The first step you need to think about, is how you're going to design your home page. All good business directories have a good quality search feature, you're going to need one to be successful. You should also have a list of categories your trying to promote. You will need something on the home page that will constantly change content, this can be a number of things. You could have a rotating section of 5-10 businesses that are featured businesses in your directory, displaying them on the home page for a select period of time before rotating. You can also have articles, latest news, latest discounts, latest reviews and a number of other things.

The next step you should take in designing your business directory, is to think of something unique. Think of something that your site will promote, that will be different from any other directory. Once you've thought of this unique product, that is going to make your directory better useful, you should heavily promote this on your home page and other pages of your site. If you have something really good to offer the visitors to your site, they will come back and direct friends to the site.

After you've completed your home page design, and developed your unique product, you're ready to market the product. The best way to do this, is to send bulk emails to companies that would benefit from your product. Write a blog, write several articles promoting your products, look for forums related to your niche to promote your products in. There are so many ways to market your product, but you should try as many ways as possible, you can never do enough marketing. To run a successful website, regardless of what it's about, you need to promote the site in as many places as possible. You should spend at least 1 hour per day promoting the site, even longer if it's a new site.