New! Filters & Map View for the Dining Guide

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For the last month we have been cranking out some great new features for the Dining Guide edition. These features will also be coming to the main eDirectory theme in the next release a few weeks from now.

Filters:
Refine your search results by Category, Location, Price, Rating or if the result has an available deal.

Map View:
We have added an entirely new map view which allows you to show all results on a handy map – super simple.

In addition, there’s a huge list of fixes, enhancements such as an updated photo gallery, new search bar, new header, and more.

Go and see for yourself – www.demodirectory.com

 

 

Next Release – Talk about being Responsive….

We’re well on the way to releasing an all-new default theme…

  • A fully responsive design, looks just as awesome on a phone as it does on a desktop.
  • Fully integrated with our iOS and Android applications.
  • Built on the Brilliant Bootstrap framework.
  • Grid layout with ‘Blocks’ making customisation far easier across the board.
  • Did we mention it’s stunning? It’s gorgeous.

This (pretty awesome) new front-end will be available in a few weeks. Stay tuned, we just wanted to give you a sneek peek.

www.edirectory.com

Change logs are here…

For all our customers a little more involved with the platforms, we’ve added complete change logs to the main eDirectory site. Just so you can keep up with what we’ve been working on. We’ll be adding to it as time goes on.

Feel free to check them out here: https://www.edirectory.com/edirectory-changelog/

 

eDirectory Dining Guide Edition Available Now

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With a beautiful, fully responsive design, and all new mobile apps, we’re excited to launch the new eDirectory Dining Guide edition.

On the Web

Here are a few of the great features in the Dining Guide edition:

  • Beautiful Design
  • Fields and Layout highly customized to function as a dining guide.
  • Responsive design – works equally well on the desktop, the tablet or mobile.
  • Brand new matching mobile apps, which are also gorgeous.
  • Tabbed Listing Detail pages which include sections for Menu, Videos and Reviews
  • New, “Best Of” page, showing the highest rated listings from across the site.
  • New “By Location” page, show all listings via a new customised search.
  • New “By Cuisine” page, browse by categories.
  • Like/Dislike system for reviews.
  • New fields for advanced search (rating and price range)
  • New theme Settings page within site manager area (listing price configuration and background image settings)

 

Mobile (iOS & Android)

Something as stunning (and quite frankly different) as the Dining Guide required us to re-approach how our mobile applications were working, end result – brand new apps just for the dining guide. This app is more heavily based upon category searches (Food Type), and a cleaner, clearer way of displaying information to your users. We also took the opportunity to spice up the user interface a bit. We think it’s really great, let us know what you think.

Available after next week on both Android and iOS.

 

What’s Next?

 

We’ll give you some time to sink your teeth into the new release, but before we leave, he’s a sneaky peek at what you can expect a few weeks from now – That’s right, a brand new members area, we’re already working on one of our most requested features it’s going to be amazing.

 

 

Arca Mailer – Send Gorgeous Email Newsletters

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You’ve been asking for it, we’ve delivered – ArcaMailer is here. A full-featured stand alone email newsletter system – you don’t need eDirectory to use it, but of course we have eDirectory integration as well, and if this feature is enabled, it will allow visitors to signup for a newsletter right from the homepage.

Our system has a ton of great features including A/B testing messages, detailed reporting, complying with various spam laws, reporting on delivery and open rates, list cleaning, social monitoring, in fact it’s probably better just to check out the detailed features page: ArcaMailer Features.

It’s completely free to try, signup, create and account and have a play with it, we won’t charge you a cent until you actually send a campaign. Try it out here: ArcaMailer Trial

 

Designed to be Simple

 

Sign up, log in and get creating beautiful campaigns with the minimal of fuss. Everything is a few clicks away, meaning you can get your message across with the minimal of fuss.

Customer tracking, simple sign up forms, social integration, it’s a whole new beast. Check out the full site for all the information – we think you’re going to love it, we do.

See the Complete Feature List

 

Beautiful Templates

 

Beautiful Templates – No issue, visit our brand new templates page http:/www.arcamailer.com/email-templates/, download the one you want and then simply import into Arca Mailer -you’re done. If that’s too much, use our built in template builder and craft your own templates with the minimal of fuss.

 

Track absolutely everything…

Track your campaigns from the moment they are sent. Use our innovative world-view to view progress in real-time, see where and when people open your emails, where they clicked, what they shared all in real-time.

Complete oversight on your marketing – brilliant.

 

Does it work with eDirectory?

It sure does. Just login in to you’re eDirectory (9.82 or higher) and select Arcamailer from the sidebar – follow the instructions and import into Arca Mailer – nothing could be quicker or simpler.

Now you have a way to send targeted campaigns to differing sub-sets of your site clients, keep them up to date with what’s going on, offer promotions, or just spread the word – it’s your platform.

Have a look at what we can offer – www.arcamailer.com

These are the news – v.9.8.2

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eDirectory version 9.8.2 is here,  and with it, some new funcionalities and layout changes that the Site Manager will  notice right away.
One of them is the new Dashboard, that now shows the important information just like you need it to – a click away to approve, edit or delete a new item. Keep track of your process with your Revenue and Visits numbers!

 

 

 Some other important feature that will impact directly your advertisers and visits is the new Signup Process.
 A new interface has been designed by our team to ensure that to add a new item or become a member of the site is simple as 1, 2 and 3.

 

 

Need more? We got it!
 In eDirectory version 9.8.2 you’ll also see a brand new interface to manage Accounts Permissions, SEO fields included in the import file for Listings and Events, Package reports with information about the account that bought the package and now is possible to have trackable url for newsletters campaigns.

 

Check all these features and much in our demonstration site:www.demodirectory.com. And to purchase version 9.8.2 to go Orders page or contact us – sales@edirectory.com.

Beautiful new Listing Level Editor in Version 9.8

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We have a great new feature in version 9.8, the ability to edit features at each listing level.

It is available for Listings, Events, Classifieds, Banners and Articles.
Do you want your Diamond level to be able to add 5, 10 or 20 images in their gallery?  Do you want a URL on even your basic level?  You can now set the options without any code customizations.
To take advantage of this feature visit your Site Manager area, and click Access Settings menu >> Manage Levels – Choose a Module

You can add or remove these features to the listings:

[one_fourth]Page Detail[/one_fourth] [one_fourth]Deals*[/one_fourth] [one_fourth]Reviews*[/one_fourth] [one_fourth_last]Send to Phone*[/one_fourth_last]

[one_fourth]Click to Call*[/one_fourth] [one_fourth]Backlink[/one_fourth] [one_fourth]Email[/one_fourth] [one_fourth_last]Url[/one_fourth_last]

[one_fourth]Phone[/one_fourth] [one_fourth]Fax*[/one_fourth] [one_fourth]Imagery[/one_fourth] [one_fourth_last]Videos*[/one_fourth_last]

[one_fourth]Additional Uploads*[/one_fourth] [one_fourth]Summary Description[/one_fourth] [one_fourth]Long Description[/one_fourth] [one_fourth_last]Hours of Work*[/one_fourth_last]

[one_fourth]Badges*[/one_fourth][one_fourth]Time**[/one_fourth][one_fourth_last]Price***[/one_fourth_last]


*Available only for  Listings
** Available only for Events
*** Available only for Classifieds

What you change here is automatically updated in your Advertise page. And don’t forget that you can still change the level names and enable or disable any of them.

Note If you do not yet have version 9.8, contact support@edirectory.com to enquire about an upgrade.

Navigation Configuration (9.7)

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With the 9.7 release there is a brand new navigation configuration tool, we heard a lot about the original configuration tool (v.9.3) and the updated HTML Editor (v9.4 Onwards) and many of you expressed a need for a super simple way to edit / add & remove links from the top level navigation. We even added a ‘custom link’ ability so you can easily link any navigation link to a URL of your choice – it really couldn’t be easier.

*By the way, the HTML Editor is still there but is now labeled as a CSS editor, you can find it under Site Content > Css Editor.

eDirectory 9.7 Navigation Configuration Tool

The Simple Explanation

Order
Drag and drop ordering, hover, click and move these items around as you see fit.

Navigation Text
What do you want the link the navigation to actually say? Perhaps you would rather ‘Companies’ instead of the word ‘Listings’,  just tap in your new text here.

Link To
All modules in eDirectory have their links hard coded (the module links can not be changed), but if you’re linking to a module just select it from here. If however you wish to add you’re own link pointing to another page, another site or anywhere else that’s not a module, choose the ‘Custom Link’ option.

Custom Link
This field is only available after selecting ‘Custom Link’ in the Link to column, enter a full URL here and you’re done. (Don’t forget to include the http://…)

Remove
Pretty self explanatory, press this and the row is removed.

You can also pick from the Header or the Footer navigation, and if you check the bottom of the table you’ll find a super handy ‘Add Row’ button. I hope you like the new navigation tool, and our move towards a more streamlined approach.

eDirectory Language Center

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With the release of 9.7 comes a brand new language center. Pick the language of both the site (front-end) and the sitemgr (admin) independently for any domains or subdomains you own and run eDirectory on – it really couldn’t be any simpler – did you mention you can edit every single piece of the language integration?

*Language switching on demodirectory.com will return shortly.

Why a new center?

From an SEO standpoint, having all of the data criss-crossed across 7 pages (one for each language and translation) turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. By splitting websites into subdomains or indeed entirely different domains they retain a great deal more of their rank (multiple pages are not considered duplicate content anymore), the content is individual, the sites are unique, and if you are writing you’re site in Spanish or Portuguese, surely it’s better for you to host that site with the correct TLD (Top Level Domain) – .com.br & .com.es respectively.

We thought long and hard about the best way to approach languages, they were many ideas on the table, but in the end simplicity won out, a language per site, with the option to pick a global language just for the sitemgr. Read on for some more details of how this all works:

Selecting your languages

Selecting your languages

Simply login into the sitemgr and head to the ‘Language Center’, and on the first tab select both the language for the main site (Front End) and the language for the back end (Sitemgr), that’s it you’re done, these settings can be changed as often as you want or need.

Language Editor

Downloading Language Data

eDirectory requires two language files to function correctly, they can both be downloaded here, simple select the language and section you wish to edit (Sitemgr or Front End), then hit the ‘Download Language File’ button. Edit on your computer until you have the file the way you want, then simple return to this screen and upload – job done.

A lot of site users ask for a really easy way to edit the language data – this is it.

Add Languages

Adding a language to eDirectory

So, eDirectory doesn’t support a language you want? Not a problem, all the tools are here for you to add you very own language (providing you do the translation of course). Head off to the ‘Add Language’ page and simply follow the 5 steps for creation of a new language, tap in a few bits of information and the language is instantly available for use – we love it.

The Tiny Things

Changing names and flags

You know how it is, you make a change, upload a language and then find out you used the wrong flag or even worse names the language incorrectly – open the ‘Name & Flag’ tab in the site manager area and edit these oh’ so important settings here.

We hope you like the new language center, it’s really a much better way to organise the languages, it’s simple, clean and easy to use.

Reminder: SEO Crash Course Webinar tomorrow at 10:00AM

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A quick reminder that we’ll be conducting a complimentary SEO Crash Course webinar tomorrow, October 10th at 10:00AM EST.

Some things we’ll cover in the webinar
-What is SEO?
-A brief History of SEO
-Black Hat SEO
-First steps to Optimizing
-It’s All About the Keywords
-On Site Optimizations
-Off Site Optimizations
-Leveraging Social Media
-How can eDirectory Help?
-Additional Resources

For those interested in learning the basics of SEO and what you can do to better optimize your directory site, this is a great presentation.

Hope to see you there!

New Webinar Dates Posted

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Check out the list of new webinar dates posted in the ‘resources’ section of our website.

A quick synopsis on each of the upcoming presentations

How to Steer Your Site to Success – an overview on steps to making your site have better potential for success. These include strategy in selecting a domain name, introductory SEO tips, engaging with your listing holders and putting the right partnerships in place to help your site

SEO Roundtable – Submit your site or watch live as your peers sites are critiqued on they could be better optimized to increase search traffic.

Free Group Training – Free of cost introductory training course conducted by Jessica Delucchi. Great for new users as well as those hoping to become a bit more familiar with the system

SEO Crash course – While a lot of people know about SEO, very few people know what goes into making your site a well oiled SEO machine. We’ll cover the history of SEO, the basics of on site optimizations as well as the best approach to launching a successful backlink campaign.

A Case for Calculated Image Name Optimization

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I work with dozens of clients on their sites, from marketing, to SEO, sales and package creation.

I was looking over the Google Webmaster Tools account for a client that’s running a local search site. They get about 20,000 impressions a month and for a niche concentrated site, the traffic is pretty good. They’ve found success in producing unique content via the blog (news aggregation) and rank pretty well on alot of their targeted search terms.

One thing I noticed on their webmaster account:
Webmaster Tools

While this is a local search site, take a look at some of the terms their ranking pretty well on, and consequently, getting traffic from:
“You Serious Clark” and “Robert Stack”

Robert Stack is the famous voice and face behind the television show Unsolved Mysteries. We’ll let this video explain the other one:

I went through the blog and found well optimized images — the only thing that can explain WHY a local search site would get traffic on these types of terms.

The image was called “you-serious-clark.jpeg” and the other was called “Robert-stack.jpeg” Two completely off topic images put in a blog in a well optimized format which is driving traffic to their site. Imagine how well this can work on more relevant, appropriate images where you’re optimizing your site on such keyword-heavy terms?