Business Directory

The Business Directory integrated into CMS 4media is another way to monetize your local news website. With various promotion options and ways to highlight advertisements, you can charge users for extended exposure time, graphical enhancements, or promotion on the homepage.

As the website administrator, you can decide at any time whether users can add entries to the Business Directory or take away that ability. You can also decide to moderate entries – in that case, entries must be approved by the administrator before they are published on the website. This allows you to choose whether to publish, edit, or reject an entry.

Entries in the directory are displayed in the:

• Category menu,
• Directory (hub page with all published entries e.g. https://demo.4media.com/companies),
• Business Directory widget.

Each entry in the directory is a separate subpage that can be managed by the website administrator and the user who added the entry, provided they are logged in. Only logged-in users can edit and delete entries they have added.

The subpage of a business entry consists, among other things, of a photo, a map with the company's location marked (e.g., office, headquarters), contact information, a website address, and a brief description of the business's activities and offered products/services.

Global Settings for the Business Directory

You can find global settings for all Business Directory in the Settings -> Business Directory.

In the Business Directory settings section, you will find options to:

• Enable or disable the addition of company entries for users (both logged in and non-logged in users).
• Allow company entries adding without moderation, which means entries will be published immediately on your website without requiring approval in the administrator panel.
• Set a character limit for user-added company entry descriptions.
• Enable the display of the number of views for each company entry.

In this section, you can also define the content of informational messages displayed to users in various situations:

• Information visible on the list of Business Directory entries when adding a new entry is disabled (e.g., you can enter "Adding company entries is disabled").
• Adding a company - successful (e.g., "Company entry has been added to our database").
• Editing a company - successful (e.g., "Changes have been saved").

If desired, you can also decide to display additional informational content by filling in the following fields:

• Additional information content visible on the company catalogue list.
• Additional information content visible in the company catalogue entry.
• Additional information content visible in the company entry adding form.

Managing Company Entries in the Administrator Panel

Notifications for companies pending acceptance

If you have set in the global settings that entries must be moderated before publication, you will find them on the homepage after logging into the CMS 4media admin panel under "Companies pending acceptance."

In this section, you can perform several quick actions, including:

• Approving the publication of an entry (green button - thumb up).
• Editing an entry if you need to make changes (gray button - pencil on square).
• Deleting an entry (red button - garbage bin).

You will find more options directly in the Business Directory module.

Business Directory Module

In this module, you will find an extensive list view of all entries added to the Business Directory. You can also edit and add new times of emission and manage extras highlighting Business Directory entries. As an administrator, you can also add your own Business Directory entries by clicking the "Add New Company" button (the plus icon in a circle).

The list of entries in the directory includes detailed information such as:

• Author.
• Title.
• Category in which the entry is placed.
• Upload date (date of addition).
• End date (expiration of the entry on the website).
• Views (number of times the entry has been viewed).
• Map (indicates whether a map is visible in the entry).
• Status (indicates whether the entry is active or unpublished).
• Consent (indicates whether the entry is approved or disapproved by admin)
• Payment (if a user has paid for promoting the entry, detailed transaction information can be found under button “Details”).
• Actions (in this column, you can edit the entry or move it to the trash).

You can also manage the list of entries using mass actions. You can select all entries, change their status to active or inactive, and approve or revoke publication.

Filtering options can also be useful, allowing you to search by keyword in the entry title, category, date of addition, or author. Searching by keyword in the entry title is also possible using the search bar located in the upper right corner of the entry search module.

Times of Emission

The times of emission in the Business Directory module allow you to specify the duration for which a company entry will be active. Additionally, for each time of emission, you can decide whether the user must pay extra for publication.

CMS 4media administrators can create new times of emission and specify any number of days (e.g., 3, 7, 14, 30, 60, 90, etc.). Existing times of emission can be edited at any time, including the fields that specify the additional charge.

To disable the publication of entries with a specific time of emission, you don't need to remove them from the list. You can simply edit the entry and uncheck the "Active" slider. This way, the time of emission will remain on the list, and you can reactivate it without adding it again.

Extras Highlighting Business Directory Entries

Extras highlighting Business Directory entries are pre-built promotion and graphic enhancement options integrated into CMS 4media. Each enhancement can be edited and customized according to the administrator's preferences. You can also decide on the additional fee for each enhancement.

The available extras include:

• Promotion at the top of the list of company entries with color highlighting - a featured company entry will appear at the top of the list (in the featured entries section). The featured entries section displays a maximum of 10 entries. If there are more featured entries simultaneously, they will be displayed randomly (entry rotation occurs after each page refresh).
• Highlighting in the list of company entries with a colored border - a company entry will be published on the list with a colored border.
• Highlighting in the list of company entries with bold font and color highlighting - an entry will be published on the list with bold font and a colored background.
• Additional promotion in a widget on the homepage - additional promotion of a company entry in a widget on the website's homepage for x number of days.
• Publication of additional photos in a company entry - this enhancement allows for an increased limit of photos added to a company entry.
• Publication of YouTube video material - this enhancement enables the inclusion of YouTube video content within a company entry.

Categories of Business Directory

Adding new categories and editing existing categories of company entries is possible through the Categories module.

In the Categories module menu, there is a "Business Directory" tab where the website administrator will find a complete list of categories and subcategories of company entries, both active and inactive (unavailable to users).

Creating new categories is possible at any time by clicking the "Add New Category" button. After clicking the plus icon in a circle, a new category creation wizard will open, where you can fill in the category title, description, and decide whether the entries should be paid or free (in the latter case, leave the "Fee Amount" field blank).

Categories can be expanded with subcategories as well. Simply click the green "Add New Subcategory" button to access the wizard. After saving the changes, a new subcategory assigned to the main category will appear on the list.

Business Directory Hub Page

The CMS 4media system automatically generates a dedicated subpage with a list of all published company entries on your local media website. By default, this subpage is located at e.g. https://demo.4media.com/companies page path.

The subpage consists of a search bar with additional result filtering options and a list of published, active entries. Promoted entries are visible at the top of the list.

Additionally, depending on the website's settings, users may also see buttons:

• Add Business Directory entry - allows users to go to the new company entry creation wizard.
• My Business Directory entries - if a user is logged into their website account, they can access a list of previously published entries or advertisements.

Business Directory Widget

Published and active company entries can be displayed in the form of a list or tiles with images in a dedicated widget.

The widget can be added to templates located in the Page Builder module.

For more information about the widget, you can refer to the article: Business Directory Widget.

Related:

• How to cooperate with local business using 4media's Business Directory?