Business directories
Local services, agencies, professionals, restaurants, and shops with category, location, and amenity facets.
Use case · Directory listings
Build a filterable WordPress directory site.
Grid Panda turns a custom post type plus ACF fields into a designed, filterable directory — businesses, properties, jobs, members, courses, venues — without stitching together a directory plugin and a separate filter plugin.
Directory shapes
One engine for every kind of WordPress directory.
Real estate listings
Properties with price, bedrooms, location, type, and feature facets — plus a card built around imagery and price.
Job boards
Roles with category, seniority, location, salary range, and remote-friendly filters and a clean role-card layout.
Member and team directories
Staff, contributors, or members searchable by department, skills, location, and availability.
Course and resource libraries
Lessons or downloadables filterable by topic, level, format, and duration with rich, designed cards.
Venue, recipe, and travel finders
Anything with structured fields and visual identity — venues, recipes, destinations, events.
Six-step setup
From custom post type to filterable directory.
Step 01
Define the post type and ACF fields
Register a custom post type for the directory entries. Use ACF for structured fields — location (text or Google Maps field), category (taxonomy), price/rate (number), amenities (checkbox), images (gallery), and any directory-specific data.
Step 02
Create a Grid Panda grid against the post type
Pick the directory CPT as the source. Set ordering rules (alphabetical, recently updated, featured-first). Limit per page to a reader-friendly count — 12 to 24 depending on card size.
Step 03
Add directory facets
Common facet stack: category (hierarchy), location (taxonomy or text), feature/amenity checkboxes, price range slider, rating icons, and a search facet for free-text on title or description.
Step 04
Design the listing card
Use the card builder with a featured image, title, location chip, rating, short description excerpt, key amenity icons, and a 'View details' button. ACF fields drop in via dynamic tags.
Step 05
Pick a layout that fits the content
Standard grid is the default. Masonry works for variable-height cards (descriptions of different lengths). Justified gallery suits image-heavy listings. List view works for text-heavy directories like job boards.
Step 06
Configure SEO for category and location pages
Make category and location landings indexable as proper destinations (e.g. /directory/category/photographers/, /directory/city/austin/). JSON-LD ItemList plus the directory's chosen schema (LocalBusiness, JobPosting, Recipe) where applicable.
Listing card blocks
What a good directory card needs.
Featured image with hover effect
Title and category chip
Location, rating, or status badge
Short description / excerpt
ACF custom fields via dynamic tags
Icon row for key amenities or features
Price, rate, or contact button
Conditional visibility (featured, premium, claimed listings)
Recommendations from real directory builds
Make the directory CPT public with an archive — Grid Panda renders the archive into a filterable grid.
Use a hierarchy facet for categories with parent/child counts — flat checkboxes don't scale past 30 entries.
Add the search facet near the top, not in the sidebar — directory users scan and search before they filter.
Index featured images at multiple sizes; directory cards rely heavily on the hero image.
Cache the index aggressively — directories change less often than ecommerce catalogs.
If the directory has paid/premium listings, drive them with conditional visibility in the card and ordering rules in the grid.
Get started
Build your WordPress directory with Grid Panda.
Free for the first 250 users. Custom post types and ACF become a designed, filterable directory ready for production traffic.