One of the trending topics in the area of online business directory is having a contact directory. On the other hand, It would be great if you set up a local contact directory which lists everything in detail in a special area and location which people refer to. In this article we are going to explain how you can have a contact directory step by step with WordPress and Listdom.
Knowing WordPress and Listdom briefly
WordPress is the best CMS which allows you to have general websites without having technical knowledge. It is easy to work and you can set up your website with simple and powerful tools. On the other hand, Listdom is a plugin which adds some unique abilities to WordPress to allow you to create a contact directory website it WordPress platform.
Listdom Lite, Free With Wonderful Features
Listdom Lite is a free WordPress contact directory plugin which you can freely download and install from the WordPress repository. With Listdom Lite you have everything to set up a great contact directory platform and we are going to explain how you can do this.
After the installation step is done, you need to go to the Listings menu in WordPress back-end and define the options that you want to categorize contacts based on. You can define categories, locations, tags, features and labels then assign these entities to the contact items.
Now it’s time to add contact items in Listings menus, you can head over to the “Add Listings” section and start adding them. Here you need to fill different fields like title, description, working hours, address, location, price, category, labels, tags, features and … and then publish the listings.
The amazing aspect of Listdom is related to showing these contact items in the frontend. Dynamically you can create shortcodes from the Listdom menu in the WordPress backend and show the contact items in more than 90 different skins and styles. Just add the created shortcode to a page and see the contact items to your visitors.
When we are in the area of contact items directory you need different search forms per category or per page and here you will see the power of Listdom. Listdom does not provide a static search form that you use everywhere, instead of that you can go to “Search Builder ” menu in the Listdom backend and create unlimited search form as you wish. Then you will have search form shortcodes and you can use anywhere that you need.
Listdom Pro, A Grand Box Of Features
Listdom Pro is a paid WordPress contact directory plugin that adds so many advanced moderns features to Listdom lite and helps you to have a more advanced platform.
Front-end dashboard is the first feature that we would like to explain to you. In the area of contact directory platforms it is necessary to give the ability to visitors and users to add their contact item from the front-end without accessing WordPress backend. This feature makes the process of the platform growing so much faster.
Attributes (Custom Fields) allows you to extend the add listing form per category or for all categories. As you may know Listdom lite provides you some default fields in add listing form but Listdom Pro gives you ability to extend that.
Use OpenStreetMap which is a free map and does not need an API key to use that. Listdom Lite supports Google Maps but it needs an API key which some people are not comfortable with and prefer to use a map provider that does not need an API key.
Listdom Pro supports so many other advanced features like adding YouTube videos as embed code, interactive map searches and … you can see the full list on their website. Find Listdom easily by google the name.
Listdom Addons, A Bridge To Be A Unique Platform
Listdom Add-one can play a big role in your platform, for example with Android and IOS you can be on your visitors and users mobile phones and it will be a great point for you. On the other hand if you have a ready list of contact items you can use Listdom CSV Importer add-on to import all of them at the same time.
There are more than 20 add-ons which you can see in Listdom Pro website and each one designed for specific and useful purposes.
Conclusion
Generally Listdom Lite, Listdom Pro, and Listdom add-one have been developed to help you to create a great contact directory in WordPress CMS and using those are as simple as WordPress itself.
