Let’s start with the basics. This post is just going to explain what ClassiPress theme is and what you need to do to set it up in order to start your Classifieds ad site. Specific strategies to optimize or modify will come in later posts.

What is Classipress?

ClassiPress is the first and only professional classified ads theme for WordPress. Others call it the Craigslist for WordPress. You can use for Jobs site, Classifieds site, an online store and anything you can think of.

It has a lot of features that include PayPal integration, five color schemes, multi-language support, AdSense, and much more.

One of Classipress best feature is the inclusion of Google Maps. Once the user entered a street address, his posting will automatically show a map based on the given location. This is really a cool and useful feature specially for Real Estate Classipress site as users would no longer have to include a map image on their real property ads listings. This feature has made Classipress one of the best wordpress classifieds theme there is.

Classipress Default Simple Google Map

I prefer to have the Classipress Google map to default in hybrid mode because it is more visually appealing than the simple map. The hybrid map is a combination of a map and satellite imagery that which I find better graphically and visually. It is also very useful for Classipress Real Estates Classifieds sites because it can provide a bird’s eye view of the listed property at first glance. However, the Classipress Google map default display is on simple street map.

When running a Classifieds site or a site in general, it is not only interesting but useful to know who is visiting your website, where these visitors come from and what they do on your site. You can use this information to optimize your site for keywords, targeted demographics and more. This is what we usually call as Search Engine Optimization, SEO in short.

Since WordPress do not come with any visitor statistics, every classifieds site owner has to implement and manage his own solution to track visitors and display statistics. And with this Statpress Reloaded plugin comes to the rescue. Yes, there are other available wordpress stats plugins but I find Statpress Reloaded intuitive and useful enough for my Classipress wordpress classifieds site.

I have just updated my car finder site, www.cars.cebulive.com to the latest version of Classipress and every thing went smoothly. The whole upgrade process is seamless as long as you just follow the update instructions. I have not noted any bugs at all. Kudos to David, the owner of Classipress, for providing us one of the best update.

Classipress is one of the best classifies ads theme/platform there is. It is so because updates are provided free of charge forever. The customer support is also one of a kind as you are personally attended by David through the support forum for any concerns of your Classipress installation.

Classipress is a great wordpress theme-classifieds ads platform. With it, you have to option to set a schedule when a particular ad will expire and subsequently deleted. It is a really great feature but it will also result to several error 404 pages when a particular page or posting is already indexed by the search engine.

There are several wordpress plugins to manage error for redirection but I find the easy way to do it is to change the Classipress default 404. Simply replace the Classipress 404.php code with the code below;

Showing some random automated cosmetic activities will definitely make your Classipress site more exciting and never boring. A way to do that is to have random images of your ads displayed in the main page. Every time someone visits your site he or she sees different images displayed thus making your ClassiPress site visually dynamic. I used it on my site, www.cars.cebulive.com.

Random images can be displayed using a plugin called Random Image Selector. As with other wordpress plugin, it is every easy to install. You just have to put the provided code to where you want the random image to show. You can have many instances of the code and so you can display a number of random images. And in my site, I have four images that are displayed on the front page.

To make your Classipress site more interesting to visitors is to make it look active taming with activities. One way to show it is to display members or users who are online. When a first time visitor sees that your site has a lot of activities he or she may be inclined to check and register to your site.

Members/users who are online info can be displayed using the plugin, WP UserOnline by Lester Chan. The plugin will also provide you with detailed statistics of where they are and who there are including Guests and Search Bots. As a wordpress plugin, it is easy to install. You can then display users online information by simply using a widget.

Here’s a tutorial on how to put a text section in the main page (just right before the main listing). You can see this on my site www.cars.cebulive.com (below).

First you have to find the code below in the index.php using the theme editor in the dashboard. Simply click on Appearance then Editor and there you will find it.

Here is a high-level list of features that you can expect from ClassiPress Version 2.9:

* Customer dashboard listing all their ads current status, edit & pause ad features
* Customer profile page where they can update their own info & include a picture
* Category-level pricing. Supports free categories as well
* Percentage-based pricing. Ad cost will depend on what item listing cost is

Here are some Useful Classipress Mods and Tutorials Links;

1. Change place to Currency symbol: http://wpclassipress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=283

2. Adding extra fields: http://wpclassipress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=209

It can be changed within index.php using the theme editor in the dashboard. You just have to search for the following codes;

wp_list_categories('show_count=0&title_li=&depth=1');

and add the “hide_empty” parameter to the list. Just put after depth=1 the &hide_empty=0

To make it look like this;

wp_list_categories('show_count=0&title_li=&depth=1&hide_empty=0');