An online business directory, is a business that lists other peoples websites in categories.

Online business directories are very popular and this type of business has a lot of competition ( High ). Starting a business of this kind is not bad; only because, there are new business websites popping up each and every day, in the thousands. The demand for this type of business is high and all you have to do is find a unique niche.

So how do you make money? You make money by charging a fee ( monthly or yearly ) from people. If your website gets a lot of traffic …. Trust me, people will be coughing up that cash. Lots of people are hungry for traffic and this is where you can stand out and make good money. Also, nowadays … there are advertising agencies like adbrite, yahoo publisher, google adsense, etology, adengage and lots more that can help you monetize this website. I have also being hearing things about text ad links. I think you might want to search that out.
This type of business is time consuming and the returns can either be low or high … Depends on you. It is definitely home based.