One of the most popular ways of getting a local business noticed is by including it in a business directory website. That is why so many people are designing and building their own dedicated local, national and international business directory sites. There are a great many possibilities when it comes to the chosen template for this type of site but one particular option, which has the flexibility and content management capabilities of any WordPress theme coupled with a WordPress business directory plugin that has been specifically designed to enhance the capabilities of the theme, provides an excellent solution.
The creators of GeoTheme, a highly rated WordPress theme that was designed to showcase location-based directories, have developed a WordPress directory plugin, known as GeoDirectory which enables the creation of a fully functional, professional website using any WordPress theme. Where this plugin differs from other WordPress business directory plugins is in the extent of the premium addons that are provided, which enable site developers to add a variety of features to their directory site.
Widgets
An essential feature in all business directories is the availability of maps and the GeoDirectory plugin utilises Google Maps, with widgets for displaying maps on the home page of the directory and on the various listings pages. The maps are supported by the availability of location markers and a flexible search tool that enables searches to be made against either a name or category and location based data.
There are other widgets to add to the versatility of the GeoDirectory WordPress business directory plugin, including, a Listing Slider, Login Box, Popular Post (Category and View), Related Listings, Search, Social Like Buttons, Flickr Photos and Google FeedBurner.
Front End Features
The plugin also has a selection of front end interfaces to make the task of building a business directory even easier. These include the following templates:
- A five-section Home Page
- A Listings Page for the category archive, with an identical format to the Home Page
- A twoβsection Listings Detail page with a sliding picture gallery, description, business information, Google map widget and additional data
- A five-section Listings Search Result Page, similar to the Listings page but with the added attraction of displaying the distance of a listing from
- the location searched
- A five-section author page, displaying listings added by user and favourite listings
- A unique, versatile and fully customisable Add Listing Form with a drag and drop interface, making the addition of a wide range of additional fields incredibly straightforward
- A Login/Register Form which completes the high quality front-end user experience and eliminates the need to visit the WordPress login page
The Control Panel
The GeoDirectory WordPress directory plugin also features a user-friendly control panel with the following settings:
- General, which has General, Google Analytics, Search, Dummy Data and CSV Upload options
- Design, which has sub-pages for Home, Listings, Search, Detail, Author, Navigation, Scripts, and Map
- Permalink, with options for adding location in urls, adding category in listing urls, listing url prefix, location url prefix, separating location and category and separating listing detail.
- Notifications, with sub-pages for Options, BCC, Admin, Client, Others and Messages
- Default Location Settings, enabling the user to set and save the location by reference to city, region and country
- Place Settings, which has sub-pages for Custom Fields, with 14 available fields, each having 15 separate options and Sort Options, by reference to Random, Review, Title, Add date and Rating
Themes and Addons
If you are developing a directory website with WordPress, then you no longer need to have other directory app themes to get premium and innovative directory features. GeoDirectory plugin follows the philosophy of BuddyPress, Bbpress and WooCommerce, extremely popular WordPress plugins and have set a standard in their fields.
The core GeoDirectory plugin is free for all, but one can also go for the selection of premium addons. The premium addons are used to widen the features and functionality of the free plugin. The official addons will create excelling Local and Business Directories.
The wide range of addons includes:
- Events
- MultiLocations
- Prices and Payments
- Custom Post Types
- MultiRatings and Reviews
- Advanced search filters
- Claim Listings
- Marker Cluster
- Search Autocompleter
- Ajax Duplicate alert
You can also go for the GeoDirectory Theme Framework that is designed to be used with or without the basic plugin. With the help of the above framework, you can enable and disable widget area as well as customize almost any theme element through the framework option page. The GDF Theme framework is responsive and adapts to tablets and smartphones screens.
Conclusion
Not surprisingly, GeoDirectoryβs innovative development is considered to be one of the most promising WordPress business directory plugins available and was downloaded over 1,000 times in only two weeks following its launch. With even more addons in the pipeline GeoDirectoryβs free plugin provides an easy to configure, user-friendly business directory solution that has cross compatibility with all major related plugins and features the type of fast and responsive database that directory users demand.
For more information visit the official website
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5 Responses
Nice info and tutorial for directory, this will help my developer for one of our shipping related business client! Thanks Paolo
Hi Jean, the only not working link that I could find is in the excerpt of the article in the home page.
Thanks!
Ah ok, will fix that right away.
The link offered spurs an MS Office warning and then it leads to broken webpage.
Which link is that? They seem to be working for me.