This newest iteration of BePro Listings marks a culmination of a few paths. From SEO to scaling operations, we made enough changes that we thought it best that this upgrade is a major version. The latest update BePro Listings 3 has been named Nisto. This is the Cree word for the number 3. This continues our tradition of using names that reflect Canadian heritage.
We talked about the features you can expect for months in the minor version update article BePro Listings 2.3. As per usual, we gave a lot of insight into what to expect. We are happy to say that we delivered on all of our promises in BePro Listings 3.0.0000.
Features
BePro Listings is free and all of the features discussed in this update have been added to the plugin for free. We continue to add features while simplifying their use. At a high level, we can summarize BePro Listings 3 with the following additions
- Business location schema markup (SEO)
- Mapbox support
- More stable, efficient, and error-free code
- Increased language translation support
- Increased Security
Schema Markup
Some say its very useful for SEO. Others say its not important at all. We implemented HTML markup to listings and their detailed pages which help google to understand the various pieces of information like address, prices, etc.
The goal of this change is simple, Search Engine Optimization. We want your websites to rank better. Currently, the schema is hardcoded for business listings; however, you can anticipate the ability to change this to better fit different types of directories.
Mapbox Support
We own several directory websites. We do this for revenue and to test BePro Listings. Once we began seeing a growth in traffic, we had an immediate issue. Both Google Maps and Mapbox have a free user tier. However, the free tier for Mapbox is far more generous than Google Maps. Moreover, Google Maps charges a lot for the utilization of their API once you pass that free tier.
So the solution was to investigate alternatives and we stumbled on Mapbox. It is used by some of the world’s largest websites like Cloudflare which we noticed. After reviewing their documentation, price, and capabilities we decided to implement it. Its been a long road but we are happy to offer customers alternatives
Better Code
We will sum up the remaining items as better code. We noticed multiple API calls when they weren’t needed. WP security features like nonce now allow us to confirm requests to the plugin are coming from your website. Text labels throughout the plugin have been identified and setup for translation. PHP notices and warnings have been tracked down and addressed
This is not a one time fix. As WordPress and the various API’s we integrate with continue to upgrade, we will continue to update the plugin. We appreciate notifications from you the users of the plugin when you see issues, so we can address them.
What’s next
As with all of these summaries, we give you a glimpse into the future of the plugin. To keep our customers happy, we hope to implement the following
- Increased accessibility support (A11Y)
- Look and Feel improvements
- Increased notifications
- Increased support for different schema markup
- Add location information to listing URLs
- Increased control of Map related features
Conclusion
We continue to develop BePro Listings because of the support from you our customers. Most of our features were created because of a request by a customer like you. If you have suggestions or questions, don’t hesitate to reach out via our dedicated forums. You can anticipate seeing these features roll out over the next 12 months of so.
