. Drupal will allow you create a much more flexible business directory, with much better performance, which allows for easier intergation with 3rd party services.
- Wordpress will allow you to start faster, with more features. You will find ready-made solutions which provide a good starting point. Those solutions will be harder to expand later on.
Building a Drupal Business Directory
There are many Drupal-based business directories out there - look at the business directories group for some of them.
Here is a recipe on how to build a business directory site with Drupal.
Choosing a Wordpress-based Business Directory Solution
The Business Directory Plugin is the best free directory plugin I found. Also take a look at the features of the pro version here. This seems to be the most integrated solution.
The WPMU Wordpress Directory plugin is the most flexible solution, especially with the pro sites addon (allows each business to open it's own site), e-commerce addon (allows each business to sell products) and affiliate addon. Google maps and local listing needs to be manually added - look here, here and here for details.
For many use-cases, local directories are the future. Lots of map-oriented themes are appearing all over the place. Geo Theme and WP Localare the best I've found.