Build Your Directory Site

This tutorial walks you through every step of building a fully functional directory website with Local Directory. By the end, you will have a professional directory with categories, locations, maps, search, listings, and optionally, paid listing packages.

1. Planning Your Directory

Before touching WordPress, spend 20 minutes planning your directory structure. A clear plan now saves hours of reorganizing later.

Choose Your Niche

The best directories focus on a specific niche rather than trying to list everything. Some proven niches:

• Restaurants & food — cafes, bars, food trucks, bakeries
• Local services — plumbers, electricians, cleaners, movers
• Real estate — rentals, properties, agents, agencies
• Tourism & travel — hotels, attractions, tours, activities
• Healthcare — doctors, dentists, clinics, therapists
• Education — schools, tutors, courses, training centers

Plan Your Category Structure

Sketch out 3-8 top-level categories with subcategories under each. For example, a city directory might use:

Restaurants
  ├── Italian
  ├── Japanese
  ├── Mexican
  └── Fast Food

Shopping
  ├── Clothing
  ├── Electronics
  └── Groceries

Services
  ├── Plumbing
  ├── Electrical
  └── Cleaning

Health & Wellness
  ├── Doctors
  ├── Dentists
  └── Gyms

Plan Your Location Hierarchy

Decide how locations will be organized. Common patterns:

• Country-wide directory: Country > State > City
• City directory: City > Neighborhood / District
• Regional directory: Region > City

Decide on Listing Fields

Think about what information each listing should contain. The plugin includes these fields by default: title, description, address, phone, website, email, opening hours, and photos. Consider whether your niche needs additional custom fields like price range, cuisine type, or specialties.

2. Installation & Initial Setup

Get the plugin installed and configured with your basic settings.

1. 1

   Install the Local Directory plugin via Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin in your WordPress admin, or search for "Local Directory" in the plugin directory.

2. 2

   Activate the plugin. A new Listings menu appears in the admin sidebar.

3. 3

   Go to Listings > Settings > General and configure:

   • Directory Title: The name of your directory (e.g., "Austin Restaurant Guide")
   • Listings Per Page: How many listings to show per page (12 is a good default)
   • Listing Slug: The URL slug for single listings. A slug is the URL-friendly version of a name — it uses lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens (e.g., a slug of listing gives you yoursite.com/listing/joes-pizza)
4. 4

   Save your settings and visit Settings > Permalinks in WordPress. WordPress permalinks control how your page URLs look — "Post name" gives you clean URLs like yoursite.com/my-page/ instead of yoursite.com/?p=123. Simply click Save Changes (even without changing anything) to flush the rewrite rules.

3. Creating Pages

Your directory needs several WordPress pages, each powered by a shortcode. Create them all now so you can link them together in your navigation menu.

Step-by-step page creation

1. 1

   Go to Pages > Add New in WordPress.

2. 2

   Give the page a title (e.g., "Directory") and add the shortcode in the page content. You can use a Shortcode block in Gutenberg or simply paste the shortcode text:

   [local-directory]

3. 3

   Publish the page. Repeat for each page in the table above.

4. 4

   Go to Listings > Settings > Pages and assign each page to its corresponding role (Directory Page, Submit Page, Dashboard Page, etc.).

5. 5

   Add the pages to your WordPress navigation menu: go to Appearance > Menus (or use the Full Site Editor if using a block theme) and add at least the Directory, Categories, and Submit Listing pages.

4. Setting Up Categories

Categories are the backbone of your directory. They help visitors browse and filter listings by type.

1. 1

   Go to Listings > Categories in the WordPress admin.

2. 2

   Create your top-level categories first. Enter the name (e.g., "Restaurants"), a URL slug (e.g., restaurants), and an optional description. Click Add New Category.

3. 3

   Add subcategories by selecting a parent category from the "Parent Category" dropdown. For example, create "Italian" with parent "Restaurants".

4. 4

   Set category icons. Click on a category to edit it, then choose a dashicon or upload a custom icon image. Icons appear in the category grid and listing cards.

5. 5

   Set up rating criteria per category. Go to Listings > Rating Criteria and create criteria specific to each category. For example, for Restaurants you might add "Food Quality", "Service", "Ambiance", and "Value for Money". These criteria appear when visitors leave reviews.

5. Setting Up Locations

Locations let visitors filter listings by geographic area. The hierarchy you planned in Step 1 gets built here.

1. 1

   Go to Listings > Locations in the WordPress admin.

2. 2

   Create top-level locations (e.g., "New York" or "United States" depending on your hierarchy). Enter the name, slug, and optional description.

3. 3

   Add child locations under each parent. For a city directory, you might create neighborhoods: "Manhattan", "Brooklyn", "Queens" under "New York".

4. 4

   Configure the location hierarchy depth in Listings > Settings > Locations. Set how many levels deep your location tree goes (e.g., 2 levels for City > Neighborhood).

6. Configuring Maps

The interactive map is one of the most powerful features of your directory. Local Directory supports two map providers.

1. 1

   Go to Listings > Settings > Maps.

2. 2

   Choose your map provider. Leaflet works immediately with no configuration. If you select Google Maps, you will need to enter your API key (get one from the Google Cloud Console).

3. 3

   Set the default center coordinates — the point where the map centers when the page first loads. Enter the latitude and longitude of your directory's main city or region.

4. 4

   Set the default zoom level. A zoom of 12-13 works well for a city, 6-8 for a state, and 4-5 for a country.

5. 5

   Configure optional features:

   • Marker clustering: Groups nearby markers at lower zoom levels (recommended for directories with 50+ listings)
   • Viewport search: Automatically filters listings as the user pans/zooms the map
   • Map style: Choose from default or custom map styles

7. Adding Your First Listings

A directory needs listings to be useful. Aim for at least 15-20 listings before going live so the directory feels "alive" and visitors find value immediately.

Option A: Add Manually via Admin

1. 1

   Go to Listings > Add New in the WordPress admin.

2. 2

   Fill in the basics: Title (business name), description (a paragraph about the business), and select a category and location from the sidebar taxonomies. In WordPress, taxonomies are ways to group content — categories, locations, and tags are all taxonomies, like labels or folders for organizing your listings.

3. 3

   Add an address. In the Location Data meta box, enter the street address. The coordinates (latitude/longitude) are auto-detected from the address if geocoding is enabled.

4. 4

   Set opening hours using the business hours editor. Click each day to set open and close times, or mark it as closed.

5. 5

   Upload photos. Add a featured image and additional gallery photos. High-quality photos dramatically increase listing engagement.

6. 6

   Fill in contact details: phone number, email address, website URL. These appear on the listing page and enable the contact form.

7. 7

   Click Publish. Your listing is now live on the directory.

Option B: Bulk Import from JSON

If you have listings data from Google Maps (saved places export) or another source, you can import them all at once.

1. 1

   Go to Listings > Import.

2. 2

   Drag and drop your JSON file onto the upload area, or click to select the file.

3. 3

   Map the JSON fields to listing fields, review the preview, and click Import.

4. 4

   Photos, ratings, business hours, and addresses are imported automatically. Optionally enable AI-generated descriptions during import.

8. Configuring Search

Search is built into the [local-directory] shortcode and works automatically. You can customize which filters appear and how they behave.

1. 1

   Go to Listings > Settings > Search.

2. 2

   Enable or disable search filters. Available filters include:

   • Keyword search — full-text search across title and description
   • Category filter — dropdown or checkbox filter by category
   • Location filter — dropdown filter by location taxonomy
   • Radius search — "near me" search with configurable distance
   • Price range — slider for price-based filtering
   • Rating filter — minimum rating threshold
   • Open Now — show only businesses currently open
3. 3

   Choose the default sort order for search results: newest, alphabetical, distance, rating, or random.

4. 4

   Save settings. Visit your directory page to test the search form.

9. Setting Up Monetization

Turn your directory into a business by offering paid listing packages. Business owners pay for premium features like featured placement, more photos, or longer listing duration.

Create Listing Packages

1. 1

   Go to Listings > Settings > Packages.

2. 2

   Create a Free package — this is what all new listings get by default. Set it to allow 3-5 photos, basic fields, and no featured placement.

3. 3

   Create paid packages. For example:

   Basic  — $9/month  — 10 photos, business hours, website link
   Pro    — $29/month — 20 photos, featured badge, priority in search
   Premium — $49/month — Unlimited photos, featured + verified badges, analytics

4. 4

   Configure what each package includes: number of photos, listing duration (30 days, 90 days, unlimited), featured listing, and which custom fields are visible.

Connect Stripe Payments

Stripe is an online payment processor — like PayPal but designed for websites. You will need a free Stripe account (sign up at stripe.com) to accept payments.

1. 1

   Go to Listings > Settings > Payments.

2. 2

   Enable Stripe and enter your Publishable Key and Secret Key from the Stripe Dashboard.

3. 3

   Start with test mode. Use Stripe's test API keys first to verify the payment flow works correctly. Use the test card number 4242 4242 4242 4242 with any future expiry date and any CVC.

4. 4

   Test the full flow: submit a listing from the frontend, select a paid package, complete the Stripe checkout, and verify the listing is published.

5. 5

   Once everything works, switch to your live Stripe API keys to accept real payments.

10. Enabling Business Features

Local Directory includes several features that make your directory more useful for both visitors and business owners.

11. Customizing the Design

Local Directory uses CSS custom properties (variables) for easy theming and supports full template overrides for advanced customization.

Quick Color Customization

Override the default colors by adding CSS custom properties to your theme's stylesheet or the WordPress Customizer's "Additional CSS":

:root {
  --ld-primary: #4f46e5;      /* Primary brand color */
  --ld-primary-hover: #4338ca; /* Primary hover state */
  --ld-accent: #f59e0b;        /* Accent / highlight color */
  --ld-text: #334155;          /* Default text color */
  --ld-radius: 0.5rem;         /* Border radius */
}

What Is a Child Theme?

A child theme is a small theme that inherits everything from a parent theme (like Kadence) but lets you make changes safely. Without a child theme, any customizations you make would be overwritten when the parent theme updates.

A child theme only needs two files. Here's how to create one:

/*
Theme Name: My Directory Theme
Template: kadence
*/

/* Your custom CSS goes here */

<?php
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', function() {
    wp_enqueue_style( 'parent-style', get_template_directory_uri() . '/style.css' );
});

Template Overrides

Once you have a child theme, you can customize how listings look by overriding the plugin's template files. The plugin checks your child theme first and falls back to its own defaults:

wp-content/themes/
├── kadence/                        ← Parent theme (don't edit)
└── kadence-child/                  ← Your child theme
    ├── style.css                   ← Required (with Template: kadence)
    ├── functions.php               ← Required (loads parent styles)
    └── local-directory/            ← Plugin template overrides
        └── listing-card.php        ← Your custom listing card

To override a template: find the original in wp-content/plugins/local-directory/templates/, copy it to your-child-theme/local-directory/ (same filename), and edit the copy. Your changes take effect immediately.

12. SEO Setup

Local Directory generates rich structured data automatically, giving your listings the best chance of appearing in Google's enhanced search results.

Recommended additional steps

1. 1

   Install an SEO plugin like Yoast SEO or Rank Math. These handle XML sitemaps (a file that lists all your pages so search engines can find and index them), canonical URLs, and breadcrumbs. Local Directory is fully compatible with both.

2. 2

   Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console. Your SEO plugin will generate a sitemap at yoursite.com/sitemap_index.xml that includes all your listings.

3. 3

   Set your permalink structure to "Post name" in Settings > Permalinks for clean, SEO-friendly URLs like yoursite.com/listing/joes-pizza.

13. Going Live Checklist

Before you announce your directory to the world, run through this checklist to make sure everything is working correctly.

What's Next

Explore the rest of the documentation to get the most out of Local Directory: