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Our Rating
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Geo Places is a WordPress theme from Templatic, and wow – what a theme this is! The team at Templatic have created a very robust contender in the directory software arena. Normally we find that WordPress themes are missing some features for a website directory, but Geo Places is a breed apart. Currently at v3, there is a v4 coming (currently in Beta) with even more features – so we’ll mention those in the review. For those of you that can’t wait, purchasing V3 gets you access to the v4 beta 
Included are (6) different color styles, and of course you can customize further by editing the CSS files. It’s WordPress, so installation is just as simple as installing any other theme. Time to dig in to the review…
Features
We were so happy to see a true directory software approach to this theme, with a wonderful implementation of social features and google map integration. Most importantly, you have the ability to have both Paid and Free listings (more on this below), and control over your listing information by utilizing custom fields. You have a number of custom widgets for this theme, as well as individual sidebars for listings, events, etc. – and a Zip Code Proximity Search! Very important for multi-city sites, and there are options for highlighting individual cities. Plus they provide a bulk import and a sample csv file – making it very easy to get your directory populated with listings.
But Templatic went even farther with Geo Places, and added Events and the ability to offer discount coupons. Very, very nice additions – particularly for those of us using our directory software to run city sites. Of course, don’t rule out niche directories – those could also work very well with Geo Places.
Coming in v4 are even more features. Some of our favorites are the ability to have custom fields per category (so restaurants could have different fields from hotels for instance), Gigya plugin compatibility for social media logins, an optional splash home page where users can pick their city if you have multiple cities, and business owner profiles.
Ease of Installation
We love what they’ve done for Geo Places installation. It’s your simple theme installation in WordPress, but the development team added the ability to populate with default data! How many of you have installed a theme to have a nice big blank page, and sat there wondering “what next?”. You don’t have to worry about that with Geo Places, as the default data helps to really wrap your head around the theme and get up and running quickly. You can easily go in and modify all the data and change to real listings and events, so don’t worry about using the default data. You’ll be please once you do, guaranteed.
Ease of Customization
The theme options provide a vast array of customization options, without having to get into the code. Of course you can edit the CSS yourself to make your own custom design. This is a very feature rich theme, and just remember that all these features do introduce complexity. So if you’re looking to go crazy with customization, be prepared to dig into the code a bit. But honestly, you probably won’t ever need to go that far – there is so much you can do just with CSS and the built-in options.
I found a few example sites built on Geo Places to illustrate some of the customization abilities. On the left is a city site for downtown St. Petersbug, Florida – which gets a special thumbs up from me as it’s where I was born. The one on the right is for Playa Tamarindo, Costa Rica – and I really like how they’ve modified the theme to be more like a destination site. It shows you have plenty of customization possibilities to run your website directory the way that makes the most sense for you.
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Monetization Potential
Geo Places v3 gives you the ability to create paid and free listings and events – and you can tailor this to individual categories, meaning you can charge more for certain categories if you want. This is great, but honestly – we want v4 with the recurring PayPal payments to truly monetize our listings.
Still, you have category-level pricing control, and the ability for Featured Listings and Featured Events – that’s pretty darn sweet! There are also coupons built in, which is invaluable in your marketing efforts to entice businesses to want to pay to list with you. And of course, you have options for banner advertising already built into the theme – complete with an advertising widget to add your html code. You could also install an ad manager like OIO Publisher and use those widgets in the theme locations, increasing your monetization potential by selling ad space. All around solid money making potential with Geo Places as your directory software.
SEO Optimization
For SEO, you’ll have to rely on this being built on WordPress – as there isn’t really anything added to the theme for SEO. However, this is WordPress – so you have great options. We’re currently using and loving the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin, which would give you awesome control to SEO your listings and events. No rich snippets implementation, but you could customize to add this for sure.
Conclusion
Geo Places is a phenomenal choice for your directory software. As we’ve been writing this review, we’ve already been planning a site for ourselves using this theme. Out of the box it has so many features you almost can’t call it just a theme – and with v4 coming, we really can’t think of anything the team at Templatic has left out. You can’t go wrong with this theme for your website directory, so head on over and check it out. We’ll see you in the v4 Beta!
Geo Places directory theme from Templatic
Price: $89.95 single site / $179 developer multi-site
