How Can Visitors to My Website Find Members and Browse my Online Directory (Legacy Version)

Question
How can visitors to my website find members and browse my business directory?

Your online directory page contains three sections.  At the top, you may have a Featured Resources section that highlights items of interest in your area.  These are customized when you first set up your website.

The next section contains your search options.  Users can enter a keyword, which is then searched for in your business names, descriptions and keywords. Users also have the option to search by category.

The final section is a list of Quick Links.  These are organized into Standard Categories, which are based on the most-searched keywords on Google and cannot be customized. Under each Standard Category, your association’s categories are listed.  The top three most-viewed are displayed on this page, the others are displayed if the Standard Category is clicked on.

When a user clicks through to a category, they will see a list of all members with a listing in that category. The user can change the sort order of the listings by clicking the dropdown at the top of the list. Each member is listed with their basic contact info, and an arrow to view their individual page with additional information.

Note that on the individual listing detail page, the URL contains the name of the company.  This helps your members be found more easily from internet searches. Users can also send a message to this listing, as long as the member has an email address listed in MC Trade.  Note that the user will NOT see the member’s email address.

For a member to appear on your directory, they must have a listing.  You can add a listing by opening the member’s profile.

1. Search for and open the profile of the member for which you would like to create a listing, and click Edit Profile, then click the Listings tab.

2. Click the Add link, or edit the details on any existing listings. 

3. One thing that you may want to include on the listing, to help this member be found, is to fill in the Keywords field on the Business Description tab. Words and phrases entered here will be found when a user searches from the Keyword Search on your directory. You should enter common misspellings, abbreviations, and other potential keywords for this member here.

4. Click Save Profile to save all listing changes. This member will now appear on your online directory in the category you indicated.

You can add or edit your list of business categories in the Admin section.

1. Under Admin > Manage Codes > Member Codes, click Category Codes.

2. Your existing list of categories is displayed.  To edit one of them, click Actions > Edit. You can also click the New button at the top to create a new category.

3. You can now edit the Category (name), Category Description, and any keywords describing that category.

4. Click Save to save your changes.

Remember that your Standard Categories are displayed under the Quick Links section on the directory search page.  Each category is automatically assigned to a Standard Category - you do not need to set this manually. However, if you would like to change the Standard Category that one of your categories has been auto-placed in on your website, simply choose that Standard Category from the dropdown and save.