Hi, this is Marco with eDirectory, and welcome to the getting started video series.  In this edition, we’ll cover setting up various listing types for your new eDirectory, and this one of the most underrated features of eDirectory in my opinion since it offers so much personalization, so we’re going to make sure you know how it all works. Remember, nothing is ever set in stone, and you’ll be able to make changes as you grow, so we’ll cover the essentials for now, but in general, specify at least a default listing type before adding members so they can have the unique showcase you’ve defined on your site for their listing.  So let’s get started!

 

Ok, so we’re in the dashboard of the site manager, and we’ll head over to the content manager, and then scroll down here to LISTING TYPES.  Here, you’ll be able to set up a default listing type for the entire directory, meaning that every member will have the listing options created here applied to their listings, like if you want your community to know any specific information about them related to your industry, like a certification number, types of services they provide, payment details, or which types of insurance they accept for example.

 

What’s even better, is that you can also create additional listing types for other types of members within your community.  As a visual aid, let’s say I’ve launched a directory website pertaining to a specialty medical field that is under-represented and highly fragmented, and we’ll be creating an online community around that.  So I’ll want to create a different listing type for Clinics, as opposed to Doctors, Vendors, and the like, since they’ll each require a unique presence for their particular listings.   We’ll go ahead an create a listing type for Medical Clinics to get started.

 

We’ll start by adding a name to this listing type, so this could be Medical Practitioner, Specialty Clinic, something that the listing member can easily identify themselves with.  Next you’ll choose which of the categories you have defined previously will best apply to these listing types, which helps the system learn more about the relevancy for this listing type. Under “additional price”, you can also charge a one-time fee to have this Listing Type, as it can have far more options available for the member to showcase themselves than the free Default Listing type, a great option, and the fee will be automatically applied with the cost of their membership level at checkout. Next under “Common Fields” you can change this to “Business Address, Office Location, Place of Business, whatever works best, with some new labels for address line 1 and 2 if you prefer.  We’ll see a live example next so this will make more sense. Now for the best part about listing types:

 

Ok, so here’s where we get to the personalization part about listing types.  This is where you can allow your members to provide information about themselves with checkboxes, dropdown menus, and additional text fields.  For checkboxes, simply enter the question or statement, and in the “tool tip”, this is where you can explain to the member what you mean.  Let’s take a look, with the Specialty Clinic Listing Type example, “Accepts Medicaid Insurance”, they can check yes or no, or “Has handicapped parking”.  Basically any Yes or No questions would be good here.  Next we have dropdown options.  This ideal if their answer can ONLY fall into one of several options, like if there were only 3 medical insurance companies, say Blue Shield, Blue Cross, or Blue Lagoon. Lastly you can allow members to share information openly with simple, short, and long description text fields.  Simple being for a small amount of information, usually a line, like a Certification number, or short description for any awards or accolades they’d like to share, or long description for an “About Us” section for example.  If you would like to add more fields under any one of these sections, simply press tab and a new row will appear there for you.  You can also require that members respond these requests for information in order to list

 

So now we’ll review what the listing type edits we’ve made will look like once one of your members try to list with this particular listing type and how those edits will actually appear.  Keep in mind it may take a few times to wrap your head around it, but we’re confident you’ll catch on quickly.  As we scroll we can see the fields and labels and tooltips we’ve defined, and how they appear on page.  Again, you’ll soon learn from your community any valuable feedback to make this feature really work for you, and then be able to make any changes needed as you grow.

 

Ok, well that about wraps up our coverage of Listing Types.  If you have any questions or need assistance, please submit a support ticket, start a chat on the website, or email Support@eDirectory.com and a member of our success team will be happy to assist you! Thank you for tuning into the Adding Listing Types video, and I’ll see you in the next one!