The 6 Best WordPress Directory Plugins

Building a directory website can be an expensive venture. This is especially true if you are looking to build something from scratch that is completely custom designed. You’ll also need to maintain the website, both from the backend and front. After all, your site needs to run smoothly and contain updated directory information.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Creating a directory website doesn’t have to be time-consuming or costly.” quote=”Creating a directory website doesn’t have to be time-consuming or costly.”]

However, it is easier than ever to build a custom directory website using WordPress plugins. Whether you want to create a job board, real estate, restaurant, business, or services directory, there is a directory plugin out there to suit your needs.

And, it just so happens we have insight into some of the very best on the market today.

1. Gravity Forms Directory

Gravity Forms is one of the most popular premium contact form plugins on the market today. It’s user-friendly and has plenty of features packed into it make it a desirable WordPress tool.

What a lot of people don’t know, however, is that Gravity Forms can also be used for creating surveys, quizzes, adding user submitted content, and yes even creating directories on your website. In fact, it has features like built-in searching, user-submitted directory listings, lightbox support, and the ability to view each listing on their own.

Additional features include:

• 100% shortcode based for easy directory creation
• Simple form for users to submit directory information
• Manual or automatic listing approval
• Display or hide specific directory columns
• Custom CSS feature makes for easy customization

Price: FREE (as an add-on to premium Gravity Forms plugin)

2. Business Directory Plugin

Business Directory Plugin is one of the most popular free directory plugins in the WordPress Repository. To start, it aims to boost site visitor interaction with your site, improve customer retention, and even allows you to add a monetization element to your website for increased revenue generation.

Build any kind of directory you want with this WordPress plugin – local, business providers, Yellow-Pages style, address book, even a Yelp-like review section – with a few configurations. Additionally, customize the form fields for user directory submissions, enable image options (including an intuitive drag & drop function), and accept payments for displaying a directory on your website.

Additional features include:

• Featured or sticky listing functionality
• Support for reCAPTCHA to reduce spam listings
• Full support for most payment gateways with recurring billing
• 100% responsive and mobile-friendly
• Built-in CSV import and export capability

Price: FREE

3. Connections Business Directory

Connections Business Directory boasts being a popular and simple directory plugin for WordPress website owners of all levels. It is versatile by design, flexible to use, and provides only the features you need to create a directory listing for your site, without the added bloat.

Personalize the directory experience and view things such as anniversaries and birthdays of users in the WordPress dashboard. To add to that, Connections offers unique entry types – individuals, organizations, and even families – perfect for keeping individuals together for an address book directory. Lastly, add business logos, images, and even biographical information of all people in a listing, easily scale your listing to accommodate 1000s of listings, and even import and export listings as needed.

Additional features include:

• Save time with entry creation using the repeatable fields feature
• Control which listings are public and which are private
• Nested category support makes listings organized and easy to search
• Display listings on the frontend of your site using shortcodes
• Several available templates included to get you started

Price: FREE

4. Sabai Directory

Sabai Directory is a premium business directory plugin for WordPress designed to help you create community business directories like Yelp.com, Google+ Places, or Yahoo! Local. Packed with tons of features for customizing the look of your directory, and making it function exactly as you need it to, this directory plugin is a great solution.

Display listings in list, grid, or map views for a better viewing experience. Enable the highly functioning search feature that searches keywords, categories, distance, and location, and even provides auto-suggestions.  Add rating criteria such as price, quality, service, etc. so site visitors can narrow their search results. More so, allow users to post their own reviews and ratings, upload images, and comment on other reviews.

Additional features include:

• Monetize your site with paid listings using a number of currencies and payment gateways
• Create forms using the visual form editor
• Allow for bookmarking of listings, reviews, and images
• Geolocation functionality
• Create multiple directories within one website

Price: $29

5. Directory Pro

Directory Pro is another excellent WordPress directory plugin making directory creation a cinch. With responsive design and mobile-friendliness, rest assured all site visitors, even those on the go, will see your site just as you want it to render.

Fully sync your site with PayPal and Stripe payment gateways for paid listings, gather email addresses of all new user’s for further marketing opportunities, and even use any of the popular WordPress plugins to make sure your site gets indexed and found in search results. Plus, translate all of your site’s content using the popular WPML translation plugin.

Additional features include:

• Integrated with the drag & drop page builder Visual Composer
• Built-in bidding system for top listing search rank
• Interactive “My Favorites” and “Who is Interested” sections
• Responsive touch slider for mobile devices
• New listing badge icon

Price: $34

6. Simple Link Directory

Simple Link Directory is for those looking for a simpler directory plugin solution that still gets the job done. Best used for content curation and one-page listing directories, this plugin is suitable for bloggers, SEO specialists, content curators, marketers, and webmasters.

Create a unique one-page link directory to complement your existing WordPress website and give your readers additional value and more reasons to visit your website. In addition, add a short listing description, complete with a logo and link to the listing’s website.  Then, add the listing anywhere on your website using the shortcode generator.

Additional features include:

• Create unlimited directories and listings
• Built-in templates to that are responsive by design
• Import lists to build a bigger directory
• Enable listing upvote functionality
• Show a single listing or display them all at once

Price: FREE

In the end, you always have the option to custom design a directory website. And, if you have the resources, know-how, and budget to do so, that’s awesome!

However, for those looking for a simpler solution, one that is more affordable, less time-consuming, and works just as well as any custom built directory website, there are WordPress directory plugins available.

If you are looking to share with your site visitors the best of the best when it comes to businesses, restaurants, and more, take advantage of the directory plugins above and get site building today.