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Are you looking for the best event calendar plugin for WordPress to keep your customers informed about upcoming events?
Whether it’s a music concert, an art exhibition, or any other type of event, having the right tools can make all the difference.
In this blog post, we will compare eight of the most popular WordPress event calendar plugins on the market today and help you choose one that suits your needs.
We’ll take a look at each plugin in detail – from its features, pricing plans, and drawbacks – so that you can decide which one is right for your business.
Ready? Let’s go.
What’s a WordPress event calendar plugin?
A WordPress event calendar plugin is a tool for creating and managing events on your website.
With the right plugin, you can easily list upcoming events, give visitors important details about those events, set ticket prices, and even take payments.
By events, we mean any type of event, such as webinars, workshops, conferences, online courses, and more.
Having a WordPress event calendar plugin can give your website visitors an easy way to learn about upcoming events without having to search all over the web or social media for information.
What to look for in a good WordPress event calendar plugin
The best WordPress event calendar plugin will make it easy for you to manage your events, add key details about the event, and publish them on your website.
Look for a plugin that has features like:
- Include important event details (date, time, attendees, equipment, staff, logistics)
- Display availability for client bookings or events
- Allow clients to self-book at available times
- Request and store customer data in a database
- Record events in the calendar
- The ability to customize the looks of your events page
- Send confirmation notifications for event creation
- Send updates for event changes
1. GeoDirectory Event Calendar Plugin
Plugin insights
- Rating: 5/5
- Downloads: 1M+
- Price:
First up is GeoDirectory and its powerful Event Calendar add-on.
Founded in 2011 by AyeCode, GeoDirectory has become one of the leading WordPress directory solutions, with more than 1 million downloads worldwide.
The GeoDirectory Event Calendar plugin is designed to work seamlessly with the GeoDirectory plugin, allowing you to easily add events to your directory listings, using Custom Post Types (CPT).
You can add unlimited custom fields to your events out of the box with the easy form builder.
GeoDirectory Events is the best option, especially for User Generated Content Event Directories, where users submit their events and sell tickets for them.
Key features:
- Recurring events made easy – create events and set custom dates for them that repeat on any day, week, month, year, or even custom dates, so you don’t have to manually enter them every time.
- Events locator – Events are conveniently displayed on an interactive map (that shows distance and driving directions), so visitors can easily search for events by location. Great for people organizing real-life events in multiple locations.
- Filterable calendar display – Visitors can easily search for events in the calendar display (using widgets) and sort them by selecting “upcoming,” “today,” “past,” or “all.”
- Set prices for events – the pricing manager add-on allows you to set prices for your events and enable/disable features per price.
- Events ticket marketplace. Allow event organizers to sell tickets for their events while you collect a commission for each ticket sold.
Cons
- Some features require paid add-ons – such as the pricing manager and CPTs.
Best for: businesses offering repeat location-dependent or remote events that are paid and want to enable search and filtering on the calendar display.
2. Timely All-In-One Events Calendar
Plugin insights
- Rating: 4.7/5
- Downloads: 90,000+
- Price: Free (premium add-ons start from $98/year)
Next up is Timely All-In-One Events Calendar, a popular event calendar plugin that’s been around since 2012.
The plugin is designed to make creating and managing events easy and efficient.
It offers multiple themes for display, which can be easily customized using the inline calendar theme editor – so you can change the appearance of the calendar without code or an API.
Key features:
- Translatable dashboard in multiple languages – makes it easy for non-English speaking users to manage their events.
- Handy filtering solution (paid) – allows visitors to filter their events by location, category, or venue/ organizer.
- Convenient media library – allows you to quickly upload and attach photos and videos to your events.
Cons
- Filtering options are paid
- Limited support and knowledge base for users
Best for: businesses that want a lot of control over the look and feel of their events calendar and need advanced filtration options.
3. WP Simple Booking Calendar
Plugin insights
- Rating: 4.6/5
- Downloads: 10,000+
- Price: freemium (starts from $39/month/license)
WP Simple Booking Calendar is a powerful booking and availability solution for WordPress, which has been around since 2014.
It’s equipped with features like a search widget and changeover days to make online booking easier.
Over 30 languages are supported, with a user-friendly interface and responsive calendar layout.
Website owners can enhance the user experience by letting visitors edit specific calendars and view more event info by hovering over certain dates.
Premium users get access to a bulk date editor and can sync their calendars with Booking.com and Airbnb.
Key features:
- Tooltips on mouse hover – gives visitors an overview of the event when they hover over a date.
- Backup and restore functionality – helps you make sure your data is secure.
- Changeover days – allows you to set the minimum and maximum stay duration, as well as specify which days are changeover days.
Cons
- Calendars are incompatible with custom post types.
- To access the full range of features and capabilities, upgrading to a premium version is necessary.
Best for: service-based businesses that want to make online booking easier.
4. Event Espresso
Plugin insights
- Rating: 4.3/5
- Downloads: 1,000+
- Pricing: $79.95/year + Personal support license, $299.95/year + Developer support license, $299.95/year + Everything support license
The authors of Event Espresso claim their plugin lets you submit and register events on any website.
Using this premium WordPress event calendar, website administrators can easily manage their events and set different ticket prices and options.
It also lets you set different groups when signing up, set different times and dates for events, and set up several different types of tickets for users.
The plugin is known for its sophisticated payment processing capabilities, which collect all revenue from every port and integrate it into one single system.
Participants can even pay their invoices offline – all payments are also controlled by this plugin.
Key features:
- Drag-n-Drop ordering of tickets – makes it easier for customers to select the tickets they need.
- Create promo and discount codes – provides incentives for customers to book their tickets.
- Allow comments on events – lets customers share their thoughts and reviews about events; promotes engagement.
- Printable tickets – customers can print their tickets as a form of proof and identification.
Cons
- Too many features are sold as add-ons
- Not fully compatible with Elementor
Best for: larger businesses that need a wide range of payment, promotion, and ticketing options.
5. Sugar Calendar
Plugin insights
- Rating: 4.3/5
- Downloads: 2,000+
- Pricing: $49–$199/year or $449 for a one-time payment
Sugar Calendar is a WordPress event calendar plugin with great customization options and flexibility.
It has a simple admin interface and filtering functionality within the WordPress dashboard.
With the calendar widgets, clients and site admins can see a list of upcoming and past events based on various event categories.
When you enable Visitor Conversion mode, your event appears instantly in your visitors’ time zone – and to make it, even more, global-audience friendly, it’s also translation-ready, so it’s perfect for international websites.
Key features:
- Event ticketing functionality through Stripe – allows customers to purchase tickets directly.
- Single and multi-day events – allows you to easily create and manage single-day or multi-day events.
- Event timezones – adjusts the time of events based on the localized timezone.
Cons
- Ticketing and recurring events are premium add-ons available only for Professional and Ultimate plans.
- You can’t buy premium add-ons separately.
- A free version is not available.
Best for: membership sites, WooCommerce stores, community websites, and other businesses looking for a powerful event calendar plugin with ticketing capabilities.
6. Booknetic
Plugin insights
- Rating: 4.95/5
- Downloads: 6,000
- Price: $79 (regular license), $489 (extended license)
While this WordPress plugin has many features, working with it is still easy and quick since it doesn’t require coding or design skills.
Booknetic syncs with 3rd-party software, such as Zoom, Google Calendar, and more, saving you time.
On top of that, you can create the perfect form for your clients with the intuitive drag-and-drop editor.
There’s also the neat waiting list, which increases the hype for everyone on an upcoming event.
You can also add third-party tools like Zapier, Automate, and HubSpot to expand its functionality.
Key features:
- Email and SMS notifications – keeps your customers up to date on their bookings.
- Insightful reporting – provides detailed information on the performance of your events.
- Custom(izable) forms – lets you create forms with the drag-and-drop editor.
Cons
- No free trial for the premium version
- More expensive compared to other plugins
Best for: businesses that want more flexibility and control over the appointment scheduling and booking process with tons of features.
7. EventON
Plugin insights
- Rating: 4.5/5
- Downloads: 58,000+
- Price: freemium ($25/license)
You’ll love EventON if you prioritize customizability and aesthetics.
With this plugin, you can create unlimited events with or without end dates or times, and the list is minimal and clutter-free.
With Zoom and Jitsi integrations, an event attendance mode, and Live Now animations, the event calendar plugin supports virtual and in-person events.
Customizing your calendar is easy with the shortcode generator.
The calendar can be set to auto-delete past events so it remains clean and up-to-date.
The software also includes right-to-left (RTL) language support, health protocol guidelines, and multi-day events.
Key features:
- Featured image for events – helps customers paint a picture of what to expect and makes it easy to recognize events.
- RTL language support – helps reach wider international audiences and deliver a better experience.
- Gutenberg compatible – allows you to create a beautiful event calendar with the popular Gutenberg block editor.
Cons
- No free trial (but you can see the live demo)
Best for: blogs, eCommerce sites, and event sites that focus more on aesthetically pleasing visuals rather than advanced features.
8. Calendarize it!
Plugin insights
- Rating: 4.5/5
- Downloads: 12,000+
- Price: $29/license
Calendarize it! is a flexible, feature-packed WordPress event calendar plugin.
You can create multilingual calendars with translation plugins like Weglot, and template building is made easy with the plugin’s integration with page builders like WPBakery.
Upon purchasing the license, you’ll have access to free add-ons.
Among the most interesting features are the accordion upcoming events widget, advent calendar, author filtering, and event countdown.
The premium add-ons are for WordPress websites that want to sell tickets online.
These add-ons let you manage ticket sales, accept payments, and advertise upcoming events more efficiently.
Key features:
- Social sharing panel – lets customers share events on different platforms, including Twitter and Facebook.
- Event countdown – encourages customers to buy tickets before the event date.
- RSVP events – allows customers to easily confirm their attendance at events
- Custom taxonomy labels – helps you rename and organize your event categories.
Cons
- Premium add-ons are sold separately between $10 and $89 each
Best for: blogs, online magazines, or any other community-driven website that needs to display events in a visually-appealing way and wants more customization options.
Parting words
No matter the type of website you run, there are plenty of WordPress event calendar plugins that can fit your needs.
The plugins on our list range from free to premium and from robust to easy to use. Be sure to pick the one that best fits your budget, website type, and size of the audience.
And if you’re looking for a more customizable option with robust search and ticketing capabilities, GeoDirectory and its Event Calendar add-on is your best-bet to take your website to the next level.
Good luck! We hope that you find a plugin that works best for you.
You can get GeoDirectory here today:
Online directory websites are a valuable resource for individuals and businesses alike.
These websites provide a comprehensive list of businesses, organizations, and individuals, often organized by category or location.
This blog post will answer some of the most frequently asked questions about online directory websites.
Whether you’re looking for information or want to increase your visibility online, this post will provide the answers you need.
Let’s get started!
1. What is a business online directory website?
A business online directory website is a website that uses directory software to create an online directory.
The final goal is to list businesses, often organized by category or location.
These directories provide information about the products or services offered by the businesses listed, as well as contact details and other relevant information.
Business directory websites help people find the information they need about businesses in their area or within a specific industry.
They can also be a valuable tool for businesses looking to increase their visibility and attract new customers.
2. What is business directory software?
A business directory plugin is a type of software that allows users to create and manage an online directory website of businesses, organizations, or individuals.
This type of software typically includes features such as adding, editing, and deleting listings, categorizing listings by location or industry, and searching for listings based on various criteria.
Some business directory software may also include additional features such as ratings and reviews, payment processing, and integration with other tools or platforms.
Business directory software is indispensable for individuals or businesses creating and managing an online directory website.
3. What is a web directory example?
A web directory is an online directory that lists websites, often organized by category or subject.
A web directory example could be a directory that lists websites related to travel, such as hotels, airlines, and travel agencies.
The directory would provide brief descriptions of the websites and their services and links to them.
This type of directory can be helpful for people looking for information on a specific topic, such as travel, as it provides a curated list of websites in one place.
Other examples of web directories include directories of online stores, blogs, and forums.
Here are some specific examples of web directories:
- Yahoo! Directory: This was one of the oldest and most well-known web directories. It was organized into categories and subcategories, making it easy to find websites on various topics. The directory was shut down in 2014.
- DMOZ (The Open Directory Project): This directory was a collaborative effort by a community of editors who work to categorize and list websites on a wide range of topics.
- Best of the Web: This directory focuses on high-quality websites and provides brief descriptions of the sites to help users find the information they need.
- JoeAnt: This directory is organized into categories and subcategories and allows users to rate and review the websites listed.
- WebWorldIndex: This directory is a human-edited directory that lists websites on a wide range of topics. It also allows users to submit their websites for inclusion in the directory.
- Business.com: This directory focuses on businesses and provides information on various industries and companies. It also offers tools and resources for businesses looking to increase their online presence.
4. Is the online directory website business model profitable?
It can be profitable if the webmaster successfully promotes the directory, reaches a good distribution level, and generates consistent traffic.
The online directory website business model can be profitable only if it is well-managed and successfully monetizes its traffic and user base.
As with any business, the level of profitability will depend on several factors, including the size of the user base, the quality of the directory’s content, and the effectiveness of its monetization strategies.
To be profitable, online directory websites must attract a sufficient number of users and generate enough revenue through advertising, subscriptions, or other sources to cover its costs and generate a profit.
Additionally, the directory must compete with other directories in the market and provide value to its users to retain them and continue to grow its user base.
Mastering SEO (search engine optimization) is the surest way to build a profitable business around an online directory website.
5. How do online business directories make money?
Online business directories can make money through various monetization techniques.
One way is through advertising, where the directory sells ad space on its website to businesses looking to increase their visibility.
Another way is through subscription fees, where users must pay a fee to access certain features or information on the directory.
Additionally, some directories may offer premium listings, where businesses can pay to have their information prominently displayed or highlighted in the directory.
Another way for directories to make money is through commissions for leads.
In this case, they earn a commission for each customer referred to a business through the directory.
Overall, online business directories can generate revenue through one or a combination of these methods.
6. How do you start a profitable online directory?
To start a profitable online directory, you must carefully plan and execute a sound business strategy.
Here are some steps to follow:
- Identify a specific niche or market to focus on. This will help you to differentiate your directory from others and attract a targeted audience.
- Develop a comprehensive list of businesses, organizations, or individuals to include in your directory. This will be the core of your directory and should be updated regularly to ensure it is accurate and up-to-date.
- Create a user-friendly and engaging website to host your directory. This will be your business’s face, so make it visually appealing and easy to navigate.
- Implement effective monetization strategies. This could include selling advertising space, offering subscription plans, or offering premium listings.
- Promote your directory to attract users and increase visibility. This could include marketing efforts such as search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, or content marketing.
- Monitor your performance and make adjustments as needed. This could include regularly updating your content, improving your website, or refining your monetization strategies.
This is the best way to create a profitable online directory that provides value to its users and generates revenue for your business.
7. How do you create a successful directory?
The key to creating a successful directory is to focus on providing value to your users.
This means offering a comprehensive and up-to-date list of businesses, organizations, or individuals, along with relevant information and details.
It also means creating a user-friendly and engaging website that is easy to navigate and search.
By providing value to your users, you will be able to attract and retain a loyal audience, which is essential for the success of your directory.
In addition to providing value to your users, building a solid brand is essential.
This means creating a consistent and professional image for your online directory website.
This could include developing a unique logo and color scheme, creating engaging and informative content, and promoting your directory through various channels.
By building a solid brand, you will be able to establish your directory as a trusted and reliable source of information, which will help to attract and retain users.
8. How much should you charge for a directory listing?
The amount you charge for a directory listing will depend on several factors, including the size and scope of your directory, the value of the listing to the business, and the competition in the market.
In general, you should aim to charge a fair price that reflects the value of the listing to the business and allows you to generate a profit.
One approach is to offer different pricing tiers for listings with different levels of visibility and features.
For example, you could offer a basic listing for free or a low fee, allowing businesses to upgrade to a premium listing for a higher price.
This allows businesses to choose the level of exposure and features that best meets their needs and budget.
Regularly reviewing and adjusting your pricing is also essential to ensure it remains competitive and fair.
This could involve conducting market research to understand the pricing of similar directories and regularly soliciting feedback from your customers to ensure they are satisfied with the value they receive for their listing fee.
Overall, the key to setting a fair price for directory listings is to assess the value of the listing to the business carefully and regularly review and adjust your pricing to reflect market conditions and customer feedback.
9. How do I promote my website directory?
There are many ways to promote your website directory and increase its visibility.
Here are some tips:
- Optimize your website for search engines. This involves using keywords and other techniques to improve your website’s ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs), making it more likely that users will find your directory when searching for relevant terms.
- Use social media to promote your directory. Share links to your directory and its content on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to reach a wider audience and drive traffic to your website.
- Engage with your target audience. Comment on relevant blog posts and forums, join industry groups and associations and attend industry events to raise awareness of your directory and its value proposition.
- Offer valuable content. In addition to listing businesses, organizations, and individuals, consider offering articles, blog posts, videos, or other content that provide value to your target audience. This can help to establish your directory as a trusted and authoritative source of information.
- Collaborate with other websites and directories. Consider partnering with other websites or directories that serve similar audiences to cross-promote each other’s content and drive traffic to your website.
By following these tips, you can effectively promote your website directory and increase its visibility and reach.
10. Are directories good for SEO?
Yes, directories can be good for SEO.
Search engines crawl and index websites, including directories.
Good quality directories can help improve a website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) by providing additional inbound links.
This can help to improve the website’s search engine ranking and make it more likely that users will find the website when searching for relevant terms.
In addition, directories can provide valuable information and context about the website and its content, which can help search engines understand its relevance and authority.
This can improve the website’s ranking and visibility in search engine results.
However, it is essential to note that not all directories are equal in terms of their value for SEO.
Some directories may be more reputable and authoritative than others, providing more value in improving a website’s search engine ranking.
Therefore, it is critical to carefully research and evaluate the directories you consider using for your website’s SEO.
11. How do I sell my business directory?
If you are looking to sell your business directory, there are a few steps you can take to maximize its value and attract potential buyers. Here are some tips:
- Gather all relevant information and documents. This could include financial statements, user data, and contracts with advertisers or other partners.
- Create a detailed and professional business plan that outlines the current state of your directory and its future potential.
- Consider engaging the services of a business broker or advisor who can help you to find potential buyers and negotiate a sale. This would include listing on sites like Flippa.com, MicroAcquire, or Empire Flippers.
- Reach out to potential buyers, such as other directory websites or businesses in related industries, and present your directory and its value proposition.
- Negotiate the terms of the sale, including the purchase price and any ongoing obligations or commitments.
- Finalize the sale and transfer ownership of the directory according to the terms of the agreement.
By executing this strategy, you can effectively sell your business directory and maximize its value.
Would you like us to answer more questions about Online Business Directories? Ask your questions in the comment below, and we will update this article!
You can get GeoDirectory here today:
You are a passionate foodie and want to build a side hustle to generate extra income.
You have tried many of your city’s restaurants and have a blog where you review your own restaurant experiences.
Or you are an Airbnb Host and want to build a restaurant directory to recommend the best gourmet experiences to your guests (and collect commissions for every customer referred).
You are in the right place; no matter what reason is pushing you to start a restaurant directory, we have the best restaurant directory plugin and themes for you.
This tutorial will teach you how to build a Restaurant Directory Website with WordPress from A to Z.
Or you can add a directory to your existing food blog built with WordPress. It is very easy.
While at it, I will also show you how to add a marketplace.
Where restaurant owners can sell their menu items for pick up or delivery.
You collect a commission for each item sold on your restaurant directory and decide the percentage to retain.
But first of all, let’s see what a Restaurant Directory is.
A Restaurant Listing website quick overview
A restaurant listing website lists restaurants in an area (it can be as small as one street or as big as the entire globe), along with basic information about them.
The most modern and profitable directories allow you to order from its restaurants’ menus for delivery or pickup. I’m talking about sites like Deliveroo, Uber Eats, and Grubhub.
If you’re going to eat at a new place, you can use a restaurant listing website to research the restaurant and decide if it’s the right place.
The site will tell you about the menu, hours of operation, how many people are allowed in at once, and what the atmosphere is like.
It’ll also give you reviews from other users who have eaten there before, so you can get an idea about whether or not this is something that would be right for you.
Some of these websites also list the types of food served and whether or not they are vegetarian, vegan, or gluten-free.
Examples include Yelp, TripAdvisor, OpenTable, and Zomato.
You can also find coupons and discounts on these sites!
What are the essential features that a Restaurant directory website should have?
The essential features that a restaurant directory website should have are:
- A database of restaurants where users can search for the one they want to eat or drink at and see the location filtered by “Open Now.”
- Reviews from other users are written by people who have been there, so you know what to expect before you go.
- A map showing all the restaurants in one place, with pins indicating where they are located and the option to get directions.
- It should have a user-friendly interface.
- It should seamlessly work on all devices.
- It should provide users with detailed information about restaurants (e.g., contact details, menu items, etc.)
- A rating system for restaurants. With fair and unbiased rankings.
- Photos of each restaurant’s interior and exterior so users can see what they’re getting into before they commit to going there!
- Contact information of each restaurant so you can make reservations or ask questions if you need more info about their menu, hours of operation, etc.
- Some advanced search filters like open now, different types of cuisine, price, take-out, and Dine-in options.
- To engage visitors, they should be allowed to add their favorite restaurants to a list.
How to Start Building a Restaurant Directory
You know how it goes: you start with a plan to make a site that lists all of the restaurants in your city, and then you realize that there are so many challenges.
First, how do you organize all of this information?
How do you show it in an easy-to-use format?
How do you make it look good?
And even if that works perfectly, how do you get people to visit the site?
The easiest solution is to hire someone else to build your website.
But let me tell you the most exciting part, you can easily do it yourself in a short period using WordPress and Geodirectory, the best restaurant directory plugin for WordPress.
Our Directory Plugin will allow you to create the perfect restaurant directory website for your community’s needs or interests.
GeoDirectory is excellent for creating restaurant directory websites.
It allows you to easily create restaurant listings with their addresses, phone numbers, social media links, hours of operation, and customer reviews.
You may accept listings submissions from restaurant owners, who will also be able to edit or delete their listings if necessary.
The plugin also has features that make it easy to add helpful information about each restaurant, like whether or not they serve gluten-free options or have outdoor seating.
And if you want even more customization options or need help getting started with the initial setup, we recommend buying a premium membership!
Prerequisites for Launching a Restaurant Directory
When you’re ready to launch your restaurant directory, there are a few things you’ll need to do first.
1. Select a Domain Name.
The first thing you must do when beginning your site is select a domain.
It is the website’s URL, so make sure it is memorable and unique.
You can purchase it from any domain registrar, such as GoDaddy or Namecheap.
2. Webhosting.
Next, you’ll need web hosting.
This is where your website lives online.
There are many different types of hosting available; selecting one that provides unlimited bandwidth and storage space is ideal.
We recommend Cloudways and its Vultr High-Frequency 1GB plan which costs only $13 per month and is an excellent choice for 99% of Local Restaurant Directories.
3. The restaurant directory plugin for WordPress: GeoDirectory and its GeoMarketplace add-on (to allow restaurant owners to sell directly)
you’ll need a directory plugin that can scale to your desired listings and handle the traffic.
GeoDirectory is the way to go.
GeoDirectory is suitable for all directory listing types and works perfectly fine with any page builder and WordPress theme.
This tutorial will show you how to build a Restaurant Directory Website using GeoDirectory and Elementor pro.
Suppose you prefer not to use Elementor PRO. In that case, there is an alternative: The Kadence theme, for which there’s a dedicated restaurant website demo that you can import with one click and then personalize according to your unique brand voice.
In fact., we have two ready-to-use demo Geodirectory sites for your restaurant directory that you can import and personalize afterward. You can see them here:
You’ll probably notice that they are almost identical.
Method 1: Elementor pro + GeoDirectory
Once you have selected your Webhosting and have WordPress set up and ready to be used, you can install any WordPress theme, but we have selected the “Hello Theme” for this tutorial.
You can install the theme as follows; Go to Dashboard > Themes > Add New Theme > search for “Hello by Elementor,” click on install and activate.
Then install Elementor.
Install Elementor and Elementor Pro plugin
Go to: Dashboard > Add New plugin > Search Elementor > Click on install and activate.
Now go to Elementor.com and get the Elementor pro plugin if you don’t already own a license.
Next, upload the Elementor pro plugin to your WordPress website, as we usually upload any plugin.
Go to: Dashboard > Add New plugin > Upload the “Elementor Pro” zip folder.
After installing it, activate it.
Install AyeCode plugin
The free AyeCode Connect plugin connects your website to the GeoDirectory website and allows you to import the demos.
It will let you automatically sync license keys of purchases as well as remotely install and update purchased products.
So, let’s install the AyeCode plugin.
Go to plugins > Click on Add New plugin > search “AyeCode Connect” click on install and activate.
After activation, you’ll find two tabs under the AyeCode menu.
- AyeCode
- Import Demo Data
Now, click the connect site button to connect your website with GeoDirectory. If you already registered, log in using this site connect button.
Why do you need to register?
We require registration to import a demo because some may come with premium add-ons.
Connecting your account allows verifying if you have a license for these add-ons.
If so, we will install them automatically. However, If you do not have a license, we will install the demo anyway but exclude any premium add-ons.
Import Elementor Demo for restaurant directory
Now, you can import the Restaurant directory demo created for the Elementor Pro website builder.
Go to AyeCode > Import demo Data > Elementor restaurant directory.
Click on View to start importing the demo.
You’ll notice some paid add-ons installed on the restaurant directory demo.
If you have already paid for a GeoDirectory membership, these add-ons will be automatically installed; otherwise, the demo will be installed without the paid-add-ons, which are not essential for this tutorial.
After clicking import, you will get a site identical to our demo. installed on your server in a matter of a couple of minutes.
The listings are dummy data that are there to help you get started.
You are ready to start customizing your restaurant directory with your logo and branding. Modifying all pertinent information and adding your actual listings.
You can add your listings one by one or in bulk via CSV file import.
Method 2: GeoDirectory + Gutenberg and the Kadence Theme
This method will work if you don’t want to install Elementor and Elementor PRO on your website.
You can import Gutenberg Demo that uses the Kadence theme, which is free.
Get your WordPress Webhosting
The first step is like the previous method: You’ll get Webhosting for your website. Once you have selected your Webhosting, the next step is installing WordPress. Most web hostings come with a one-click WordPress installation.
Install AyeCode connect plugin
Install the AyeCode connect plugin as we have installed it in the previous method.
Connect with the AyeCode website
After installing the AyeCode plugin, you’ll be asked to connect it with AyeCode plugin so you can import the demo.
Import the Gutenberg Demo
We’ll import the Gutenberg demo for the restaurant directory in this step.
Go to Dashboard > AyeCode > Import Demo Data > Import the Kadence restaurant directory demo.
After installing either demo, you can easily personalize the demo content per your brand’s requirements.
Now let’s explore how you can configure and customize GeoMarketplace to enable restaurant owners to sell their menu items via WooCommerce.
Monetizing the directory – How to configure GeoMarketplace and allow restaurant owners to sell Menu Items directly from their listing
as previously mentioned, GeoMarketplace integrates GeoDirectory, WooCommerce, and MultiVendorX, allowing listing owners to create and sell products directly from their listings.
With GeoMarketplace, each listing becomes a shop, where the listing owner can sell their products, and the directory admin can earn a commission from each sale.
In this case, the restaurant owners can create their menu items and sell them for pick up or delivery.
Prerequisites for the Restaurants’ menu items marketplace
Install Woocommerce (free)
First, you’ll have to install WooCommerce.
Go to Plugins > Add New > Search WooCommerce > Install and Activate.
Configure WooCommerce according to your needs. The store details will include your industry, product types, categories, shipping, and tax details.
Install WCMarkeplace (free)
WooCommerce will set up your basic store settings, but it allows only a single vendor to sell products; therefore, you’ll have to install a marketplace plugin to make your store sell with a multiple-vendor setup.
GeoMarketplace works fine with most multivendor marketplace plugins, such as Dokan, WCFM, and WCV.
Still, for this tutorial, we have selected WCMarkeplace.
Go to Plugins > Add New > Search MultiVendorX > Install and Activate.
You can set up the percentage of the site’s admin from the commission on sales. Payment distribution of vendors and allowing vendors to edit and publish their products.
Install GeoMarketplace (premium)
The GeoMarketplace plugin is the last piece of the puzzle. It connects the three previous plugins and makes them work as one.
You will need a paid license to download and install this plugin on your server.
Suppose you have the AyeCode Connect plugin installed and your account connected to our website. In that case, you can go to GeoDirectory > Extensions and install and activate the GeoMarketplace add-on.
If you downloaded the GeoMarketplace plugin to your desktop, go to Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin > in this step. After that, activate the plugin.
Now we can add the “Shop” Tab to the Restaurants listings. This is where the Menu Items will appear.
To do so, go to:
Restaurant > Settings > Tabs > Insert “Shop” tab > click save.
How can users add a listing, sign up as vendors and create menu items to sell
To allow users to signup as vendors and access the vendor’s dashboard after their vendor application is approved, you’ll have to create two links, “Vendors Registration” and “Vendors Dashboard,” and add them anywhere on your website.
We added them to the main navigation menu through Appearance > Menus in this example.
Now you must ensure users can register: Go to the WordPress General settings and enable the “anyone can register” option.
Create the Listing
the restaurant owner will go to the Add Listing page and create a listing.
In GeoDirectory > General > Show Advanced > Enable Allow posting without logging in?
Non-logged-in users will be able to post listings from the front end.
The add listing form will also ask for an email and username, which will be used to create the user.
After adding all restaurant’s details and submitting the form, the system will send an email to the user with a link to set their password and another email to let them know that the listing has been submitted and needs admin approval.
After approval the restaurant listings is live.
Once approved, the listing owner can start creating the menu items.
But first, the restaurant owner must apply as a vendor and get the admin’s approval.
After logging in with the newly created password, the restaurant owner may proceed to the vendor dashboard and click the “Apply to become a vendor” button.
The site owner can access the vendor application under the WCMp To-do list.
Once the site owner has approved the vendor’s application, the vendors can proceed to create their products.
Create an orderable menu item and list it for sale
Once the site owner has approved the vendor’s application, the vendor’s dashboard will appear differently.
To add products, the Restaurant owner (from now on, the Vendor) will proceed to Product Manager > Add product > create a new product.
The vendor will select the category where this item will be listed.
We have selected “uncategorized” for this tutorial, but you can create and select as many categories as possible. Examples could be Entrees, Main Courses, Desserts, or Beverages.
Next, product details need to be added. Things like product title, description, price, and images. If the product is downloadable or virtual, we’ll leave this last option blank as we add a physical product.
Finally, the vendor will click the GeoDirectory tab and select the listing to link the product to.
In this case, it’s “My Restaurant”, and click on submit.
After the vendor submits a new product, the administrator should review and approve it. There is an option to Auto Approve to save time if needed.
The site admin will receive another task on the “To-do list.”
The product finally appears under the new listing tab “shop,” and the directory visitors can buy it.
Now for every item sold, the admin will collect a commission.
However, this is not the only way to monetize a directory website.
Monetizing the directory – what are my other options?
Sell Premium Listings
if you have several listings and decent traffic, you may sell premium/featured listings offering more visibility in category pages and search results.
Other perks for premium listings? Add more pictures, one or more videos about the restaurant, a longer description, and a link to their website or social media accounts.
You could limit free listings to be contacted through the directory and allow premium listings to be contacted directly.
Premium listings could include extra services, like photography, website development, SEO (search engine optimization), social media management, and more.
You will need our premium Pricing Manager Add-on to start selling premium listings.
Paid Claim Listings
Suppose you add the restaurants’ information to your directory, and restaurant owners realize you can send enough customers. In that case, they might want to improve the information you added about them on their listings.
In this case, you may offer them to claim their listings to be able to modify any pertinent data autonomously.
The claim listing process can be free, but you can also force an upgrade to claim and, in that case, charge a fee for restaurant owners to manage their listings.
To start charging for allowing business owners to claim their listings, you will need our premium Pricing Manager and Claim Listing add-ons installed.
Sell Ads
Besides selling premium listings, you may also sell advertising spaces throughout your directory website.
You may add ads on the top of the sidebar of search results. The ads can be made to look just like listings.
You can show ads on free listings but not on paid listings.
You can sell ads on your blog, home page, or, depending on your website, wherever they will get more impressions.
You will need our premium Pricing Manager and Advertising add-ons to sell ads on your business directory website.
Here ends our tutorial; creating a restaurant directory using the GeoMarketplace plugin is not difficult. Try yours now, and let us know if you have any questions in the comment section.
Obviously, with GeoDirectory you can build any kind of Directories. Check this tutorial on How to create a Directory Website with the Kadence Theme.
You can get GeoDirectory here today:
Today we released the highly anticipated Events Tickets Marketplace plugin for GeoDirectory.
This plugin can be used to sell Events Tickets on your website in multiple ways.
For example, you can sell tickets for one specific event on a website that you can build with no-code using WordPress and GeoDirectory.
If you organize events for a living, you can sell tickets for all your events from your business website, and stop paying commissions to Eventbrite or TicketMaster.
You can also allow other users to submit events into your Directory of Events (Free or Paid) and let them sell tickets for their own events, while you can collect a commission of their sales and create your own Eventbrite or TicketMaster.
Let me quickly show you how to start selling tickets online.
How to sell Events Tickets on a WordPress Website independently
I’m assuming you already have a WordPress website installed on your server and you want to start selling tickets for your events.
This is how you do it.
Other than the new Events Tickets Marketplace plugin, You will need the following plugins (which will auto install):
- GeoDirectory (Free)
- Events Calendar for GeoDirectory (Free)
- GetPaid (Free)
- GetPaid Item Inventory (Free)
- GetPaid Wallet (Free)
You have installed all the plugins.
Let’s configure GeoDirectory
Run the setup Wizard for GeoDirectory.
Create a Google Maps API key and set the city that will host your Event as the Default City.
If you don’t want to deal with Google Maps API Key, you may use OpenStreetMap, which doesn’t require an API key.
Finally, create at least 1 Event Category.
Let’s configure GetPaid
Run the setup Wizard for the GetPaid plugin and select how you want to get paid.
PayPal and other common payment gateways are pre-installed, if instead, you want to take advantage of Stripe, you will need the free Stripe Payments plugin for GetPaid too.
Connect your Stripe account, set the country and the currency of your GetPaid Store.
Last Go to Tickets > Settings
and set the commission to 0 (unless you need to pay yourself a commission).
By default, the commission is set to 10%.
Now you can start creating your event. 1st make sure the default Events custom fields allow you to show all information that you need to display.
Proceed to add your event and publish it.
After you publish your event, we need to add the ticket management block/widget to your Event details page on the front end. In this case, we need to go to Appearance > Widgets and we will add the block GD > Sell Tickets to the top of the GD Sidebar.
The result will look like this:
Now click the Sell Tickets button and create your tickets. You can create an unlimited number of ticket types and set both the price and quantity available for each of them.
Example:
- Kids: $10 / 50 seat avail
- Adults: $20 / 100 seat avail
- Seniors: $15 /50 seat avail
You are now ready to sell tickets online, if you visit the front end detail page of your Event, you will see that the sell ticket button is no longer there and you have 2 other buttons instead:
- Buy Tickets (this button is visible to anyone)
- Ticket Management (this button is only visible to the Event Owner)
The ticket management button, which is only visible to the event owner, opens a popup with options to create new tickets, a list of tickets sold, ticket sale insights, and the ticket scanner to validate its QR code.
If instead, you click the Buy Tickets button, which is visible to anyone, the checkout form will pop up with the option to select the date (for recurring events), the ticket type, and the quantity.
At this point, the total amount is calculated and the buyer needs to pay with his credit card.
After the transaction is completed, the buyer will be able to download the tickets and show them at the event on their mobile device or with a hard-printed copy.
As previously mentioned, the tickets come with a unique QR Code that can be scanned to see if the ticket is valid or not.
Of course, you can redeem the tickets so you’ll know which one has been used and which are still valid.
Landing page for Events
What if I don’t want to use the GeoDirectory Event detail page template to promote my event and I prefer to create a Landing Page with my favorite page builder?
That’s totally possible, but you still need to create the event via GeoDirectory first.
Let’s say you want to use an Event Landing page from the Elementor PRO Library.
This one for example.
After you created your event via GeoDirectory and created the ticket, all you need to do is to replace the Register Now buttons with the GD > Sell Ticket widget. The only difference with what we did earlier, you’ll need to add the ID of the ticket to sell.
You’ll have to modify the style of the widget to match the original look of the button.
By using the GD > Sell Tickets widget, it will ensure that when the event is started, the button will become inactive and it will no longer be possible to buy tickets.
If that’s not a viable option and you want to use the original Register Now buttons, you can edit them via Elementor and make their links point to:
yoursite.com/#getpaid-item-XYZ|0
Where XYZ is the ticket ID. You can verify the ID of your ticket on the Items list of GetPaid.
Clicking the button with that link will open the ticket check-out form.
This second method will not stop selling the tickets after the event has started though.
Directory of Events with Tickets Marketplace
Because GeoDirectory allows users to submit their own events (if you wish), your events owners will also be able to create tickets for their own events.
As previously mentioned, you can charge a commission for each sale, which means that you now have an extra tool to monetize your directory.
Soon we will create a tutorial to show you how easy it is to create a Tickets Marketplace from start to finish.
Events Tickets Marketplace: Included in all memberships
We hope you enjoyed this tutorial.
If you are a GeoDirectory active member, you will find the plugin in your account area.
We are curious to hear your feedback and we are eager to improve this plugin indefinitely, so don’t hesitate to share your ideas in the comments down below!
In this latest release of GeoDirectory, we focused on improving the website admin experience, rather than adding new features. At the same time, we did our best effort to make GeoDirectory fully compatible with the new Full Site Editor recently introduced by WordPress 5.9 in Beta.
Unfortunately, we will have to postpone 5.9 full compatibilities for a while longer, because currently, the WordPress full site editor does not treat blocks exactly like the Gutenberg editor, breaking most blocks added by plugins.
That said, we are not too far from being compatible and we are prepared to complete the job, as soon as the WordPress core development team will address all the issues we encountered.
Our main objectives for this release were:
- an improved setup wizard
- a better organized and neatly looking settings pages
- an upgraded custom post type settings UI
- Compatibility with WP 5.9
We were able to complete the 1st three points and as mentioned above, we will complete the fourth point as soon as possible.
1. Improved setup wizard
We tried to make the setup wizard more efficient. It will be easier now to set up the Google Maps API KEY without errors, add extra features, create dummy listings for different industries, and so on.
2. Better organized and neatly looking settings pages
We added Bootstrap to all our settings pages to make them more organized, better looking, and easy to navigate.
We also improved the settings that historically created more support requests.
For example and as mentioned above for the setup wizard, we put a lot of effort into making the Google Maps API KEY generation and validation a lot easier.
Now there is a verify button that allows seeing if the key is working and if not, what is not working and how to fix it.
3. upgraded custom post type settings UI
This is where we put a lot of effort, to make it easier to create and manage:
- the custom fields of the add listing form builder
- the listings sorting options
- the listing detail page tabs builder
- the advanced search form builder
We took inspiration from the most recommended form builders user interfaces and now adding custom fields to the add listing page should be more intuitive and user-friendly.
These improvements were long due and will make it easier for new users to set up GeoDirectory and more enjoyable for current users, to manage their online directories.
For additional information about this release, please have a look at the changelog: https://wpgeodirectory.com/change-logs-v2/#v2.2
In the next releases, we will solely focus on highly anticipated new features, such as the booking plugin.
GeoDirectory version 2.1.1.0 introduces a new, highly anticipated feature:
Conditional Logic for Custom Fields
This new feature allows you to create dependencies between fields, based on the conditions that you set.
Dependent fields will only be displayed and editable, if the input entered on the fields they depend on, matches the right conditions.
This feature is fundamental for business directory listings, with many custom fields making it possible to select preset fields only when these apply.
An easy-to-understand example is represented by custom fields for Car Classified Listings.
Presumably, you will have a field labeled “Brand”, where users will select their car manufacturers such as Ford, GMC, or Lamborghini.
And you will have a field labeled “Models“, where you select the model of the selected Brand of cars. If you select Ford, this field will display models such as C-Max, Fiesta, Focus, Fusion, Mustang, and so on.
If you select Lamborghini, this field will display models such as Huracan, Aventador, Gallardo, Murcielago, Diablo, and so on.
To create this example, we added 3 custom fields to our setup. Brands, Ford Models, and Lamborghini Models.
On the Ford Models Field, we set the condition to show only when you select the Ford option in the Brands field.
On the Lamborghini Models Field, we set the condition to show only when you select the Lamborghini option in the Brands field.
It is as easy as that.
Another case in point would be Real Estate Listing.
Let’s show a full tutorial, including how to set up the fields, using our WordPress Real Estate Theme.
Conditional Fields for Real Estate Listings
Our Real Estate listing demo includes a field labeled Property Type with options such as Houses, Apartments, and Land and another field asking for furnished/unfurnished status. Obviously, the second field never applies to Land properties.
In this case, we will add a Conditional Logic to the Furnishing select custom field by doing the following:
1. Open the Furnishing Select Field.
2. Click the “+ Conditional Field” link at the lower-left corner of the custom field options.
3 After clicking on it, a new set of options will appear.
4 For our example, we will need to set them as follows:
- ACTION = HIDE
- FIELD = Property Type
- CONDITION = equals to
- VALUE = Land
and save the custom field. Below you can see what this will look like.
After doing that, this is the result on the Front End:
The same conditions can be added to other fields like the bedrooms or bathrooms fields, which are not needed if you are listing a piece of land.
You can also add multiple conditions if you need to do so.
The available options are:
- ACTION = SHOW/HIDE
- FIELD = All your fields
- CONDITION = empty, not empty, equals to, not equals, greater than, less then, contains.
- VALUE = accept text
And you can add as many as you wish for each field.
What are you going to build with GeoDirectory conditional custom fields?
Let us know in the comment down below…
Are you looking for a WordPress Store Locator plugin to help you increase sales at your store or shop?
If yes, you should check out these top plugins that can help you boost your business.
A WordPress store locator plugin is a great way to ensure that customers know exactly where to go when they want to buy from you.
If your business has more than one location, you should consider installing a where-to-buy store locator plugin.
These allow you to list all your locations on a single page so visitors can browse them all at once.
You can also add maps showing where they are located to each listing.
There are thousands of free and paid WordPress plugins available today. The problem is finding the right one. That’s where our experts come in.
They scour the web to find the best WordPress plugins every day. And they share their findings with you.
Some of the top WordPress plugins can help businesses improve their visibility and increase sales.
WordPress Store Locator Plugins Compared
That said, which store locator WordPress plugins are the best?
In theory, any Google Maps plugin that allows adding more than one location could be used as a Store Locator.
However, that might not be enough for everyone.
This article will look at some of the most popular out there.
In addition, we will be paying particular attention to their Rich Snippets support.
From the point of view of a local business, Rich Snippets are crucial for SEO as these help search engines display beneficial results about your business.
For instance, if you run a restaurant, Rich Snippets will highlight Menus, Service Hours, Specials, etc.
GeoDirectory
| Active Installs | Ratings | Updates | Support |
|---|---|---|---|
| +10000 | 4.7/5 | Weekly | Within 24 hrs |
Our flagship plugin, GeoDirectory, is by far the most sophisticated shop locator plugin on this list.
Integrated with Google Maps and OpenStreetMap, it has many features that are otherwise not found in most Store Locator WordPress plugins.
For example, it is fully integrated with Elementor and Elementor PRO.
Please don’t take our word for it, though.
Consider this.
Major Features
This is entirely free.
GeoDirectory has numerous custom extensions that offer seamless integration with third-party plugins and extended features.
- Google Maps and the OpenStreetMaps API
- Custom Google Map icons
- Search for physical stores near your current locations (proximity)
- Search Radius
- Physical store location pages, each with its map, custom image gallery, contact details, dedicated contact form, and customer reviews
- Full support for WordPress REST API
- Unlimited custom fields for displaying location info
- A wide range of widgets that can be used as shortcodes or Gutenberg blocks in virtually any content field
- Ability to add unlimited locations and location metadata
- CSV manager for export, import, and bulk editing of store listings
- Rich Snippets Support – Yes! 🙂
- Responsive design that works with any page builder plugin like Elementor, Divi, Oxygen, Bricks, Breakdance, and Beaver Builder (just to name a few)
- Integration with WPML multilingual plugin
For example:
- GeoLocation
- Advanced search
- Custom Post Type to handle different types of stores
- Claim listing for the business owner
- Custom-designed Google Maps
- Events locator (Now a free plugin)
- SEO Location Manager for multi-city store locating capability
- Map Marker Clusters and many more.
If you are building a business directory website (generic store locator for your city), you can even charge business owners to submit their listings on your map.
If you need to build an advanced Store Locator on your WordPress website, GeoDirectory should be your first choice.
WP Store Locator
| Active Installs | Ratings | Updates | Support |
|---|---|---|---|
| +60000 | 4.8/5 | Rarely | Within 24/48 hrs |
The WP Store Locator is a free plugin that adds all your locations to a map you can fully customize.
The map and navigator can be in whatever language you choose.
You can add custom labels for each location and help users find nearby locations using multiple filters, such as proximity radius or category.
WP Store Locator allows you to display any number of stores and change the frontend language from the admin panel.
The shortcodes are highly customizable, so you can choose what to display on the front end of your site.
Be it opening or closing hours, alternate addresses, landmarks, phone numbers, etc.
This WP plugin has custom markers that users can drag on the map to set their desired location.
Beyond that, marker clustering is also available should there be multiple stores nearby.
Overall, this is a very feature-rich plugin that can fit the needs of any user.
However, the biggest downside is that some features that are otherwise available out of the box in most plugins require you to rely on add-ons.
For instance, bulk import, detailed statistics, and search widgets are mainly managed using add-ons with WP Store Locator.
Major Features
- Support localization and works well with multilingual plugins
- Ability to showcase marker cluster on the frontend
- Supports Geolocation via Google Maps API
- Comes with custom filters to sort CPTs based on user requirements
- Supports Rich Snippets – No (Partial Support; but single entry pages do not use Local Business Rich Snippets)
Yoast Local SEO for WordPress
Yoast has become the de facto leader when it comes to WordPress SEO.
Their main SEO plugin is free and backed by the Local SEO plugin, primarily meant as a store locator.
Local SEO by Yoast allows users to filter stores and other locations by radius and ZIP codes.
You can add your store’s address to the store locator page, specify the opening and closing hours, and add any custom info using shortcodes.
The plugin also supports custom widgets that display store location info in the sidebar or footer.
That said, Yoast’s biggest issue with Local SEO is the absence of a free version.
More importantly, this is not a bonafide store locator plugin per se.
Instead, it is a companion plugin for the mainstream Yoast SEO plugin.
It offers seamless integration with Yoast SEO, handling metadata and XML sitemaps, etc. Still, it does not boast any additional features other plugins offer.
Lastly, it is worth mentioning that if you have virtual locations for your store, this particular plugin might not be the best fit for you.
Price – $79 + VAT
Major Features
- Offers tight integration with the Yoast SEO plugin
- It integrates well with WooCommerce and can add location-specific features to WooCommerce products.
- Supports KML file generation and can add the relevant info to your search engine XML sitemap automatically
- Supports Rich Snippets – Yes
Locatoraid Store Locator
| Active Installs | Ratings | Updates | Support |
|---|---|---|---|
| +2000 | 4.5/5 | Rarely | Within a week |
Locatoraid Store Locator is another lightweight plugin that includes many configurable styles for front-end display.
Regarding modus operandi, Locataraid follows the same approach as all other plugins on this list.
It lets you add locations your customers can browse through, supports custom shortcodes for the more straightforward display of store locations, and can insert maps with text search, radius and proximity search, etc.
In addition to all of that, Locataraid also comes with custom widgets and highly tweakable map styles.
On the downside, though, geolocation is hard to set up, and Locataraid seems to mainly require users to manually type in their address or ZIP code to fetch nearby store locations.
It might be time-consuming and a minor hindrance for some users.
Major Features
- Tweakable and customizable map styles
- Supports multiple locations and custom fields
- Ability to bulk import locations in a few clicks
- Supports Rich Snippets – No (Partial Support; single entry pages do not support Local Business Rich Snippet fully)
Agile Store Locator
| Active Installs | Ratings | Updates | Support |
|---|---|---|---|
| +10000 | 4.9/5 | Frequent | Within 48 hrs |
Agile Store Locator is a handy WordPress plugin that renders maps on your website’s front end using Google Maps.
This WP plugin supports Geolocation and custom fields and offers decent customization features for the maps display.
That said, the free version only seems to be able to search for or locate stores based on manual input—ZIP code, city, country, etc.
Major Features
- Google Maps and Google Geocoding API
- Support for custom fields
- Multilingual support
- Ability to display maps in different languages
- Rich Snippets Support – No
WP Go Maps (formerly WP Google Maps)
| Active Installs | Ratings | Updates | Support |
|---|---|---|---|
| +400000 | 4.8/5 | Frequent | 48/72 hrs |
WP Go Maps is not a Store Locator plugin per se, but rather a mapping plugin that supports Google Maps and Open Street Maps.
It is extremely popular, with over 400,000 active installs.
The free version allows users to create one map by simply right-clicking on the map and adding unlimited map markers with all the information they need to find store locations.
The free version allows your website visitors to search by address and radius.
Free version notable features include:
- Unlimited map markers by simply typing in the address
- Elementor Map block
- Edit your map markers with the click of a button
- Drag map markers to an exact location
- Support for translations
- Define your width, height, and zoom level for your map
- Add animations to your map markers!
- Restrict a store locator search by country
- Add Polygons to your Map
- Add Polylines / Routes to your map
- Google Maps Autocomplete
- Set the max zoom level for your map
- Serve your map marker data via your database or an XML file
Store Locator Plus for WordPress
| Active Installs | Ratings | Updates | Support |
|---|---|---|---|
| +7000 | 4.3/5 | Frequent | unreliable |
Store Locator Plus lets you create a location search on your website, regardless of the number of stores you need to manage.
You can create a page without unique settings, specify your default location, and add a shortcode to the location search page.
This particular plugin is ideal for people who wish to add a simple search bar to their site to locate stores.
If you are looking for highly customizable options, Store Locator Plus for WordPress is probably not the first choice you think of.
Add custom add-ons (paid extensions) to this plugin for additional features.
Such as enabling or disabling search options, categorizing locations, creating SEO-focused pages for each area, and so on.
You must implement a few add-ons or extensions to get the most out of this plugin.
For instance, extensions are necessary to integrate social media links with store locations or add custom fields to your location data.
Store Locator Plus also works seamlessly with Gravity Forms and Event Location Manager to link events to the location of your business.
Lastly, it supports multiple countries and languages without any paid add-ons.
Major Features
- Support for multiple countries and locations
- Localized in various languages
- There is no hard limit on the number of locations that you can add
- Easily customizable with HTML and CSS tweaks
- A wide range of paid add-ons and extensions to get the most out of your site
- Support for WordPress REST API to help use WP as a headless CMS, integrate with mobile apps, and so on.
- Does not support Rich Snippets
WARNING: This plugin was suspended for a long time from the wp.org plugin directory for security issues.
It appears that the problem was solved now, but handling the situation was quite unprofessional.
To Sum it up…
In this article, we have compiled some of the most popular WordPress plugins that may help you build store locator functionality on your website.
Each has its features and abilities, but most users will be satisfied with any of the above plugins.
Which one should you use? Yes, it depends on your requirements.
For instance, if integration with Yoast SEO is the only aspect of your search, Local SEO by Yoast is an obvious choice.
On the other hand, if the widest selection of features in the free version and a stellar array of premium extensions is something you’re looking for, GeoDirectory is what you should choose for your site.
Which store locator WordPress plugin do you prefer and why? Have your say in the comments below!
At AyeCode, We Love Affiliate Marketing!
Affiliate Marketing is one of the things, which made GeoDirectory as successful as it is.
When in 2011 we launched GeoTheme, the predecessor of GeoDirectory, our affiliate program, and a few awesome affiliate marketers, gave our first product the visibility that it needed to take off.
It helped us create an audience.
Affiliate marketing is definitely one of the reasons why we have been profitable since day one, and we have been growing ever since.
Today, we still rely on Affiliate Marketing, and we pay five figures per year to our partners in affiliate commissions.
Currently, we have 277 affiliates, but 7 of them, are accountable for 80% of the revenues generated by our affiliate program.
This means that you don’t need too many of them, you need a few good ones.
BTW, if you want to join our Affiliate Program, we do offer a 30% commission for each sale and you can register here.
What is Affiliate marketing?
In case you don’t know, affiliate marketing for the eCommerce industry consists of offering a commission for each sale referred by a third-party website.
An Affiliate plugin will help you automate this process.
Website owners who want to promote your products can register on your website’s affiliate program.
The plugin will provide “special links” to your partners and will track anytime a visitor lands on your store, after clicking on one of these special links on a partner’s website.
If the same visitor purchases one of your products or services, or a premium listing, the affiliate plugin will record the commission.
At the end of the month, you can generate a payout report of all commissions and pay your affiliate partners.
Should you start an Affiliate program for your directory?
If you are selling premium listings, absolutely yes! Do it now…
If you haven’t, you are not taking full advantage of your online business.
Seasoned Directory Developers know how challenging monetizing a directory can be. Especially when it is newly launched.
A well thought Affiliate Marketing Program can greatly help you with that.
For example, in the case of a Local Business Directory, you could contact every Local SEO, Web Developers, and Marketing agency in your area and let them know they can earn a percentage for each premium listing that they buy for their local clients.
Their clients are your clients!
Other than sending you targeted traffic, affiliate partners will improve your backlink profile, and as a consequence, your SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
Most affiliate partners will cloak the affiliate links on their websites. Some will add the “nofollow” tag to them.
However, a good percentage will still give you a 100% “dofollow” link and each backlink can make a big difference for your website’s rankings.
What Affiliate Plugin should I use with GeoDirectory?
Until recently, you only had one choice. However, you had to buy that plugin and our integration add-on just to get started.
Unless your directory was already generating decent revenues, the initial investment could appear a bit high.
Today the answer is a no-brainer. You should use SliceWP!
SliceWP is the newest Affiliate plugin for WordPress, its core plugin is free, it is incredibly easy to use and its developers, just made it fully compatible with our GetPaid plugin.
As a consequence, it is compatible with GeoDirectory too!
The free plugin is more than enough to get you started and if you manage to attract a few good affiliate partners (3 or 4) they will have a huge impact on your revenues.
I’m sold, show me how it’s done!
This is the easy part. It will literally take minutes.
I’m assuming you already have GeoDirectory installed and you are selling Paid Premium listings using the GeoDirectory Pricing Manager Add-on and the GetPaid plugin.
1. Install SliceWP
Go to Plugins > Add New, search SliceWP, click on Install Now and Activate. This will launch the setup wizard.
2. Complete the Setup Wizard
- Select GetPaid
- Set your Sale Commission Rate, Subscription Commission Rate, Currency, Cookie Duration and Allow visitors to register as affiliates.
- Create the pages needed: Affiliate Register Page, Affiliate Login Page, and Affiliate Account Page
- Enable the notifications needed (all 4)
- All required options are now setup. You are almost done, click Review Settings to fine-tune your configuration of SliceWP
Here you can add the final touches through options that are not required like:
- Exclude Taxes
- Reject Commissions on Refund
- Zero Amount Commissions
- Affiliate Own Commissions
And a few other options.
From now on, every sale referred by an affiliate partner will be tracked and a commission will be recorded.
This is how commissions will look like on the backend:
This is how the affiliate account will look like on the frontend with the starter theme:
As the site admin, you will be able to moderate the affiliate partners’ registration. You can track referrals, visits, and you will be able to add creatives (Marketing material like logos and banners.)
Payout files are easy to create by start and end dates and you can set a minimum amount.
SliceWP Premium Features
If this is not enough, you have several premium add-ons to choose from.
For a very reasonable price, you can add extra features like:
- Lifetime Commissions
- Custom Affiliate Fields
- Recurring Commissions
- Product Commission Rates
- Affiliate Commission Rate
and much more.
That’s it!
If you wish to test it, you can do so on this demo: https://demos.ayecode.io/starter/
You can register a new affiliate here:
https://demos.ayecode.io/starter/affiliate-registration/
You can login as affiliate here:
https://demos.ayecode.io/starter/affiliate-login/
And you will find the affiliate account page here:
https://demos.ayecode.io/starter/affiliate-account/
We hope you will enjoy using SliceWP, if you have any questions about it, please leave it in the comments down below.
Disclaimer
AyeCode is not currently affiliated with SliceWP, nor do we own any interest in it. We are suggesting to our audience purely because we like it, and because its developers were kind enough to make it compatible with GetPaid.
We think it is a fantastic addition for any Online Directory Developer.
Have you ever wanted to create a real estate website for your agency?
Not everyone knows that you can easily start a professional real estate listings website for your city using WordPress, without investing much time or money
Now you can, with GeoDirectory and the AyeCode Connect plugin, it’s super easy to import a full demo like this one, within a maximum of 5 minutes.
You’ll only need to choose between, Elementor PRO which starts at $49, or Gutenberg, and the Kadence Theme, which are totally free.
Why did we create 2 very similar templates, one for Elementor and one for Gutenberg and the Kadence Theme?
The answer is very simple, while Elementor is undoubtedly the most versatile page builder, it comes with a few drawbacks.
Websites built with Elementor require heavy optimization and high-performance hosting to load as quickly as websites built with Gutenberg and the Kadence theme on regular hosting.
Gutenberg and the Kadence theme are not yet on the same level as Elementor in developing complex designs.
However, they are getting very close and websites built with them, perform a lot better, even on regular WordPress hosting plans.
Speed Test Results
After importing the demos
In both cases, after importing the demo, all you need to do is to personalize the website by adding your logo.
Edit the dummy listing with real information about your real estate listings.
After that, you can focus on growing your Real Estate listings directory and start earning online and offline revenues.
It’s never been easier.
In this post we will show you how easy it is with 2 full tutorials:
GeoDirectory + Elementor PRO
1. Setup WordPress Hosting
You can skip this step if you already have a blank WordPress site setup or if you are using another Hosting provider.
in this example, I’m using Cloudways, which is our go-to WordPress hosting provider. We are using the Vultr HF option, with 2GB of RAM. It only costs only $26 /mo for unlimited sites.
First of all, we need to create a new application. After logging in to my Cloudways account I navigate to Applications and click on the green + Add Application button.
You need to select the server for your new application, I have only one on this account so I select it, and click on Add Application
Next, you add the Application which is the latest version of WordPress, give the app a name, in this case, I’m calling it GeoHome EL.
Finally, select one of your projects as an app category and click on Add Application again.
You will land on this page:
By clicking on the Application URL, you find your new WordPress website.
Creating a new WordPress website with Cloudways, is as easy as that.
2. Install Elementor and Elementor PRO
From the application page, click ADMIN PANEL > URL (or navigate to the wp-login.php page if you know what that is).
Copy the username and password from the application page and login.
Go to Plugins > Add New, search for Elementor, click Install Now and Activate.
Now click Add New > Upload Plugin and install Elementor Pro, by selecting the ZIP downloaded from Elementor.com.
If you don’t have Elementor Pro, you must buy it here:
3. Install the AyeCode Connect Plugin.
Click Plugins > Add New.
Search: Ayecode Connect.
Click on Install Now and then on Activate.
You will find a new “AyeCode” WordPress menu, with 2 submenus.
- AyeCode
- Import Demo Data.
4. Connect with the AyeCode website
Click the Connect Site button and Register (or log in if you already have an account with us). Registration is totally free.
Why do we make you register?
If you are wondering why we require registration to import a demo, that’s because some demos may come with premium add-ons.
By connecting your account, we will be able to verify if you have a license for these add-ons, and in that case, we will install them automatically.
If you don’t have a license we will install the demo anyway, without the features included in the premium add-ons.
5. Import the Elementor Demo
Navigate to AyeCode > import Demo Data. Currently, you will find 5 demos to import. What we need today, is the demo called: Real Estate (Elementor)
Click View.
As you can see there are a couple of Paid Add-ons installed on this demo. If you have an AyeCode license they will be automatically installed.
If you don’t, the demo will be installed without those features.
Click Import and the job is done. Your site will look like this: https://demos.ayecode.io/elementor-real-estate-directory/
GeoDirectory + Gutenberg and the Kadence Theme
Now let’s see how we can do the same, using Gutenberg and the Kadence Theme instead of Elementor PRO.
This is even easier because we don’t have to install anything apart from the AyeCode Connect plugin.
1. Setup WordPress Hosting
This step is identical to the 1st step of the previous tutorial.
2. Install the AyeCode Connect Plugin.
Same as above, do this by replicating the steps outlined in point 3 of the Elementor Tutorial.
3. Connect with the AyeCode website
Follow the steps as explained in point 4 of the Elementor Tutorial.
4. Import the Gutenberg DEMO
Navigate to AyeCode > import Demo Data. Currently, you will find 5 demos to import. This time we will use the demo called: Real Estate (Kadence)
Click View.
As you can see, apart from 1 GeoDirectory add-on, everything here is free of charge and nothing needs to be installed in advance.
Just click Import and the job is done. Your site will look like this: https://demos.ayecode.io/kadence-real-estate-directory/
Now you can customize your website with your logo, change colors if needed and edit the dummy listings with your real estate listings.
Finally, you can focus on growing your new online business.
We hope you will enjoy these new templates.
In the next few weeks, we will release new templates for both Elementor PRO and Gutenberg and the KadenceWP Suite, such as a Doctors Directory, Hotels Directory, Restaurant Directory, Yoga Studio Directory, and many more.
Obviously, with GeoDirectory you can build any kind of Directories. Check this tutorial on How to build a Kadence Directory Website.
How the WordPress Directory Theme niche started
When we started this journey, there were only a couple of other players in the WordPress Directory Theme niche.
GeoPlaces by Templatic and Directorypress by PremiumPress.
At that point, Stiofan and I still didn’t know each other. We met in the Templatic forums after buying their theme to build our directories.
However, we found Templatic to be flawed, buggy, and unsuitable for use in developing a live website.
Stiofan started using it, adding fixes to it and making it work for him. It turned into his Barra directory website.
Over 80% of the theme needed major fixes, so we decided to team up, fork it, and create an alternative product.
That’s how we created GeoTheme. After that, Vantage from AppThemes was released and then we saw products popping up one after the other.
Today ThemeForest.net lists 163 items and counting that are a WordPress Directory Theme (last time we checked they were 157).
Several other independent Theme Shops sell their own WordPress Directory Theme too.
GeoTheme ceased to exist over 2 years ago. We decided to turn it into a plugin called GeoDirectory, so webmasters can use it anyway they see fit.
This allows directories to be added to any existing websites without any change being needed to the theme or website.
With so many options, which one to choose in 2021?
Our 1st answer would be Listimia + GeoDirectory for obvious reasons. Listimia was released in June 2019 and you can see it in this DEMO.
It only costs $39 and revolving around GeoDirectory makes it the most feature-rich Directory Theme for WordPress. Did we say it is sleek, elegant, and professional?
Should you prefer not to make this journey with us, at least let us help you choose wisely.
For that, we bought, installed, and tested the 7 most popular WordPress Directory Themes, so that we can provide scrupulous and objective reviews from specialists of the directory niche.
To praise their Pros and expose their Cons.
Affiliate link disclosure
We hope you appreciate our effort! Having invested $500 to buy all these themes, we need to recoup the investment. Some of the links on this article are “affiliate links”. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, we will receive an affiliate commission.
Testing Criteria
First of all, we decided to test only 7 themes. The 4 top-selling themes of the moment from ThemeForest.net and the 3 top rankings on the Google.com SERP for the keyword “WordPress directory theme”.
They are:
1) Listify by Astoundify
2) Listable by Pixelgrade
3) ListingPro by Cridio Studio
4) MyListing by 27collective
5) DirectoryEngine by EngineThemes
6) Vantage by AppThemes
7) Directory by Templatic
We will test and evaluate them for:
1) Ease of use
2) Design quality
3) Flexibility
4) Use of SEO best practices
5) Quality of support & documentation
6) Quality of code, use of WordPress best practices, and scalability
Why didn’t you review this or that other theme too?
Because of time restraints. There are hundreds of them and we couldn’t review them all. We picked the theme for which the market was showing the strongest preference.
Listify by Astoundify
Ease of use
Installing and setting up this theme was as straightforward as could be.
The setup guide allows you to set up a staging website in less than 5 minutes.
The only tedious part is the procedure to get the Google Maps API Key, which was more of a struggle than anything else in the rest of the install wizard.
I suggest the authors look at our API KEY for Google Maps plugin.
They’ll learn how to streamline the procedure from several steps to a couple of clicks.
Design quality
Listify design is outstanding and easily customizable and should prove accessible even to users with little to no coding/CSS knowledge.
The “Customizer” section contains Style Kits and other options for the user to modify the website style like the logo, elements colors, labels, and typography.
Flexibility
A 3rd party plugin, called WP Job Manager, actually powers the theme, so
there are few built-in options for the management of fields and links.
The first thing that I wanted to test was custom fields to see how Listify handles the posts meta.
I was surprised to find that it basically doesn’t actually handle fields very well.
If you want to add a custom field to the front end add-listing form and listing pages, you have to add code snippets to your child theme or buy yet another premium plugin.
Search filters by custom fields as a consequence are not available. You can filter by location, by category, by keyword, or by tag.
With an extra premium plugin called FacetWP, you can extend that, but I didn’t test it and I can’t say to what extent.
Listify is compatible with WPML, but Polylang is recommended to create a multilingual website.
Use of SEO best practices
The location field is a taxonomy. Because of that, this theme is more suited for a local directory. Bootstrapping a successful website with multiple locations could be next to impossible.
You can search and filter by category and location. But you can only browse archives of listings by location OR by category. For Directories with listings from more than one city, this is a huge SEO limit.
If you want to see the “Private Room” listings in San Diego on the Listify demo, you can only do that by using their search engine. If you copy the URL returned :
and paste it a new browser window, you will see that it won’t show “Private Room” listings in San Diego, but a generic search results page.
This is SEO unfriendly.
You can’t handle SEO meta with SEO Yoast for similar search results pages.
No relevant Title. No relevant metas. Nothing in the URL to help Google index your website for “Private rooms in San Diego”.
For a good directory there should be an archive under a similar structure:
listify-demos.astoundify.com/rentals/united-states/california/san-diego/single-room
That structure allows to assign a unique meta title and meta descriptions and it would be 100% SEO optimized.
Listify handles Rich Snippets but it integrates them in the most basic way possible.
Quality of support & documentation
The documentation is extensive and clear. Support is also polite and efficient.
I submitted one query via comments on the product page and received a response in less than 24 hours.
Quality of code, use of WordPress best practices, and scalability
Out of the box, because it doesn’t use Custom Fields, Listify is scalable, in a similar manner to how WordPress is for posts and pages.
Adding custom fields to the equation, via code snippets or plugin, would quickly degrade performances. This because of how the custom fields are saved in the database.
Code Comments: In general, the code quality is good, lots of the important functions have code comments, but there are still many without any comments or that lack full descriptions, and as such would not be up to WordPress standards.
Actions & Filters: The theme has 134 do_action() and 187 apply_filters() which is good to see (in general the more actions and filters the easier it is for developers to work with).
Escaping (security): Seems good and up to WP standards.
Listify conclusions
While great design and quick setup are definitely obvious pros, this theme is, unfortunately, totally dependent on other plugins. In our opinion, Wp Job Manager is less than ideal for building a business directory.
Since Astoundify has been sold and we don’t know the new developers, I can’t guarantee that Listify is still as stable as it was when we 1st tested. If and when we’ll get the time to check the latest updates, we’ll report here.
Listable by Pixelgrade
Ease of use
Listable gave a very good first impression, although it wasn’t as smooth and fast as the previous one.
After a few minutes of work, my staging website looked similar to the Listable official demo.
Listable features Mapbox integration. Mapbox is an alternative to Google Maps, although it offers only 1600 map views per day and becomes pretty expensive after that, so it’s not a great choice.
Google Maps is available. They require adding the API key manually, which is time-consuming. Listable’s authors should have a look at what we suggested to the Astoundify team about this.
Design quality
Listable’s major strength is its sleek and pixel-perfect design.
Their customizer options allow the editing of most elements. Tweaking Colors Schemes, Managing Fonts, or adding Custom CSS
Flexibility
Just like Listify, Listable’s weakest point is the plugin powering the directory. WP Job Manager, which I think is far from ideal for a business directory.
Again, in order to create custom fields, you need an extra premium plugin or extra code. The only difference is the Locations that are not a taxonomy, but a post meta.
An extra taxonomy offered is the listing types. I didn’t see their utility because they appear to be for admin only.
Listable is fully compatible with WPML. I tested it and can personally confirm.
Use of SEO best practices
Even though the Location field is not a taxonomy (it is a custom field), the issues are the same that we saw with Listify.
Google will never index your category archives by city (if you have more than one).
A Directory of Hotels located in several cities, including New York, will not rank for keywords like “Hotels in New York”.
With this structure is better to create a single city or a hyper-local directory only.
Listable handles Rich Snippets, but it integrates them in a basic way.
Quality of support & documentation
The documentation is extensive and clear and support is polite and efficient.
I submitted one query via comments on the product page and received an answer in less than 12 hours.
Quality of code, use of WordPress best practices, and scalability
Out of the box, because it doesn’t use Custom Fields, Listable is scalable just like Listify.
But like Listify, if you try to add custom fields performance problems quickly arise.
Code Comments: Some code comments exist, but most functions are un-commented and ones that have comments are not up to WP standards.
Actions & Filters: The theme has 141 do_action() and 136 apply_filters() (in general the more actions and filters the easier it is for developers to work with).
Escaping (security): Mostly good and to WP standards though I would like to see all POST data escaped even in the backend functions.
Listable conclusions
Great design and easy setup, but same problems as Listify, as again their choice to use WP Job Manager limited their potential.
Also, because most of the plugins are premium, I couldn’t test them all. Buying them all would bring the total investment to over $300.
For example, I couldn’t test paid listings, claim listings, bookmarks, and listings tags. All monetization options come at an extra cost.
The same consideration I made for Listify is valid for Listable too. It’s a shame that it’s not compatible with GeoDirectory. Plenty of our current members would have bought it.
ListingPro by Cridio Studio
Ease of use
Things didn’t go very smoothly with ListingPro at first. I unzipped the archive and found 5 zip files in it:
- Documentation-1.0.zip,
- listingpro.zip,
- listingpro-Bulk-import-addon.zip,
- listingpro-child.zip, and Live-demo-Content.zip.
I installed both the parent and the child theme and activated the child theme. I was redirected to the setup wizard page, where the first step requires installing the mandatory and recommended plugins. This step failed and I couldn’t proceed.
I had to ask for support, which, fortunately, was very fast in getting back to me. They explained that to set up everything I had to activate the parent theme. This shows the process is buggy because activating the parent or child theme shouldn’t change anything.
If it’s better for the setup process to activate the parent theme first, why not hide the child theme zip file and add a step to the setup wizard that installs and activates the child theme once everything else is done? (Like Listify does.)
In any case, after activating the parent theme the problem was gone and I had a staging website similar to their official demo to start my tests.
The author added a default Google Maps API key, to avoid users seeing an error on their maps when first visiting the website.
This is good and bad.
It’s positive to avoid showing an error to the users at first. But that API key will quickly reach its limit, all users that missed changing it and will be presented with the map error. Possibly when their website is live, which is worse.
And, as in the two previous themes, with ListingPro you can’t fetch the Maps API automatically.
Design quality
The front-end design for ListingPro is outstanding and the customization options are limitless, but the excessive use of colors on the dashboard is a bit grating and quickly becomes an eyesore.
I prefer when plugins and themes blend graciously into the WordPress UI, using its original styles and elements.
ListingPro doesn’t use the Theme Customizer for its styling and customization options. Being all in the dashboard theme options means that you can’t preview your styling changes while doing them.
Flexibility
ListingsPro is a WordPress Directory Theme that comes with all Directory features built-in. It doesn’t rely on 3rd party plugins to operate the directory portion of the theme.
This is a big advantage, especially for those on a tight budget.
Unlike WP Job Manager, ListingsPro handles custom fields. You can create fields of the following types: Text, Checkbox, Checkbox (Switch On/Off), Multi check, Radio, and Select.
Custom fields are unavailable as advanced search filters and are only used as Additional Business Info. Advance search filters are predefined and the admin cannot edit them. They are Price, Open Time, Highest Rated, Most Reviewed, and Categories.
Locations are a Taxonomy and the add listing page requires to select a location. This means that if you want to build a countrywide directory, you must enter all Cities of that country in advance.
Because there is no proper validation, you can input an address from a city (even if is not valid) and select a different city as your location. This is sloppy design, and could really use a more thought out approach from the designer.
Another taxonomy offered is: “features”. Features are category dependent. A taxonomy nested within another taxonomy.
ListingPro features two options for monetization: Paid listings and ads. Paid listings allow the enabling and disabling of a few options.
You can show or hide: Contact information, Google map, Video, and the Gallery.
Paid Ads give listing owners the option to buy extra impressions in featured areas of the theme. This is very interesting but its implementation is pretty basic. For example, you can only set one price and ad duration per ad slot.
Our favorite section of this theme is the User Dashboard. It is very well thought out
Use of SEO best practices
ListingPro has the same flaws in this aspect that the previous two themes had. It doesn’t provide Search Engine friendly archives of categories filtered by location.
Not really suitable for a Directory covering multiple cities, it can be used for a hyper-local or city directory with a limited number of listings.
ListingPro doesn’t handle Rich Snippets.
Quality of support & documentation
Documentation is not 100% complete and it can’t be searched. Support is extremely efficient, we posted 1 comment and received a reply within minutes. I was invited to use their ticketing system, which was a positive and user-friendly experience
Quality of code, use of WordPress best practices and scalability
The manner in which data is stored in the database makes ListingPro the worst theme so far, at least in terms of performance and scalability. Everything is saved as posts and post meta. Listings, Prices, Ads, Reviews, Invoices, and Claims are all post types.
With a total of 9 listings, I had 82 rows in the wp_post table and 1340 rows in the wp_postmeta table.
Building a directory with thousands of listings using this theme would be literally impossible without spending a fortune on hosting.
Code Comments: Very basic comments exist for some things but in general most things have no comments. I did not find any comments up to WP standards.
Actions & Filters: The theme has 14 do_action() and 31 apply_filters() (in general the more actions and filters the easier it is for developers to work with).
Escaping (security): Very poor escaping and we actually found an extremely serious XSS vulnerability during our basic checks (we have reported this to the author)
ListingPro conclusions
A great design with some very good ideas, but an overall immature product with too many major architectural flaws.
It reminds me of Templatic’s GeoPlaces.
It is obvious that the author studied the graphic side of this project in great detail. But it is also evident that whoever wrote the code had little to no experience building high-performance scalable applications.
They also need to learn how to make their code secure. Codewise this is the 3rd worst tested theme.
ListingPro is currently not suitable for a live application in our opinion.
MyListing by 27collective
Ease of use
I started installing MyListing in a multisite network but had a hard time recreating a demo through WP All Import. That is their suggested tool to import dummy data and create a demo. I’m not sure if this is a known issue or if missed something.
When I tried on a standalone WordPress install the problem was no longer there and I was up and running with a demo very similar to their official demo in just a few seconds.
MyListing requires several plugins to be installed:
- Wp Job Manager
- WooCommerce
- Elementor
- All-in-One WP Migration
- Contact Form 7
Because of this, fast loading pages are to be expected on high-performance servers only.
Even their demo is not extremely fast and loads on average in 7.4 secs when tested from 20 locations.
On a live directory website that would result in a very high bounce rate.
We used this speed loading test tool to get those statistics.
As with all previous themes tested MyListing won’t allow you to fetch the Maps API automatically.
Design quality
MyListing is highly integrated with the Elementor plugin and offers a lot of customization options. You can basically design most of it through the Elementor page builder.
You can customize the home page, the explore page (search), and a few other templates. You cannot edit the listing detail page.
The general design quality is outstanding, although I find the typography to be slightly too small for modern standards and hard on the eye.
MyListing is another theme that doesn’t follow WordPress standards and avoid using the Theme Customizer, for its styling and customization options.
Flexibility
MyListing uses WP Job Manager as a base for the directory and shares the same limitation of Listify and Listable. They integrated the Advanced Custom Fields plugin for some theme options, and also built their own custom fields system.
Prices are set through WooCommerce, as products and the payments are managed by WooCommerce too.
In our opinion, this is a bit too much. We developed a lightweight plugin called Invoicing plugin to manage payments for GeoDirectory because any other e-commerce system was adding an excessive amount of useless code to the directory.
For example, you’ll have a system to manage parcel shipping, on a website that doesn’t ship anything.
Use of SEO best practices
MyListing has the same flaws in this aspect that the previous 3 themes had. Custom Taxonomies are used for categories and locations, which means that it’s impossible to visit a page showing listings of 1 category for a specific location with a nice SEO optimized URL.
Mylisting handles Rich Snippets, but it presents few errors too.
Quality of support & documentation
The documentation appears to be complete and it can be browsed via the sticky menu on the left sidebar. We haven’t tested support, but I don’t see negative reviews for inefficient or substandard support, so they must be doing a good job.
Quality of code, use of WordPress best practices, and scalability
Because they used the default WordPress architecture for custom fields, scalability for MyListing will be a huge problem. I created 1 test listing with 5 images and that resulted in 7 rows in the wp_posts database table and 59 rows in the wp_postmeta database table.
MyListing conclusions
It’s definitely aesthetically pleasing, and, being easy to customize via Elementor, is a great tool for the beginner Directory Developers, but most of the projects built with this theme will have a very hard time scaling their business if the website starts getting traction.
This theme forces you to install:
Wp Job Manager, Wp Job Manager WC Paid Listings, Elementor, WooCommerce, and their own MyListing Add-on. It couldn’t get more bloated.
Someone may wonder why they have mostly 5-star reviews and no negative reviews at all. This struck me as suspicious, especially considering the flaws that we identified in this theme.
Apparently, people who leave negative reviews have been banned from getting support and updates.
That made me discover that Envato deletes reviews made by people who received a refund for any given product. I consider that an awful business practice by Envato.
While I’m not suggesting that this is MyListing authors standard behavior with customers, I can personally tell that they have a hard time dealing with negative feedback, because they also contacted me directly asking me to modify this review.
I’d suggest they take negative feedback as information to improve their product, rather than taking it as personal offenses and witch hunt anyone that dares to critique their product.
You can make a great-looking website with MyListing, but it will be slow to the point of becoming unusable if hit by a decent amount of traffic.
DirectoryEngine by EngineThemes
Ease of use
I’m not a fan of Themes that come with bundled plugins. Because most of the time the bundled plugins are out of date. You have to start the install by updating 1 or more plugins via FTP because the bundled plugin can’t be automatically updated (unless you buy a license for that too).
DirectoryEngine comes with 2 bundled plugins: Revolution Slider and Visual Composer, of course, both were outdated, and I had to update them via FTP.
The documentation tells to install the dummy data using the WP Importer plugin, and the theme provides a tool to automatically import it.
Like all 3 previous themes, the Google Maps API key must be generated manually.
All in all, it took me approx 15 minutes to get a staging site similar to their demo. That’s not too bad.
Design quality
The quality of the design is high, but not as pixel perfect and comparable to the previous 3 themes.
Customizer options allow to modify the sections of the home page and the general website colors only, and there are few really substantial design options.
Flexibility
DirectoryEngine is one more WordPress Directory Theme that doesn’t handle custom fields out of the box. They can be added, but only programmatically.
If you can’t create custom fields, you also cannot use them as search filters.
There are 4 custom post types: Places, Events, Packs, and Testimonials.
Places are used for listings.
Events are special offers that listings owners can add.
Packs are for listing prices.
Testimonials are not clearly defined and have no obvious use.
You can create unlimited listing prices, but all they do is limit the number of places and events that a user can enter and the length of their availability. There are settings to determine how many pictures or categories a listing can accept, but that will affect all prices.
Locations are items of a taxonomy.
Just like ListingPro, while adding a listing, you can select an address from a city and in the location field,m you can select a different city.
At the time of writing, DirectoryEngine is several years old, and I find this to be unacceptable. What’s worse, they describe this as a “feature” in the documentation:
Use of SEO best practice
DirectoryEngine has the same SEO flaws of all Themes tested so far.
Being location a taxonomy, there is no way to browse archives of listings of a given category filtered by a defined location. The only way to do it is via their search engine, which is not SEO friendly.
The way locations are handled is amateurish at best. You can rank a website made with DirectoryEngine on major Search Engines only if the directory accepts listings for 1 city or for a smaller geographical area.
DirectoryEngine uses rich snippets correctly.
Quality of support & documentation
The documentation seems to be slightly outdated, however it covers all features of the theme. Support replied within 24hrs the first time. The second time, when we reported a serious vulnerability in their theme, they didn’t reply at all.
Quality of code, use of WordPress best practices, and scalability
With 4 listings, 7 events, and 3 prices the post and postmeta tables have respectively 311 and 936 rows. I see here the same scalability problems that ListingPro has: insurmountable.
Code Comments: Most things have code comments and most are to WP standards though parameters, for the most part, lack descriptions, in general though, it is better than the vast majority.
Actions & Filters: The theme has 100 do_action() and 137 apply_filters() (in general the more actions and filters the easier it is for developers to work with).
Escaping (security): I started checking this code and the first 3 things I found had exploits such as XSS, login page spoofing, and the ability to view or delete content from the site.
DirectoryEngine conclusions
I had high expectations for this theme and after testing it, I can’t help but say that I’m disappointed. For a product that has been available for several years, it still has critical flaws, despite being widely used. I wouldn’t hesitate to ask for a refund if I had purchased it for my own personal use.
There is definitely a fine designer at work behind this theme, but the quality of the back-end application is rather unprofessional.
I would have to conclude the authors have very little knowledge of security and scalability. No one should ever install this theme on their site.
Vantage by AppThemes
Vantage has been around for several years, and as such it’s the most mature product on this list. It has been recently re-designed, and I have considered this a direct competitor for a long time. I was very curious to finally get my hands on it and properly evaluate it.
Ease of use
Installing and setting up Vantage was a very enjoyable experience. The setup guide is as good as the Install Wizard of Listify. I had a demo website that looked similar to the AppThemes original demo in less than 5 minutes.
The only weak point is the Google Maps API key requirement that could be streamlined, just like for the previous 4 themes.
Design quality
The new flat design is modern and clean, a huge step ahead compared to the old Vantage design.
The customizer options allow modifying the site identity elements like the logo and site icon. Color schemes, the color of individual items, background image, and layouts.
Flexibility
Out of the 5 themes tested so far, Vantage is the first that really handles custom fields. Because you can’t use them as an advanced search filter though, they are not as useful as they could be.
The location field is a text field. It calculates Latitude and longitude coordinates automatically from whatever the user input in it. The lack of validation on this field allows users to enter just about anything. Saving the form after inputting an invalid address returns PHP warnings.
The price option allows the setting of recurring and non-recurring prices. Limit the number of categories that a user can select for each listing. Set the listing duration period and featured status for search and category archives.
Available payment options out of the box are Paypal and Bank Transfer. There are extra payment gateways, child themes, and other premium extensions that come at an extra cost. We didn’t test any of them.
Use of SEO best practice
Just like the other themes, the Location part of Vantage is not ideal. It is not sufficient to create a decent Directory structure with listings submitted for more than 1 location.
You can rank the listing detail page and the category pages, but not by location. This because the only way to browse listings by location, is via the search engine that returns non SEO friendly results page, with URLs like this:
yoursite.com/listings/?ls=test&location=milan&st=listing&lat=0&lng=0
There is no way to assign a unique meta title and description to these search results pages. Because of that, it’s very improbable that Google or other search engines will rank them for relevant keywords and locations.
Vantage handles Rich Snippets, but it integrates them in the most basic way.
Quality of support & documentation
The documentation for this WordPress Directory Theme is extended and very well organized in 4 sections:
- Documentation – Install guides, release notes, and more.
- Tutorials – Our themes and plugins tutorial library.
- Developers – Our API documentation. Extend our products.
- Sellers – Documentation for our Marketplace sellers.
Support is very kind and helpful. I submitted a support request via their support forum and got an answer within 24 hours.
Quality of code, use of WordPress best practices, and scalability
Vantage doesn’t employ a database structure that is ideal for a directory. With only 3 listings, the wp_posts table had already 49 rows and the wp_postmeta 246. The use of extra custom fields would make the second figure grow exponentially.
Scalability problems could arise very soon without investing enough resources in high-end server infrastructure.
Code Comments: This is very well commented and most code comments are to WP standards, seeing so much quality code comments give a developer confidence.
Actions & Filters: The theme has 238 do_action() and 230 apply_filters() (in general the more actions and filters the easier it is for developers to work with).
Escaping (security): Security and WP standards were up to scratch. No major problems could be identified.
Vantage conclusion
Great design and excellent setup procedure. A directory can be set up and used within minutes. It is effective for use on a single-city directory.
However, it is unsuitable as a directory for a region, country or world-wide directory. It wouldn’t be SEO friendly.
Of the 7 themes tested, I would have to conclude that Vantage is definitely the best overall product.
Directory by Templatic
Ease of use
I tested this theme when it was first released, and I was unimpressed. However, the latest version left me pleasantly surprised. It’s fast, easily-installed, and makes import dummy data easy. I was able to set up a staging website identical to their demo in just a few minutes.
The level of improvement is impressive.
Design quality
When it was first released in early 2014, the design was modern and sleek, however now it starts to be a bit outdated, and while they provide several child themes with different designs, they all come at an extra cost.
Some of the design options are available in the customizer section, some in the theme setting. It’d be more convenient to have them all in the customizer.
Flexibility
Directory is by far the most flexible of all 7 tested themes in terms of features.
It handles Custom Post Types (Listing types), and for each Custom post type, you can create any kind of custom fields. Finally, you can use all custom fields as advanced search filters.
The theme database comes with all Countries listed and almost 4000 regions. The system creates cities when adding listings, but there is no tool to merge them, in case of typos or other database errors. This is something that shouldn’t be missed when users can add locations to the database.
Strangely, even though there are regions and countries, you are unable to browse listing by region or country, only by city. It’s a step forward compared to the other 5 themes, but still far from ideal. An ideal directory would include the option to browse by “All locations”, country, region, city, and neighborhood.
Money-making and business opportunities are very good. You can set prices with good flexibility. You can set Prices for “single submission” or for “subscription” including a set number of listings. Set them recurring or as one-time fee payments. Also, add an up-sell price for each category. Another option is the duration of the package and the featured placement of the listing.
Use of SEO best practices
Even though with Directory you can finally present archives filtered by category + location, the amount of flexibility in managing Titles and Metas is close to non-existent. You can create a category description, but that will be the same for all locations.
We are still very far from an ideally SEO optimized directory tool.
Directory handles Rich Snippets, but it integrates them in the most basic way.
Quality of support & documentation
The docs are very well organized and easy to search. Although their support team replied to my support request within 24hrs, they couldn’t understand my question, despite being pretty straight-forward.
Quality of code, use of WordPress best practices and scalability
Buggy code was what we best remember about Templatic’s themes. Directory is no different.
We found options that don’t save, security holes, and a deficient database structure.
The database structure is the worst of all Themes tested. With 13 listings, 15 pages, and 4 posts, the post table has 105 rows and the postmeta counts 1,308 rows.
Finally, the advance search widget queries are SQL killers. They JOIN the postmeta table once for each custom field that you filter.
Scaling this Directory Theme beyond a few hundred listings could be next to impossible.
Code Comments: Most things have some sort of code comments, somethings are to WP standards but not everything, maybe 50/50.
Actions & Filters: The theme has 487 do_action() and 319 apply_filters() (in general the more actions and filters the easier it is for developers to work with).
Escaping (security): Most things are escaped, but there are still lots of things that are not which could lead to XSS on the backend. In general, the code is sloppy with many PHP warnings and Notices and, in many places, lacks basic security checks for things like sending emails and SQL injection.
Considering the previous points, Directory isn’t something I would want to run on my server.
Directory conclusions
Compared to GeoPlaces of 4 years ago, the theme shows a lot of improvements. Especially in terms of new features and options, but the underlying structure is the same. Not scalable and buggy.
Final Conclusions
We were pretty shocked to discover that half of the themes tested were so poorly coded.
Similar products can undermine WordPress’s reputation in our opinion.
The quality of the backend application should always be equal or superior to the quality of the design.
If it’s unable to meet the standard of design then your customer is receiving a product that doesn’t match what was promised.
Obviously, we advised the Themes’ authors about the possible exploits and as far as we know the ListingPro authors already corrected its XSS vulnerability.
Apart from that, Vantage ranks #1, Listify #2, Listable #3, ListingPro, MyListing, and Directory tied #4 and DirectoryEngine is by far the worst.
The last four themes in our opinion are not suitable for a production website.
A message to the authors of Directory Themes
Why would you bother to build the directory features of your themes from scratch (or use a plugin that’s not made for it)?
If you had to develop an E-Commerce theme today, would you build the entire shopping cart or use WooCommerce for that?
Without a doubt, GeoDirectory is far superior to the Directory options included in all of the themes that we tested.
You are still in time to correct that mistake and let us handle probably 90% of the support requests that are sent your way.
Cooperating is better than competing 🙂
We hope you enjoyed this extended review and should you wish to add anything to it, please do so in the comments down below!