Why Choose Directorist as Your Directory Tool?

Due to COVID-19, a great number of businesses have incurred colossal losses and have gone online. You never know what’s waiting in the future; a second wave of the coronavirus or any other phenomena perhaps?

So, it is time to rethink your venture or create an opportunity for others to keep their business running. WordPress directory plugins are setting new standards in online business. Using a WordPress directory plugin you can power your directory business and expand it without the need for any coding experience. 

Directorist is a comprehensive solution for any kind of directory type offering a user-friendly system. Directorist simplifies the process of creating a highly optimized and scalable business directory with distinctive features and functionalities. An all-in-one solution to get started or to elevate your existing directory site to the next level.

Why Directorist?

There are quite a few WordPress directory plugins out there and picking the right one could leave you puzzled. We will be discussing “Why you should choose Directorist as your directory tool?” and how it stands out from the rest of the WordPress directory plugins.

Deciding factors at a glance:

• Highly optimized and scalable to millions of listings
• Customizable & modern design
• User-oriented development
• A wide range of non-dependent extensions
• Distinctive features
• Search Engine Friendly
• Best coding practices
• A team with a mission
• Support team who cares
• Developer Friendly
• Multiple Income Streams
• Upcoming features

Highly optimized and scalable to millions of listings

Be it a small directory or large, Directorist is a highly optimized plugin that can scale to millions of listings ensuring low memory consumption and efficient query execution. Our developers have optimized the plugin using best coding practices and the results are awe-inspiring. After the recent major upgrade, all listing page loads 82% faster and memory usage has been reduced drastically by 88%.  

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Here is a glimpse of the test result conducted on a directory site with 4400+ listings.

Customizable & Modern Design

Directorist boasts modern-day design with 3 types of view out of the box that includes — grid, list, and map view. You can also integrate Directorist with your existing theme and transform it into a personalized business directory. However, customizability is one of the core factors to settle upon one’s mind on a plugin. Directorist is customization friendly and can be customized using-

• Directory Settings
• Elementor
• Template Override(Upcoming)

Directory Settings – Most of the directory plugins have a very clumsy unorganized settings panel. Our designers have worked diligently to bring out a solution and developed a user-friendly settings panel that allows users to enable/disable certain functionalities based on their needs. Just using the settings panel you can enable/disable features on the single listing page, all listings page, add listing form, search form, etc, and personalize your directory. 

Elementor – Elementor is second to none and the most robust page builder in WordPress and now you can build your directory using 25+ Elementor widgets like all listings, single listings, search forms, all categories, and many more. Just drag and drop your favorite widget and configure it accordingly to give your directory a personalized look.

Template Override (Upcoming) – At times you might have special requirements that can not be fulfilled using the default features and settings. This is when the template override feature comes into play. Template override refers to changing the layout or functionalities of a template without making changes to the core file. Yes, you need coding knowledge to make the best use of the feature and if you do, then the possibilities are endless. 

User-oriented development

According to Marty Cagan – 

“It doesn’t matter how good your engineering team is if they are not given something worthwhile to build.”

Users are the cornerstone of a business and to develop a worthwhile product, a good development team, and user engagement are equally important. We believe in user-oriented development and most of the features we have today are our user’s suggestions and requests. We always listen to our users and work interactively with them to develop intuitive products. Moreover, we painstakingly create products ensuring a user-friendly design to give end-users the finest of experiences. 

A wide range of non-dependent extensions

We often get to see plugins/extensions that require another 3rd party plugin to make it functional which often turns out to be very costly. We have meticulously developed wallet-friendly extensions so that you don’t need any 3rd party plugins to make it work. For example, Directorist Booking is a standalone extension that doesn’t require any additional purchases. As a matter of a fact, all the extensions are standalone and have no dependency at all. 

Distinctive features

Directorist offers some exclusive features that no one does. We conceptualize problems in unconventional ways and come up with distinctive products that make us stand out from the rest. Here is a list of some extensions that haven’t been offered before.

Directorist Booking

Directorist booking is an independent extension that allows users to create a service or event-oriented bookings directory. Our booking extension has met the need for creating a bookable directory; a feature that is only available in Directorist. We are working to elevate the booking experience to the next level by offering a payment system where users will need to pay to book an event or a service. Also, the commission system is in development that will allow the admin to set a commission for booking services/events. 

Directorist Live Chat

We felt a need for a better communication system for the listing owners to engage with their users. Thus, we developed a JS-based(Socket.io) chat extension that allows the listing owners to send private messages to multiple users at the same time without having to leave the window. A convenient tool that not only helps you to build a strong user relationship but also elevates user satisfaction. 

Rank Featured Listings

Featuring a listing is a common method to earn money in a directory site. How about another income stream to hoist your earnings? Rank featured listings extension lets you rank featured listings into three different levels and each level can be associated with pricing plans, so users get to rank their listings based on the pricing plan they purchase. The equation is simple, the higher the payment the higher the rank! 

Suppose, you have 3 pricing plans Bronze, Gold, & Diamond. You can link Bronze, Gold, and Diamond to ranks three, two, and one (Chronologically). In doing so, the “Diamond” plan directory listings will appear on top, followed by Gold and Bronze. 

Directorist Ads Manager(Upcoming)

All sorts of advertisement methods including Google AdSense, and affiliate marketing are popular ways to earn money online. But no other directory plugins thought of advertisement as an income stream, now with Directorist, you can transform your site into an advertisement-based directory site. We are developing a dedicated “Ads Manager” extension for the directorist that enables users to place ads in targeted areas such as All listings, Single Listings, All Location, Category, etc pages and maximize their revenue. 

Search engine friendly

A quality SEO tool is essential for a directory site to increase traffic and rank higher in search engines. Directorist is compatible with one of the if not the most popular SEO plugins, Yoast. Even if you do not use Yoast, our SEO-optimized plugin will have your listings indexed. Directorist has a built-in SEO tool that allows you to configure Meta Title, Meta Description, and other essential SEO elements to optimize your site contents effectively. Moreover, Rich Snippet – schema markup is already in our plans and it will add more organic leads to your site since Rich Snippet results are more imposing than normal search results.

Best coding practices

No doubt, an appealing dish with poor ingredients will shoo the customers away. Similarly, a well-designed plugin with poor coding practices can not provide a good user experience. Directorist has been developed using clean codes and the latest technologies like ES6, PHP7, WebPack, VUE keeping compatibility in mind. New technologies are vulnerable to compatibility issues but our developers thoughtfully develop features to avoid uncertainties. Besides, Directorist affirms secured user input, proper validation before inserting data into the database, etc following the WordPress coding standard.

A team with a mission

Directorist team is filled with the aspiration to make Directorist the most comprehensive directory solution. Our mission is to build a long-term relationship with our users and provide them with a complete directory platform to create directories of any kind. We also share our roadmap with our users to give them a clear picture of our development plans. Also, we are always the first to make the plugin compatible with the latest WordPress version which confirms the solemnity of our work. 

Support team who cares

There are tons of impressive plugins that have been rejected by users due to below-standard support. But that is not the case with Directorist support. Our dedicated support engineers are always ready to walk the extra mile to resolve issues. We care about the problems as much as the owner of the site does hence, we prioritize support over anything else. We always endeavor user satisfaction and firmly believe that– user satisfaction is the gateway to success! 

Developer Friendly

Not everything can be achieved using the default functionalities, keeping that in mind, our developers have developed Directorist in a manner that lets WordPress developers extend the plugin functionalities infinitely using hooks and filters. Directorist provides a vast array of action and filter hooks so that the developers can customize the plugin according to their needs.

Our upcoming templating feature will steer customization to a whole new level. You will be able to override any Directorist template without making any changes to the core file as well as updates will have no effect on the changes you will make. 

Multiple Income Sources

Directory sites have become a great notion to earn money online lately. Directorist offers multiple proven ways to generate revenue as a directory owner. Such as

i) Pricing Plan

Pricing Plan extension is the most popular tool that lets you haul in revenue without breaking a sweat. A pricing plan refers to a specific set of features available for a specific price. Using the pricing plan extension the admin can offer multiple listing plans with different sets of premium features. The extension lets you create 4 different types of plans so that the users can buy his/her desired plan according to his/her needs. Such as

1. Free Plan: A Free plan tends to attract listing owners more than anything else. A free plan with basic features increases the possibility to convert visitors into registered users.

2. Package Plan: A package plan refers to a specific number of listings a user can post during the plan period. 

3. Pay Per Listing: The plan name says it all. The admin can charge listing owners based on each listing submission. 

4. Subscription/Recurring Plan: A subscription/recurring plan activates the automated billing cycle to charge listing owners for package renewals using Directorist Stripe or Directorist PayPal recurring payment functionality.

ii) Claim Listing

Claim listing is another profit-making tool with a simple concept of adding a business listing so the real owner can claim it without the need for listing it again. The admin/registered users add the businesses to the website and then the actual owner of these businesses can claim the ownership by paying the claim fee. You do not need to wait for the potential businesses to add listings; add the businesses and let them claim it for a fee. 

iii) Post Your Need

Post Your Need extension guides a user to be on the radar of their desired service providers by posting their required services. Simply, a user posts their need, and the respective service provider/business contacts the user to satisfy their need. While Pricing Plan and the Claim Listing extensions are directed toward the listing owners, Post Your Need is directed toward the users. Just like the pricing plan, you can create paid plans for need posting where users will have to pay before they can post their needs. It works as an additional income stream and makes the directory capable of earning from all user types. In short, you can earn from both the business owners and the users.

iv) Rank Featured Listings

This is another tiny but one of the significant features in Directorist. Rank Featured Listings future is used to rank all the listings that are already featured on your directory website. Take a look at what I discussed earlier.

Latest features

As we have been constantly working on improving the plugin, there are a few important features that got released recently. Here, let’s get some of them:

Multi directory (Free) 

The multi-directory feature allows you to create multiple directory types within the same directory. Our designers have come up with a very user-friendly and elegant multi-directory interface that will not leave you puzzled like other directory plugins. Directorist multi-directory feature is completely free and needless to say, it will add more value to your site since you can reach out to multiple interests. You no longer need multiple sites for each directory type and make yourself ready to enjoy numerous directories in a single domain. 

Directory Builder (Free) 

Directorist directory builder lets you create and configure the add listing, search, all listing layout, and single listing page using drag and drop technology. On top of it, you will also be able to design your “All listing” card by dragging and dropping your favorite items you want to display on the card. Moreover, all these will be of no cost! The directory builder will be available as a core Directorist feature. The directory builder has also been seamlessly integrated with the multi-directory feature, so you can have separate forms for each directory type. 

Coupon (Paid Extension) 

Using the latest Coupon extension, the site admin can create coupons for the pricing plans. This lets the admin run promotional campaigns to entice maximum businesses and increase revenue. The admin can also showcase all the coupons on a single page using a short code or email the coupon to a specific owner privately. 

Why Wait? Start Today

To sum things up, Directorist is one of the fastest-growing directory solutions in WordPress. Directorist offers a lot more than the features stated in this write-up and it is not possible to enlist all of them in one article. With every update, we are improving and closing in to become the fastest and most comprehensive directory solution. Take a look at the roadmap section to check if we have the feature you are looking for in our plan, if not then our feature request form is always open to all. 

Try us out today, you will love it! 
Want to have a conversation before getting started? Feel free to contact our support team, we love to talk!