BuildMyDirectoryBETA

Last updated October 14, 2026

Before you start

• A niche, in plural (hotels, dog groomers, wedding venues), and a place: a city ("Gatlinburg, TN") or a whole state ("Tennessee").
• Optional: a name for the directory.
• To publish: a WordPress site with an Administrator or Editor login, or a free Netlify account and a domain you own. You can also download the whole directory.

Sign in first. A directory you build while signed in on your plan is saved to your account and can list up to 200 businesses; the free demo builds 25.

Build your directory

1. Open BuildMyDirectory at buildmydirectory.ahastudio.net, or press Start something new on your account page and choose Directory.
2. Fill in Niche and City or state (both required), pick the Country, and add a Directory name if you like. Or type it in a sentence under Tell it in your own words and press Fill the form, then check the fields.
3. Choose how many listings: 25, 50, 100 or 200. Then press Find real businesses.
4. Watch it work:matching your niche to Google Maps categories, finding the place on the map, pulling real listings from Google Maps data, choosing the features to look for, reading each business's own website for proof, checking what people search for, and planning the pages. You can close the page and come back to the same link.

Review the pages

1. Pages tab. The plan is grouped into Home, Places and Feature pages, each with how many listings it holds and how many searches a month it gets (or No search data). Untick Keep to drop a page. Pages left out, and why lists the pages it chose not to make.
2. Listings tab. Each business shows its Google rating and whether its website was read. Open its features to see the proof: the sentence from its own website, or Google's amenity list, description or review mentions, each labelled with where it came from. Tick Leave out to remove a business. Listings left out, and why shows what the agent dropped.
3. Features tab. Every feature the agent looked for, with how many listings show proof of it. Untick Use to turn a feature off.
4. Press Build directory to preview it. Pick any page from the list, or Open in a new tab. Back to the review takes you back to change it. Besides the home, place, feature and listing pages, the directory has an About page and an Add your business page.

Keep and publish

1. Keep your directory. Built it before you signed in? Sign in and press Add to my account. Then Download the directory (ZIP) gives you every page, ready for any host.
2. WordPress: in Publish to your WordPress site, create an application password in WordPress (Users > Profile > Application Passwords, type "Aha Studio", press Add New Application Password), paste it with your site address and username, and press Connect site.
3. Choose where and how. Under Where on the site, pick A site just for this directory or Under one address (for example hot-tub-hotels). Under Send pages, pick All as drafts now (recommended) or Publish gradually, 3 to 50 pages a day starting tomorrow: the home page and places first, then tag pages by searches, then listings. Under Claim and add-your-business forms, pick the Aha Studio lead inbox or My own form shortcode.
4. Install the free Aha Studio Connector plugin (Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin) to set meta descriptions automatically.
5. Press Send (the button shows the number of pages and your site name). Every page arrives as a nested page with the links between them pointing at your own site. Changes later go out with Publish again (updates the same pages). Pages you made yourself are never changed.
6. Or Netlify: in Netlify, create a personal access token (User settings > Applications > Personal access tokens), paste it, press Connect Netlify, then Deploy to Netlify. Deploy again updates the same site.

Put it on your own domain

After deploying to Netlify, the Your own domain card puts the directory on a domain you own, with HTTPS.

1. On the My domain tab, type your domain and press Connect. This adds it to your Netlify site.
2. Add these two records in Cloudflare (or any DNS host), and delete any other A or AAAA records on the same names first. In Cloudflare, set each one to DNS only (grey cloud), not Proxied.

   A	Name @, content 75.2.60.5, DNS only
   CNAME	Name www, content your site's netlify.app address (the card shows it with a Copy button), DNS only

3. Press Check and secure. It checks the records and asks Netlify for the HTTPS certificate. It usually takes a few minutes once the records are visible. When it shows HTTPS: active, the sitemap, robots.txt and canonical links use your domain.
4. Building several directories? Choose Use a subdomain of and set one domain up once with A * 75.2.60.5 and A @ 75.2.60.5, both DNS only. Every new directory can then go live on its own subdomain with no DNS changes.

Your limits

Your plan also includes a monthly amount of AI work, shared by all your AI workers. When this month's is used, the AI work carries on with your own AI key: the provider and model you choose on your account page under AI and data keys, Text and reports. Without a key, it resumes on the 1st. Google Maps and search data have their own monthly limit, which also resets on the 1st.

If something goes wrong

• "The AI could not finish this step": press Retry. The work so far is kept.
• "Could not find ... on the map":check the spelling, or add the state or county (for example "Gatlinburg, TN").
• "No ... were found in ... in Google Maps data": try a broader niche or a bigger place.
• "Your plan includes a monthly amount of AI work and this month's is used up": add your own AI key under AI and data keys to keep going, or wait for the 1st.
• "You've reached this month's limit for search and map data": it resets on the 1st.
• "You already have a page at ..., so it was left untouched": that page was left alone on purpose. Publish the directory under one address to avoid clashes.
• The domain check lists a problem: follow it exactly. The most common one is a record set to Proxied (orange cloud): switch it to DNS only, then press Check and secure again.
• "This domain is connected to another Netlify site": remove it from that site in Netlify first.