Sneak Peek to City Directory theme
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The above screenshot of the upcoming theme pretty much sums up everything, but let me explain the features in details. The next theme is built for those who want to create out of the box city websites that have..
- Auto generated maps of all the places
- Get directions from the map
- User submitted places. (You can charge for user submission!)
- Showcase of different places on your site in an interactive manner
- Search places
- Sort different places
- User reviews of different places
- User ratings
- Auto generated image galleries
- Detailed description of each place with images, address, phone number, map, get directions..
- Auto generated main Google map, category based map, and other maps that link to posts
- List and grid views of city places in categories
- And much more… (We promise!)
In short, we’ve spent days figuring out all the features and structure an ideal city website should have. Plus enough flexibility in the theme so that as a developer, you can customize it to your liking for some other purpose as well.
I’d rather keep this short unless we release this theme in September. Meanwhile, if you’ve got some nifty ideas on must have features for a city website, do let us know via comments. As we’ve proven earlier, we WILL change the theme to meet exact specifications of actual users.
Yes finally something cool beyond other premium themes.Great Idea for wordpress i believe this will sell for you guys really good. have great plans for my new website need to see it first. Great work.
Yeah forgot.
WILL it include events submission? Since is a city Directory.
Like our other themes of this kind such as Job Board, Real Estate, Classcifieds.. Yes, it will let your visitors submit places and you can even charge for that :)
RB —
I think what is being asked for is a type of Events Calendar where the user could submit events for specific days like Farmers Market on Monday, Jan 2 … Boy Scouts Pancake Breakfast on Saturday, July 4 … we could charge for these submissions as well
Also support for recurring events like TownHall meeting every Monday night from 6-7PM for example … this would be nice
I am a Premiim Member and this is, by far, the best investment I have EVER made for custom themes … I would recommend everyone join … you guys and your themes are AWESOME!!!
Cheers!
Steve
The suggestion is accurate. But I guess this is primarily a theme focused on showcasing various places of a city.
Advanced feature like the one you suggests need to be built in a completely different theme – should be built specifically for events.
What say?
I do think a community based event calendar would be a nice-to-have feature … another reason for people to visit regularly as once the businesses get listed there will be less “fresh” content …
I was thinking along the lines of a Tab on the navigation bar to the calendar with clickable dates to show what is listed for that date … here is an example of a flash based calendar that is XML file based … this would be good as I could update the XML based upon email submission of the events … no programming required or even login to site activeden(dot)net
If you did not include such a feature could you provide a quick tutorial on how to integrate such a calendar into an exisitng them like this city directory theme?
I cannot tell you enough how happy I am with your themes and support … this is the best theme subscription ever and I am a customer for life!
make it support buddypress and the various event plugins can be added ;)
Last year i bought a domain intending to have a city guide website for our city. Well, you guessed it, i haven’t realized the dream till now, i now know my city portal will be real with this one, once again thanx templatic for an out-of-the-box solution
a pleasure :). In under 15 minutes, you can get your portal started.
1) Install WordPress via Fantastico
2) Upload and activate this theme + install sample data with one click
3) Understand how it works, remove sample data
That’s it. Your city portal is ready. You can do design settings etc. All in 15 minutes.
Nice!
Looks amaizing…
When you say “your visitors submit places and you can even charge for that ” do you mean if “places” want to figure in the directory right?
One thing, does it have “share it on” (FB, TW, Etc…) for this theme it must be an amazing feature… so if you like a place you can “spread the word” directly from teh site and redirect people to it…
I supossed the answer is yes, but can it be used for smaller things than a city? like a neighborhood, or something like that?
Thanks!
Yep, say some of the business owners in your city want to showcase their business on your site. They can do that by submitting a place themselves.
Take a look at bottom right corner. Under the email address, we’ve given a Share This button. Do you think separate buttons for FB, TW etc. are must?
It don’t have to be a city website at all. You can create any kind of categories and list them. You can create a business places directory, a neighborhood site or whatever :). Ultimately, this theme is about creating a website where you list different places / services / products, sort them as per your need and get detailed information one the single page.
Hi Bhavesh,
What will the homepage look like? Will it have a directory like layout? Or will you provide options for a few different type of homepage layouts? a) Directory Structure b) Blog type c) Slider etc.
Also, make it SEO Friendly, unlike the job board theme in which the Category options/buttons were through javascript. We need clean links in navigation. Thanks.
regards,
Prashant.
I think our classifieds theme already does a job of simply listing the different categories. This theme will be like active portal. The homepage at top consists huge slideshow OR a big geo map of all the places that you have posted on your site.
And then, you can place different categories that shows latest places under that with screenshot etc. (see attractions, restaurants screenshot above) with sidebar on right.
Does anyone think that the look of this theme is too plain? Does it need fancy colors etc?
@ Bhavesh ~ I personally like the plain look on this one, however the standard red, green blue, orange, black color schemes would be nice.
When is the release date !! I have been dying for template like this for the longest time.
coming this month. Would want to make it perfect before we released. We’re already receiving some good suggestion in comments here.
I currently run a business directory with joomla. Since you guys Rock, Id much rather use WordPress and your theme. Cant wait to buy it and test it out.
The component i use on my website is Moset Tree. The design is really bad but the component is powerful.
If you want access to a dummy/testing site I own Ill give you the password so you guys can peek and get some ideas for your city directory. Email me…
Suggestions for City Directory Theme:
Have it so the admin can easily set custom fields; coupons, deals, additional ulr’s,
additional phone numbers and so forth.
Adding custom fields is one of the biggest challenge as they need to be shown on the front end of the theme as well.
We do provide visual editor while submitting the place description. Wouldn’t it be nice to place whatever you want to place there? Kind of like you can add titles and highlight some of the things like (bold, underline, colorize them etc.?)
Will the user submitted listing have automatic link support to their websites?
Can the user generated description of their business include HYML links in it?
Thanks!
Steve
Sorry for the typo, I meant “can the user generated description include HTML links in it?”
Yep, they get visual editor to add their business description. They can add links, text, lists etc. Do basic text formatting..
When a business owner ads their business listing there should also be a place to add a video link. I wish that was included in the Real Estate theme. Many restaurants now have videos that showcase their business, it would be a great addition.
Yes you right a video should be in the there. As well Facebook link to their account and Twitter account. Business should be able to add those features in their listings i think it will help a lot
Share This add on includes all of the social media links. Or you need separate button for each?
@Phyllis – indeed a good suggestion. We’ll work onto this
Hello. We started our city-bussiness two month ago…. well… we think that we upgrade the website with this theme… but ITS VERY IMPORTANT that a place to add a video link to show like PrettyPhotto, or a place to embeb and show the video.
Bhavesh, please, think in this feature.
i would like it to have a homepage like the revolution city theme not necessarily the same but something similar with options for events registration, classifieds,business directory,post articles, and advertisements (i mean people should be able to post jobs, buy & sell ads,), i think the screen shots look nice and clear.
Another thing, it would be nice if we can have a place where people with movie theaters can post and review upcoming movies and also a place for currency exchange rates ( i think I’m asking for too much)
man I’ve tried to run a city guide website since 2008 without much success, i think this is what i need ( I’ll buy this theme when it’s out, can’t wait for the release)
:) yep, sort of asking too much. Why? Because if we include everything of this, it will become too complex for everyone to manage and understand the things.
For your site visitors, adding new business is already provided. You can create different categories for them then. Event registration is not included in this theme.
I appreciate these suggestions though. As a person who actually runs city guide website, you know better than us.
multilanguage support!!!!
multisite supporto for 3 level domains
three level domains? Couldn’t understand this. Can you please explain?
Very nice! Can you make a easy translation option in it?
We do provide .MO and .PO file and then you can translate it. Is there a better way we can make this easier for you to do so? Please suggest
I am really looking for kind of city guide, direct, rating, and generate all in one Gmap. please think it have fine search and sort posts option when it have hundreds listings but even better navigation as real estate theme!
this theme is sort of inspired from Real Estate. It will not have much advanced search but yes, a different search is already planned and included.
This theme sounds amazing! I cant wait to see the demo.
Really looking forward to this theme as have a few sites to use it on.
Good looking site! Will there be some locations to add text about the overall site or city of focus? We have built a city portal that focuses mainly on news and events in DC, but would benefit from the features of you new city directory.
Also, will there me plenty of advertising space, e.g., 125×125 ad, etc.?
Why do one build a city portal? Primarily to earn ad revenue right? :) it does have strategic places to add ad widgets.
We have one big image slider right below the main menu. Does it work for city intro text? Also a footer widget can be added with intro text. (how much important it is? What is the best place to keep this intro text?)
An image slider would work great for the intro. A footer widget for text/ads would also be useful.
Widget areas to allow for some RSS feeds would also be good. That helps keep the site fresh and current.
Thanks for allow us to comment.
@linkstowp
Liking the LinksToDC website!
Thanks. Much to do on it, but the concept has been widely accepted. Let us know if you would like to participate in some way.
Seems a great job!
I’ve got a domain perfect for this.. it’s a UK registered company: Visit Local Media Ltd.
Domain is VisitLocal.co.uk – unfortunately .com is unavailable – the owner demands over $100K but it’s never been in use.
Mine is ranked 2 on google. Just for fun, would like to know how much you would consider buying it?
Lastly wanted to mention, AOL has shown interest in buying the whole company group, shares, domain etc… but I’ve decided to keep it independent and privately owned by my family.
Well done R.Bhavesh. I’d love to give suggestions for this theme but I would be giving away my USP. I’ve thoroughly researched this area since 2007 and know what users want, businesses need. Would have been great if you sold this theme as 1 license to a top bidder in auction.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks for your comment. The domain name is nice one indeed. Bidding does not work for us. Also at templatic, we do make products that empowers others to create money making sites for themselves. You can easily create a unique look by modifying colorscheme of the theme. You just need a good designer for this :)
Oh I could easily modify your themes, problem is I’m about to launch my website at a time your releasing your theme.. and it’s a very desirable looking theme.
I think templatic and appthemes will be at logger heads this month, your both releasing city directory themes.. both are good as eachother.. and that makes purchasing hard.
Although my own site has been custom designed for 1 year, and I have my own foursquare like plugin developed too, I’m just thinking if I do buy this theme, everyone else will obviously buy it and everyones directories will look the same.
Anyhow.. what is the approx time frame for releasing this.. before october? Appthemes will release theirs just before end of sept.
@NS
Great news on the ranking but what traffic do you get as I can’t think of meany searches I’d use “visit local”. Am interested as am planning a few local based sites over the next few months.
Looking forward to seeing the VisitLocal site when it goes live.
Checkout //domaintyper(dot)com/PageRankCheck and type in visitlocal.co(dot)uk
It was live for about 6 months in 2009 when I decided to relaunch with very exciting features.
I have my own foursquare like “Check-in” wordpress plugin being developed as we speak, deliver localized content relating to users location i.e London, Paris, Scotland etc.
That’s just 2 of my USP’s.. I have 10 more :D I’ve researched all the major local business directories and they have none of them as of yet so I need to keep my lips sealed.
I can’t wait for the launch either.. hoping to get it out live before October 2010. Work on it for 1-2 years then maybe sell it to AOL who are constantly bugging me to get into this.
//local.aol.co.uk/ – this is why they need Visit Local! We’ve got everything for a business owner to market their business online and offline.. boost impulse buying and reduce huge costs to Yell.com which produces 1-2 leads a month, ridiculous if your pay £700 a year and they promise you at least 30 leads per month.
Visit Local will have a network of sites e.g visitlocal/london, visitlocal.co(dot)uk/bristol etc.. each town and city… using the woderful multi-site function of course. I might think about selling each site as a franchise if theres interest.
@Andover IT
I think it’s more about searching for local business names, popular shopping streets and postcodes. These are most searched for in the UK. For example; Hair Salon in Mayfair etc. If you have alot of rich media like video, your most likely to show on the first page of results. When my site was live within the 6 months of 2009, it most certainly delivered first page results because I had created promotional videos for businesses and it quickly recogised the youtube video.
There is endless possibilities with what you can do with this. It makes life easier for the business and the end user and generate you income for a local marketing that actually works.
Looks terrific will the maps function work for UK addresses? I seem to remember trying another of your themes a few months back but maps didn’t work for UK addresses.
If you can let me know which of our theme didn’t work for UK maps, it’d help us fix the issues if any. Usually, whatever google maps can recognize, the theme recognize as well.
With this theme, we are providing option to place longitude, latitude option as well so you can place accurate poinpoint of the map.
I think it would be the “Real Estate” theme, it doesn’t work for me either. It only recognises USA maps rather than UK.
yes Real Estate gave me same problem when entering uk postcodes. lat and long could solve problem but doubt whether many businesses submitting their own details would take time to use that route. Really hope all will work ok on release as this theme perfectly suits a series of sites we want to release …
The Longitude / Latitude option sounds great as UK postocdes are not always great for positioning a business.
@everyone
Actually, the theme does not generate map but the Google does. Is it really the case that the google generates map ok but the issue is only with this theme?
We’re open (and need) to any suggestion in this regard.
In the visual editor, they can add a title and mention the coupon. (it will appear under place description)
If you were doing this, how you would have implemented it?
How about a section in the signup for a window labled Coupon or Sale where the owner would copy and past an HTML banner or picture with embedded link for the coupon of sales page …
Giving them a visual editor is great but the average store owner will not be saavy enough to add HTML tags on their own … but a specific place for them to cut and paste code into for a Coupon or Sales page link would be very helpful …
i agree 100%… not just that…most business owners don’t have the time….
Looks very promising.
Here are some suggestions from my side to make this really useful for businesses:
1) The listings should be able to be updated by the business, so they can announce special offers/current deals on their posts, as they happen.
2) A more traditional ‘subscibe to our weekly e-mail newsletter’ should be provided for visitors to hear about special offers. Not everyone knows how to use Feedburner, and we can tailor emails more precisely, and sell space on the newsletter as well.
3) A separate button for Facebook Likes/Share should be provided. Businesses want to make their advertising ‘idiot proof’ :-)
4) Businesses should be able to disable user reviews (I guess these are just comments with a ratings custom field) if they wish, or request that they be disabled by the directory admin.
I understand that you cannot possibly implement every suggestion or the theme becomes too bloated , but will the theme be able to be modified to show new categories such as event listings with custom fields, or short editorial articles about the city (a traditional blog)?
Also, would it be possible to easily get the theme to work multi-language? The best cities for advertising are those with high number of tourists, so it helps if you have different languages. Also, I want to use this theme in a trilingual country (Switzerland), so multi-language would be a must for that. I don’t mind paying for modifications, but is the theme flexible enough for that?
But it looks great as it is – any estimated time of arrival?
1) They can submit, renew and edit their business listing after logging in.
2) Good idea. But I think a separate newsletter service should be used for this.
3) :) would make sure to provide separate Like button for facebook
4) Indeed. It already does this.
We are working with WPML.org guys for our ecommerce framework. Once they comeup with the new version, multi language support on this theme should be possible.
The theme arrives later this month
Thanks for the reply, very glad you will implement most of the ideas.
Would the multi-language support come as an upgrade later? That would be mega-cool. WPML is a great tool, would be good if the theme was compatible with their header menus.
Defintely, separate newsletter software should take care of the newsletter, but a ‘subscribe to special offers by including your email address’ simple form would a great option on the theme.
Good luck, mate!
Yes, WPML compatibility should be an upgrade later on.
Yes but where does this email that user submits gets stored? Once we store that, you’d want integration with the third party newsletter app u use or, want to export the list and….
The software starts getting bloated :). See my point?
Good point, well made. I do hate bloatware.
Gotta think about that. Right now, I just want to capture the user’s email address and store it somewhere, anywhere, even in my own inbox. I would then employ my legions of staff to manually copy/paste the email addresses into the mailing lists.
But, I know how new functionality leads to demands for more new functionality, which leads to bloating, and therefore I appreciate your resistance to my idea…. :-)
Appreciate the later WPML integration. That would work well with some of your other themes as well…
Thanks for your reply!
@Simon Shall I suggest a solution?
Find out a free, simple and stable newsletter form plugin which works just fine with WordPress 3.1 and suggest us. We’d make this theme compatible with that and add styling for it’s form.
How about that?
Now that you put it this way I see this as a BIG opportunity … giving the business owners the ability to easily add Coupons or Sales details in a specific area and format … with the opportunity to edit and update them as they need … this would DEFINITELY have them paying to post!!!!!
Steve
I think it would be too much development work for R.Bhavesh to include coupons with this theme. Perhaps in future updates but implementing all these ideas would make the theme release delay until November.. unless templatic has insomnia team members who can achieve this.
I think coupons should be a seperate theme… make more money for R.Bhavesh ;-)
But so many other wordpress designers have released coupon themes, I’m interested to see what R.Bhavesh comes up with next.
@ssleloff , @NS
;) Keeping theme features balanced is really important. Yes.
I think the business owners can edit their listing via visual editor. Whereby, they can add a title and mention their coupon below? Kind of like you are editing a blog post, add a title and show coupon.
This way, advanced coupon management is not required.
I agree with Steve, the coupon thing could be great for getting a business to list and great for getting local traffic – a double win situation.
I’d like it if a business could list themselves free of charge and get extras if they pay. For example:
Free Listing includes:
Company name
Address
Phone
Business type
Paid Listing includes:
All of the above
Link to website
Ability to add coupons
Maybe some of the other great ideas on here could be added in as well?
Looks great guys, there are a lot of things you could do with this one. From just directory to full city portal.
Business category and neighborhoods break down. Sign-in with Facebook. Support pics & video. Would like to see regular blogging/news/article options for the admin. Would like to manage multiple authors or have “city experts” as premium contributors a step up from user reviews & ratings. Allow business owners to “claim listings” if not submitted by them and charge for upgrades more contact info…. allow them to publish time sensitive coupons or specials all aggregated for users to see on the fornt page or users subscribe to (email, sms) like “new deals”. could even integrate classifieds, jobs, answers, events, polls, contests…etc.
More city focused inspiration:
//www.blogto(dot)com/
//www.toronto(dot)com/
//ourfaves(dot)com/
//www.demodirectory(dot)com/
Hi Shawn
:) you have plethora of ideas I must say. But one of our goal is to keep this theme balanced and simple. Adding all those features would make this theme bloated which not everyone like.
I’d like to assure you that we’ll take best decision on what to include and what not.
I think a good theme must have many features. Then, anyone choice to activate only the proper options. Also, you risk to have a theme for a small range people.
ps. sorry for “speed” English :D
Uh oh.. fierce competition: //www.physorg(dot)com/news202103752.html
Everyone’s starting to focus on “Local Businesses”, “Coupons” and “Directories”.. nobody cared much when the recession began and the local businesses were dying out.. but I think it’s good everyone wants to be an advocate for local city directories.
R.Bhavesh: You should thoroughly research yelp.com and find things which they haven’t discovered yet… and incorporate them into your theme.
Foursquare, Gowalla, and those other location sites. Are they integrated too?
nope. The theme will showcase user/admin submitted places
When can we expect theme delivery? Thanks.
In two weeks. Maximum by the end of this month
Looks incredible! Can’t wait for this to be released.
be nice if business listed can post there own coupons there… then it would be a directory and coupon driven site for constant repeat visitors
How about integrated support for the following Local Events plugin?
//wordpress(dot)org/extend/plugins/wp-events/
It provides multipe widgets and supports a separate Events page … even lets you embed event details within post and pages and also allows the events to be linked to specific posts …
Great idea with this theme! Can’t wait for it to be released.
can you give me the link to the demo…thanks
Are you any closer to a release date? The anticipation is killing me :-)
sheesh. keep this secret. Its coming in next 10 days. Follow us on twitter to be the person first to know.
The wait is over. The theme is released just before few moments //templatic.com/news/geo-places-your-city-directory-built-in-wordpress
Nice script. After playing around with it a bit one big thing I’d like to see is to be able to control where the widget is seen. For example I’d like to he able to display twitter posts for each company in their listing page with an rss feed but don’t see any way to do this with current structure. I know this is possible in regular wordpress themes with a plugin called widget contexts (i think thats the name) and would love to be able to have this control in Geo Places. Thanks
Hi, i run city portals in Italy and i really like this theme but i also run a portal on Italy and so this is the question: Would this theme be able to present an entire nation? Why not the entire world?
I tried to publish a comment previously, although it hasn’t shown up. I believe your spam filter may possibly be broken?
Hi,
Could be, but sometimes we don’t approve comments that are made in really old posts. This one is around a year old…
Will this theme finally have the recurring feature for billing?
Yes, it will, check out this post -> //templatic.com/news/beta-version-of-geoplaces-v4-is-now-available/