Like someone important said, "the nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them". It seems business directories or at least attempts at business directories fall into the same category. When I was doing market research for NicaPlaza.com I found a few. Now that we are putting together our marketing, I have found so many more.

 So, is this just a duplication of effort? No. Read on to see why.

I have found the following types of directories:

• ISP-provided. That is, if you do your internet service through them, they will list you.
• Members only. You have to join (pay) to list your business and then someone has to join (pay) to contact you.
• Resellers. This is mostly for hotels but it is where the directory includes a nice listing for your hotel. They even take reservations for you--for a cut of the money. The biggest problem here is there are many which means even a price change on your end either means a lot of incorrect information of needing to contact all these companies.
• City-only or area-only sites.
  
• Sites only in Spanish or only in English.
  
• Pay to list. You pay a fee to be listed but access is free.

Worse than the obvious problems with each of these approaches, they tend to be filled with out-of-date information or, worse yet, bad links to your web site. I clicked on six links in one ISP-provided directory and half of them returned "not found" errors. Not a good percentage considering the web pages were on the same server as the directory.

 Will NicaPlaza.com be Better? Yes. For a lot of reasons. Let me explain each one.

• We are free and universal. That means any business in Nicaragua has no financial excuse to not be there. If there is a one-stop directory, that is where people will go looking. And looking is also free.
  
• No lock-in. While we will be offering inexpensive websites in the future, if you have a web page, you can point to it. We don't restrict where you can point. If you change web hosts, you can update your own link on NicaPlaza.com.
• NicaPlaza.com is bi-lingual. What you put in your listing is up to you. We provide separate description fields for you to use for English and Spanish.
• Listings expire in 180 days. That may sound like a minus but what it means is that unless you renew your listing it goes away. That means far fewer outdated listings for buyers to sift through.

Additionally, our decision to allow agents to help businesses get their listings in place adds another level of interest. That is, an agent will want to make sure his customers have accurate listings.

 We think we have a good idea. We will continue to do our part to help Nicaragua. It is now up to you, whether you are a business or a consumer, to do your part.