Business Listing Plugin Released
Today we added a new plugin to the WordPress Plugin Directory on WordPress.org. It’s called “Business Listing Plugin.” We’ve been using it to manage business listings on 4boca.com already. This release is a free open-source version, so if you want to use it, go ahead!
The plugin can be found on WordPress.org, in the official directory of approved plugins.
Information about the plugin, including links to a Support Forum and to Donate to its development, can be found here: Business Listing Plugin Main Page
Business directories are useful for sites targeted at local audiences, industry audiences, even franchises.
If you’re a website owner and you want to list multiple businesses on your website this plugin is exactly what you’re looking for. It allows a website to feature a business directory, quick and easy. Each business listing can be uniquely managed. Critical information about the business is listed in a special way, automatically by this plugin, using a web coding standard called structured data. This method of displaying business information is exactly what Google is looking for in order to have your site’s business listings show up when someone Googles the business or is searching for the type of business that’s listed. Help your community get found.
Structured Data Best Practices
Experience with structured data marketing in content marketing efforts led to the observation that too many web publishers were falling short in their implementations. They were interpreting the schema.org guidelines too conservatively, hardly exercising the options, restraining their use of it as opposed to using it to communicate. This plugin approaches the use of structured data more aggressively. For example it uses the “Knows About” property to list what practice areas attorneys specialize in. It allows selection of the cuisine served by food vendors. It uses the same normalized values for these properties that the major listing services like Yelp and Google use. It also displays Google Maps in a couple different ways for business listings.
What’s coming next?
Business Listing Plugin is one of many plugins authored by Massive Impressions but it’s the first one we’ve added to the WordPress Plugin Directory. Whereas most of the plugin and theme work we’ve done is proprietary and focused on meeting very specific requirements, this plugin is a more general tool that’s useful for a wider audience. There are other plugins being developed right now in parallel with this one, also designed to be used by a wide range of publishers. Keep an eye out for them.
