To optimize an item page, do the following:
Simbadirectory.com - Frequent Asked Questions (FAQ)
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Monitoring Your Transactions
Making your payments
Monitoring Your Transactions
A transaction (also called payment transaction) is a business agreement or a communication between the Site Manager and a Member for the exchange of an advertisement space for payment. The actual event occurs when a Member pays the bill carried out from the items created in his/her account.
Basically, there are two kinds of transaction in Simbadirectory.com: online payment transactions, and invoice transactions. The difference between the two is explained below:
- Online Payment Transaction – This occurs when a Member selects Credit Card or PayPal as his/her preferred payment method. Upon completion of the electronic payment forms, an online transaction record will be added in the Site Manager and Member accounts. A transaction record usually contains information such as Transaction ID, Status, Payment Type, Amount, Date, Member Account, IP Address, Notes, and the breakdown of what items are purchased. No credit card or payment gateway account information is saved in the Site Manager and Member accounts because this kind of information goes directly to the payment processor.
- Invoice Transaction – This occurs when a Member prefers to have the payment check mailed to the Site Manager. The Member knows the total amount to pay through the invoice generated in his/her account. Upon completion of this transaction, an invoice record will be added in the Site Manager account. An invoice record usually contains information such as Invoice ID, Status, Amount, Issuing Date, Expiry Date, Payment Date, Member Account, IP Address, and the breakdown of what items are purchased.
- Click on Transaction History or Invoice History. After doing this, a page will appear like the one shown below:
-
For invoice history, the status Pending appears to indicate that the Site Manager has not received the Member’s payment check; while for transaction history, the status Approved or Completed appears to indicate that the Credit Card or PayPal payment has been successfully processed by the payment processor. - Click on the
icon of the corresponding record that you want to view. After doing this, a page will appear containing the full transaction details.
Making Your Payments
Members need to pay for every non-free item that they create in their accounts. Items that require payment are the following:
- Listings in Basic, Premium, and Showcase levels
- Events in Premium, and Showcase levels
- Classifieds in Basic, Premium, and Showcase levels
- Articles
- Banners in Top, Bottom, Featured, and Sponsored Links levels
If Members do not perform the payment procedure, their items will not be qualified for the Site Manager’s approval or activation. As a result, their items will not be visible in the directory front.
Payment can be done by using any of the methods below:
- By Credit card – a Member who selects this method is asked to fill out the electronic payment forms
- By PayPal – a Member who selects this method is redirected to the PayPal website where the electronic payment forms to be filled out are located
- Print Invoice and Mail a Check – a Member who selects this method must print off the invoice and mail the payment check to the address specified on the invoice.
- Click on Check Out > Make Your Payment. After doing this, a page will appear like the one shown below:
- In the Pay column, check the item/s that you want to pay.
- If you want to use a Promotional Code for an item, type the code in the box provided.
Promotional code is used to avail discounts. - Select the Payment Method that you prefer.
- Click on the Next button.
- If you have selected By Credit Card in Step 4, do the following:
- In the Card Number box, type the long string of numbers that is embossed on the front of your credit card.
- In the Card Expiry Date box, type the date that is printed on the front of your credit card close to your name (e.g., 10/10).
- In the Card Code box, type the three- or four- digit security code that is printed on the back of your credit card. The number typically appears at the end of the signature panel.
- Click on the Pay By Credit Card button. We suggest that you review first the Billing Info and the Customer Info before clicking on the button.
- If you have selected Print Invoice and mail a Check in Step 4, do the following:
- Click on the Pay By Invoice button. We suggest that you review first the Billing Info before clicking on the button.
- Print the invoice for your own reference.
Optimizing Your Item Pages Using Meta Tags
Members need to optimize their item pages because it will help them improve their standings in search engines. A search engine is a program that searches for sites based on the words that users supply as search terms. Examples are Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask Jeeves, etc. You might be wondering why you as a Member need to deal with these search engines. The answer is simple. Customers look for services, products or information on the internet. Assuming that they do not know the specific URL of the directory site that holds your items, they do the search through the help of different search engines. Normally, they click on a link on the first page of search results. If your business is showing up on the second, third or fifth page of search results, potential customers will never find you on the internet. Think of it this way: There are thousands of websites with the same product or services as yours.
Adding Meta tags is proven to be an effective way of optimizing a web page. We do not want to mislead you that these Meta tags would bring your item pages to the number one spot in the search engine results. They are just a tool that will help improve your standings in search engines.
A Meta tag is a hidden tag that lives in the <head> of an HTML document. It is used to supply additional information about the HTML document. To view a sample Meta tag code, right-click on any item page in the directory front, and select View Source or View Page Source option. After doing this, the source code (image shown below) will be automatically opened in an editor.
Meta tags that are specifically designed to improve a web page’s standing in search engines are the following:
<meta content=”Dev Custom work Area”>
Use this tag to describe what your page is about. Engines that use it will supply the content of this tag when displaying a list of links.
<meta content=”Dev Custom work Area”>
Use this tag to help search engines to categorize your site, and to allow people to find your pages more quickly.
What’s good about the Simbadirectory.com application is that it provides the interface where you can just input the content values (e.g., Dev Custom work Area). Once these values are submitted, the Meta tag code like what you see on the example above automatically changes.
Another important thing to remember in optimizing is that most search engines look at the page title. Be sure to always have a relevant <title> on your pages (shown also in the image above). This will improve your ranking more than just Meta tags alone. Title appears on the top of the browser and window as shown below:
- Go to the Manage section of any module (e.g., Listings, Events, Classifieds, or Articles). This sections looks like the one shown below:
- Select the item page that you want to optimize by clicking on the
icon. After doing this, a form will appear like the one shown below:
- In the Page Name box (under Friendly URL), type the text that you want to appear in the browser as the item’ friendly URL. Friendly URL is the feature available in Simbadirectory.com which allows Site Manager and Members to create search engine URLs.
The Item “John Auto Repair” with Friendly URL “john-auto-repair” will be available through the URL: http://demodirectory.com/listing/john-auto-repair.html.
- In the SEO Description and SEO Keywords areas, provide the content values for the Meta tags that will be embedded in the item page. Meta Description can be in a sentence or paragraph form, while Meta Keywords are commonly a set of words separated by comma.
We advise you to have the SEO Description and SEO Keywords available in all enabled languages in the directory so if the Site Manager changes default site language, they will also change in accordance with the language.
- Click on the Submit button.
Changing The Level Of An Item
There are two types of change that can be applied to an item level: namely, upgrade and downgrade. The difference between the two is explained below:
- Upgrade – raising the item to a higher level (e.g., From Basic to Showcase level). It is only applicable to items that have already expired or have not been paid and activated yet. The process of upgrading can be done either by the Site Manager or Member.
- Downgrade – lowering the level of an item (e.g., From Showcase to Basic level). The Site Manager and Members cannot downgrade those that have been paid and activated already.
Items that can be upgraded or downgraded are those that have Expired or Pending Status.
- Go to the Manage section of any module (e.g., Listings, Events, Classifieds, Banners or Articles). This sections looks like the one shown below:
- In the Level column, click on the icon (e.g.,
) of the corresponding item. After doing this, a page will appear like the one shown below:
- Select the Level that you want.
- Click on the Submit button.
Adjusting An Item’s Map Location
Members are always asked of their location when they are adding a new item. The locations that they provide (composed of the street address, the city, state and country) are displayed in the directory front to serve as guide to the customers on where they can find the item that they are planning to buy. Usually, the location information is in the form of text like this listing example shown below:
For the items in Showcase level, there is another way of displaying the location information. This is by the use of a map. A map (like the one shown below) appears on the Detail View of an item.
Map locations are automatically set when Members supply their location information. What’s amazing about this mapping system is that they determine almost any location with accuracy and speed. The Simbadirectory.com application also allows the Site Manager and Members to adjust the map locations and make them more accurate. This process of adjusting the map locations is called Map Tuning.
The map feature of the application is made possible by the Google Maps API.
- Go to the Manage section of any module (e.g., Listings, Events, or Classifieds). This sections looks like the one shown below:
- Click on the
icon of the corresponding item. After doing this, a page will appear like the one shown below:
- To adjust the map zoom: Use the controls
and 
. - To navigate on the map: Use the controls
, 
, 
and 
. - To adjust the location: Drag-and-Drop the marker
. - Click on the Save Map Tuning button.
Viewing The Traffic Reports
Traffic is the amount of data sent and received by visitors to a website. Normally, website owners measure the traffic that they receive to see which parts or pages of their site are popular and if there are any apparent trends, such as one specific page being viewed mostly by visitors.
Simbadirectory.com application automatically measures traffic to give the Members an idea on how their items are performing in the site. It presents the gathered data in a form of a report. This report can be viewed both in Site Manager and Member accounts.
The following are the information that you will be dealing with when monitoring specific traffic:
- Summary hits –the number of times that the Summary View of a listing, event, classified, or article is viewed. A high number would indicate that the item is searched and browsed frequently.
- Detail hits – the number of times that the Detail View of a listing, event, classified, or article is viewed. The more details hits, the more you become prone to contact.
- ClickThru (for listing traffic) – the number of times that the Display URL link (e.g., w: http://www.realestatesample.com) in the Detail View of a listing is clicked.
- ClickThru (for banner traffic) – the number of times that a banner is clicked.
- Views (for banner traffic) – the number of times that a banner is displayed in the directory front.
- E-mail hits – the number of times you are contacted by the use of the e-mail form in the Detail View a listing.
- Phone hits – the number of times that the Phone link (e.g., t: view phone) in the Detail View of a listing is clicked.
- Fax hits – the number of times that the Fax link (e.g., f: view fax) in the Detail View of a listing is clicked.
A hit is the retrieval of any page or data from a Web server. For example, when a visitor calls up a Phone data, that’s one hit.
- Go to the Manage section of any module (e.g., Listings, Events, Classifieds, Banners, or Articles). This sections looks like the one shown below:
- Click on the
icon of the corresponding item. After doing this, a page will appear like the one shown below:
Read the discussion above to understand what the graph in this page manifests.
Previewing An Item
Previewing is the best way to see and review how a particular item appears in the directory front. Members do not need to go to the actual directory front because there is an easy means of previewing their own items directly in their accounts.
- Go to the Manage section of any module (e.g., Listings, Events, Classifieds, Banners, or Articles). This sections looks like the one shown below:
- Click on the icon of the corresponding item. After doing this, a page will appear like the one shown below:
- In the Listing Preview area, select the Click here to preview this listing link. After doing this, a new window will appear containing the Summary View and Detail View (if there is one) of the item.
Deleting An Item
Members can delete the events, banners, classifieds and articles that are inside their accounts. Deleting means removing the item and the information it contains from the database. This action is not necessary unless the reason of doing so is valid.
When an item is deleted, the transaction record associated to it is not affected.
- Go to the Manage section of any module (e.g., Events, Classifieds, Banners, or Articles). This section looks like the one shown below:
- Click on the
icon of the corresponding item that you want to delete. After doing this, a page will appear like the one shown below:
- Click on the Submit button.
Using The Review Feature
A review is an evaluation of an item in the directory site. It is written by the customer who has sufficient experience to comment on reliability and whether or not the product, service, or information delivers on its promises. Usually, a review is composed of the following:
- a star rating
- a comment not longer than 5 sentences
- a Site Manager’s or Member’s reply to the review
This is how a review appears on the directory front:
Simbadirectory.com uses the Review feature to allow the site visitors see both the negative and positive feedback of customers to some listings and articles in the site. This feature should be enabled and configured first in the Site Manager account before it can be used. Once this feature is enabled, the Site Manager can manage all the reviews created in the directory front. By the word “manage”, we are referring to the privilege given to him/her to preview, edit, delete and approve reviews, and to approve the Members’ replies to the review authors.
Unlike Site Manager, the Members can only preview reviews and reply to their authors. They are not given full control over reviews to avoid having bias.
Simbadirectory.com application has the ability to trace the IP Address of a review author (the customer who created the review). Because of this, a review author with a static IP can only create one review for one particular listing or article.
Every time a new review is created, the application prompts the Member by displaying the 
icon in the in the Manage sections (shown below) of Listings or Articles.
Clicking on the icon of an item takes the Site Member to the Reviews page shown below:
Observe that the review record shown in the page above displays the icons 
. These icons (which come together as one) indicate that the review has been approved already by the Site Manager and you as the owner of the item can reply to the review author. Other icons that may be used in the Reviews page are the following:
– These two icons come together as one. They show up in the review that has not been approved yet by the Site Manager. When a review is not approved, it will not appear in the directory front and you (the owner of the listing or article to which the review is added) cannot use the Reply-to-Review-Author feature of the application.
– These two icons come together as one. They indicate that the reply to the review author that you created has not been sent by the Site Manager yet. The reply will only be sent to the review author’s email address if it is approved by the Site Manager.
– These two icons come together as one. They indicate that the reply to the review author is already approved.
In the page shown above, click on the icon of the corresponding review. After doing this, a page containing the review content will appear like the one shown below:
- Click on the
icon of the corresponding review. After doing this, an area will appear like the one shown below:
- Type your message in the space provided. Then, click on the Send button.
Using The Promotion Feature
A promotion (also called promo) is a marketing strategy used by Members to inform and convince the site visitors to purchase a listing. It might be a short-term price reduction, contest or sweepstakes, package giveaway, or free sample offer. Like Members, the Site Manager can also create or edit a promotion, and associate it with a listing.
The Promotion feature is only available for Showcase listings.
A promotion appears in the directory front as follows:
It shows up in the directory front in two manners:
- Within the Promotion section, the area where site visitors can find all on-going promotions
- Within the Listings section. Under a Showcase listing’s Detail and Summary View (example shown below), you will see a clickable “promotion” text. This lets the site visitors know that your listing is currently offering a promotion.
- Click on Promotions > Add Promotion.
- In the Information area (image shown below), do the following:
- In the Headline box, type the name of the promotion that you are adding. The headline is the text that will appear on the top most part of your promotion. Be sure to make it descriptive and catchy.
- In the Offer (English) box, type the general description of the promotion. Do this also for all the enabled languages in the directory. You can know what languages are enabled by looking at the language icons on the upper-right part of your account’s interface.
We advise you to have it available in all enabled languages so when a visitor browsing the directory changes the site language, the offer will also change in accordance with it the selected language.
- In the Description area (image shown below), do the following:
In the English textarea, provide the scope and limitation of the promotion. Do this also for all the enabled languages in the directory.
We advise you to have it available in all enabled languages so when a visitor browsing the directory changes the site language, the description will also change in accordance with it the selected language. - In the Condition area (image shown below), do the following:
In the English textarea, provide the parameters that the customers should observe for a promotion to take effect. Do this also for all the enabled languages in the directory.
We advise you to have it available in all enabled languages so when a visitor browsing the directory changes the site language, the condition will also change in accordance with it the selected language. - In the Keywords for the search area (image shown below), do the following:
In the English textarea, type the keywords with which the promotion will be indexed for a search. Add one keyword/keyword phrase per line. Do this also for all the enabled languages in the directory.
We advise you to have the keywords available in all enabled languages. This will allow the site visitors to search using keywords in foreign languages. - In the Promotion Date area (image shown below), do the following:
In the Start Date and End Date boxes, input the exact date when the promotion will be valid. Do this by clicking on the
icon. - In the Promotion Layout area (image shown below), do any of the following:
- If you want to incorporate all the details you provided above into a ready-made layout, select the Our HTML template based promotion option. Then, click on the Browse button to select the image that you want to use for the promotion.
- If you want to use a customized image with your own promotion details embedded on it, select A promotion provided by you instead option. Then, click on the Browse button to select the image that you want to use as your promotion layout.
If you select the A promotion provided by you instead option, the details you provided above such as the Offer (Step 4b), Description (Step 5), and Condition (Step 6) will be disregarded.
- Click on the Submit button.
After creating the promotion, the next thing to do is to associate it with the showcase listing that will use it. If you do not proceed to this process, the promotion that you have created will be useless.
A showcase listing can only have one promotion at a time.
- Go to the Manage section of any module (e.g., Listings, Events, Classifieds, and Articles). This sections looks like the one shown below:
- Click on the
icon of the corresponding item. After doing this, a page will appear like the one shown below:
- In the Promotion dropdown list, select the promotion that you have created earlier.
- Click on the Submit button.
A promotion automatically appears in the directory front once associated with an activated and paid showcase listing.