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Directory Website Theme: WordPress Theme for Directory Sites

March 30, 2023 By WP Helpline Off

A directory website (or directory) is a type of website which acts as a guide to other websites. The sites within a directory are typically organised into sections (such as “bestsellers”, “hottest new products”, and “popular culture”) and displayed in alphabetical order. The sites are usually maintained by a central webmaster who monitors and adds new content to the site on a regular basis. The term “Yellow Pages” comes from the fact that many directories are printed on yellow paper to signify their information. This is also the reason why many directories are called “phone books” or “phonebooks”.

The most popular and simplest way to create a directory website is through the use of a WordPress theme. WordPress is a popular content management system (CMS) that is used to easily build and maintain websites. WordPress themes are completely free and extremely easy to use. Moreover, with the vast majority of themes designed for WordPress being completely free, there is no limit to the number of websites one can create with the help of a WordPress theme. Finally, WordPress is extremely portable and can be installed on any computer or server.

Creating A Directory Website With WordPress

WordPress is a completely free and open source CMS which is completely compatible with all other major CMSs such as Joomla! and Drupal. This means that WordPress is an incredible choice for people who are looking to create a website but don’t have the budget or desire to hire a professional web designer.

To illustrate how easy it is to use WordPress to create a directory website, we will walk you through the entire process of design and setup (including domain name registration and hosting installation). The entire process should only take you a few hours to complete, and at the end you will have a fully-functioning website that you can use to list and provide information about your products or services.

STEP 1: Choose A Suitable Domain Name

The first step is to choose a suitable domain name for your website. To create a domain-worthy website, you will want to look for a combination of three key components:

  • easy to spell (just like your company’s name)
  • short
  • uncommon

For example, if you are selling fashion accessories, you could use the domain fashionaccessories.com. This is a short and easy to spell, yet uncommon domain name that will make people interested in your site. Moreover, since fashionaccessories.com is an uncommon domain name, it will likely remain available for long enough for you to secure your site.

STEP 2: Register The Domain Name

Once you have chosen a suitable domain name, you will need to register it with your chosen hosting provider. When you register the domain name, you will need to ensure that you enter the right information (make sure that you use the same email address as you use for your account with the hosting provider). Most importantly, you will need to ensure that you enter a valid privacy policy URL (more on this below).

STEP 3: Point Your Domain Name To The Right IP

Now that you have your domain name registered, you will need to point it to the right IP address. An IP address (Internet Protocol address) is a location identifier assigned to each computer (or other device) that connects to the Internet. An IP address is made up of numbers that are separated by dots (e.g., 66.249.83.23).

You will need to ensure that when customers (or other visitors) click on links or go to specific pages of your site, that the content is delivered to them by your server (not someone else’s). To do this, you will need to use DNS (Domain Name System) to set the IP address for your domain name.

STEP 4: Install WordPress

Last but not least, you will need to install WordPress on your server. This is quite basic and can be done through the use of a few commands in your terminal. The entire process takes only a few minutes and does not require special software.

Once you have installed WordPress, you will be brought to the dashboard (which we will cover in a bit). From here, you can see links to different areas of WordPress. One of these areas is the theme area; this is where you will find all the themes for WordPress.

A good rule of thumb is to purchase a reputable and popular theme for WordPress. This is because, with the exception of a few themes that are specifically designed for blog use or are simply meant to be used with a certain WordPress variant, most themes are designed to work with many different WordPress versions and are extremely versatile.

Now that you have all the necessary steps covered, it’s time to move on to the next phase. Let’s get started.

STEP 5: Choose A Suitable Username And Password

Next, you will need to choose a suitable username and password for your site. A good rule of thumb is to use your company’s name or the name of your product/service, combined with a phrase such as “for free”.

For example, if your company name is ABC Company and you are using the domain abccompany.com, you could use the username abccompany and the password company123 (note that this is not a secure password and can be guessed easily by hackers).

STEP 6: Configure Your Nickname

Once you have registered your domain name and installed WordPress, you will be brought to the dashboard (which we will cover in a bit). From here, you can see links to different areas of WordPress. One of these areas is the settings area. In the settings area, you will find all the settings for your site. One of these settings is the nickname. This is the name that will appear in place of your site’s URL (uniform resource locator) when an end user visits the site. Moreover, you can choose to have your nickname appear in various places within your site, including the URL, header, and footer.

If you are happy with the default settings for your nickname, you can simply leave it untouched. However, if you want to change the settings for your nickname, simply click on the edit icon to the right of the nickname field.

A good rule of thumb is to choose a unique and memorable nickname for your site. Moreover, make sure that the nickname is not too similar to your company’s name or any other existing website, as it could cause confusion (or worse, lawsuits if you already have a trademark on your company name)].

STEP 7: Install The Theme You Selected

Finally, you will need to install the WordPress theme you selected (it’s good practice to install only the themes you need; this will help keep your site lightweight and ensure that you don’t exceed your monthly bandwidth quota). To do this, simply navigate to your theme’s directory (typically located at /wp-content/themes/) and double-click on the zip file to install it.

This will bring up a standard window from which you can navigate to the next step.

STEP 8: Activate Theme Option

Once your theme is installed, it is time to activate its option. To do this, simply click on the “Activate” link (typically found on the left side of your admin dashboard). This will bring you to a screen where you can choose the features you would like to use on your site. To start with, you will simply want to activate “Default” options for the following areas:

  • General
  • Appearance
  • Header
  • Footer
  • Site Icon
  • Social
  • Navigation
  • RSS

To activate more features, simply click on the “Activate” button below the areas you wish to use.

Once you have finished activating the features you need, simply click on the “Close” button to the right of the screen.

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