Featured listings

Hi Chocotoff,

As a custom post type, we have 3 fields we’re required to include on a post: title, description and category. That’s why it’s not optional (or can’t be made that way)

As for the PDF email question–are you asking why BD isn’t sending certain emails to paying customers vs free ones? I’m not sure I understand the question, since our plugin doesn’t deliver PDFs to people who post listings.

Thanks.

It was mentioned in the “manage restrictions” option but I am looking for a solution. How can we manage to make money with our directory if with the free option, people get what they are after, i.e. to put their internet site for customers to copy/paste it and then have all the info they want? And nowadays it is impossible to start a directory without giving a free option.

If you need to have post that has to be mandatory can’t it be made that it is a telephone number or anything else than a field where people can write whatever they want? I never saw that option I must say in any other directory than BD. As it is mandatory I can’t even put a number of characters smaller than an url address as how could I ask people they need to put 3 or 4 characters for example.

We have been on our directory for at least six months (translating it, customizing it, adjusting the upgrades …) and I am starting to be desperate.

Do you have examples of directories made with BD that are successful?

Re the pdf, we add a link to a page where they can download the pdf and it would be great to be able to sent different emails to different fee levels but it is less important that the problem I mentioned above.

You can have a look to our website (the 3 featured listings are friends, the others selected the free option, putting their internet site url whenever they had one). I need a solution before I start a bigger campaign to get listings.

Your assistance in this will be greatly appreciated.

https://troublesdapprentissage.com/annuaire/

If you offer multiple fee plans, and one of them is free, the main ways you can get people to upgrade are as follows:
– Offer the free plan with a very short duration (say 5 days) and only a few images
– Offer the paid plans at a price your customers would consider a “no brainer”
– Use Featured levels to restrict what is available on the free plan, and give access to everything on the paid plans

Those are the best ways to get folks to upgrade, in my experience.

I’m sorry about the mandatory requirement on the description field. There are a number of workarounds you could use: repurpose the field as you suggest for something else (not a description), do imports of listings and put in 3 spaces (that’s enough to get it to accept it through import), or just use the description and pre-populate the field and NOT display it on the front end (you can control that under Manage Form Fields)

Our showcase shows a number of sites that are using BD in the real world: https://businessdirectoryplugin.com/showcase/ You’ll have to judge whether they are “successful” or not, since I’m not sure what criteria you use. They are active directories for the most part.

For the PDF issue, something like that you’d have to custom-code into the plugin. We don’t have a way to add links in emails that relate to fee plans today (and not put those links in when the listing is free). You can look at our customization guide to help you get started on that here: https://businessdirectoryplugin.com/docs/customization-guide/

Thanks a lot for this!

I will try to have the description not to show on the front end. I Wonder how come I haven’t tried that before. If you don’t hear from me, it will mean it worked ??