Developing Siachen Global Business Directory – Your business needs a page!

Story of building Siachen Business Profiles Directory; brick by brick:

Introduction:

This is the story of how one business directory website called Onepageprofile.com now discontinued acted as precursor to building a more dynamic, search based, simple address providing, mobile friendly new platform called Siachen.com

While onepageprofile.com was built using Microsoft’s now defunct FrontPage software, Siachen.com uses the popular WordPress to fuel its engine.

Our objective with this story is to help another would-be business directory platform owner. With that objective in mind, we have the following major topics to discuss with you.

The original idea of a free and global business directory:

I devised the business slogan ‘your business needs a page’ during the days of the old business profile directory site Onepageprofile.com.

The idea of Siachen.com as mentioned in the introduction came from a business directory site I started hosting in the year 2007, eleven years back.

The below business directory (screenshot of the home page) was completely hand weaved. Microsoft FrontPage allowed anyone to quickly become a webmaster. Those days there was even something called FrontPage extension supported by most web hosts.

To understand more about a great tool Microsoft once promoted and later destroyed, follow the link below:

Microsoft FrontPage – Wikipedia page:

MS Frontpage really made life easy for the business directory host in me. There was a form in which the information was collected from the business owners as form field inputs. On submit, the form content will get emailed to me. Upon receiving the form, I shall open any of the existing business page and make which will act as a template and begin to modify it. Once, complete, FrontPage allows me to directly click a publish button and publish the changes from local PC to the web host.

Look of the onapgeprofile.com homepage as of April 15, 2015:

From the FrontPgae based Onepageprofile, which was totally a manually administered and India based business directory, we moved onto a WordPress theme based global business directory application on 2015-08-19. The new business directory platform was called as Siachen Global business profile directory.

The overwhelming interest that people have shown to create business profile entries in the onepageprofile platform led me to believe that a business directory such as the onepageprofile had lot of scope even if it is developed as a new platform.

Chronological record of the development of Siachen Global business directory;

The following section summarize the significant mile stones on the path to building Siachen free global business profile directory platform over the last several years.

We have faced significant challenges in our journey and a directory created earlier and manually managed, called onepageprofile.com’s significant contributions to the Siachen’s current status cannot be overlooked.

How to take your global business directory building plan forward:

Any business directory has the following essential components.

1. The platform
2. The content

These are the two factors to consider primarily. These two parts form the heart and brain of your business directory.

As far as serving your guests are concerned, you have two type of visitors to consider.

1. Your business directory visitor who is in search of some type of business.
2. Business owners who come to create their profile in order to achieve either a client through the directory or a search engine visitor who become their potential client through the exposure that directory gives them through the directory listing.

Platform can take many shapes. It could be completely hand coded by a developer, WordPress driven, or it could even be options like edirectory  or brilliant directories to give few examples.

In the case of Siachen, we chose the WordPress platform since it is cost effective since you find lot of expertise easily. Since hundreds of plugins are easily available that makes it easy to develop the platform making a lot of hand coding unnecessary.

The downside of using WordPress is mainly around the security. WordPress is not known to be very secure. However, security is one aspect from which entire IT is suffering from and rather increasingly. Hacking is commonplace now. Hence keeping the site secure will be one of your 24 hours worry whether you decide to base your platform on WordPress.

We choose a freelancer who created a theme from the scratch at a reasonable cost to start with. We have put in intensive efforts for at least a one-year period to build the Siachen free global business directory platform.

How we are special, features of Siachen free Global business directory. 

1. 1. Unique content for your business profile which is significantly important for good search engine ranking and exposure – this is your effort, but since many are not very SEO savvy, we force you into it by mandating 200 unique words for your profile resulting in the best possible ranks.
   2. A simple straight forward address for your page which will be a great help to small businesses and those who do not have a website.

1. Example for such an address is the business known as ‘usha fans’ will get an address such as www.siachen.com/usha or www.siachen.com/ushafans which is easy for a small business to even add in their brochures, eliminating the need for a separate website.
2. A clean page that is all yours – no intrusions whatsoever except some neatly delivered, yet unobtrusive ads by prominent ad delivery network.
3. An easy way to keep your business profile updated through a dash board while for most small business owners needs to depend on your site developer or tech savvy others to update your profile.
4. As we grow in number of profiles and there by search engine ranks, your exposure on search engines will be only boosted along with number of our direct visitors who may be potential clients for you.

In many ways we are a unique free global business directory with a goal to serve you, our visitors and our profile owners well. Serving one means serving the other. It is our promise to continuously strive to do the following to serve you even better.

• Enhance Platform reliability
• Monitor and improve Platform security
• Ensure the most accurate profiles are only published.
• Ease of use improvements
• Platform performance improvements.

The beauty of pursuing creating a business directory on the web serves the following social / business purposes.

1. It helps a business without a website significantly. Siachen’s free business profile allows a business owner to submit as much text as he wants in his business profile. Only condition we mandate is to ensure the content quality, quantity, and uniqueness.
2. These days with everyone searching on Google, your web presence gains significant importance and a directory is a very good method to achieve this landmark. Kindly refer to our profile creation guide that goes more in-depth into helping you create a profile.

Challenges, risks and overcoming them.

However, there is no gain without the pain! Don’t jump into a startup for business directory business unless you know the risks. But the same risks would be rewarding if it is handled well.

1. Site reliability – it is required to choose a good webhost with good performance metrics to ensure that the platform remains running at optimal performance.
2. Choosing the right web host – while choosing the webhost itself is a challenge ensuring that they are monitoring site for issues related to security, performance, and accessibility is another challenge.
3. Incident handling – At any time, you must anticipate various incidents that may bring the site down.
4. Handling the development, tracking issues and closely watching the platform to understand various features that can be implemented and most importantly documenting them to track their progress is a significant challenge. We have a detailed section on this area called ‘Discuss the current issues in Siachen and feature wish list’ in this article itself.
5. Sit security – in these days of constant threat of being hacked, one of the toughest challenges is going to remain keeping the site safe from being hacked. Two main challenges here is to keep the profile owner’s private information safe and most importantly their passwords. Secondly it is about the site itself and someone taking over or executing changes to the platform through a takeover. Hence work on the area of defense on continuous basis.
6. Earning and maintaining the search engine ranks – unless you are facebook or nytimes where people go directly without a search, earning and maintaining search engine ranks for your business directly is of utmost importance. Our finding is that there is only one door here; great content in quality and quantity.

Technical components of a global business directory platform

It is better to know the layers of technical components you will be dealing with in your business directory. We neither have knowledge nor it is in our scope to discuss this area in depth. But let us touch upon this section based on our own experience building Siachen business profile directory.

1. 1. The web host for your business directory – Shared will be enough to start with but based on your traffic and applications intensity of resource usage, you may need to start looking to a VPS or dedicated web host as your business directory platform reach from the visitors improve. Please make use of our guide in the Siachen blog Story of a Site Migration from Shared Hosting to the VPS Web Host, Hosting Raja of India. This article cited, will help you go more in depth into the evaluation against shared or VPS hosting to choose. But if you are just starting out, you must do well with the shared hosting.
   2. Linux platform-based hosting is relatively cheaper, it being open source compared to windows hosting and choosing this as your web hosting platform will synch well with the WordPress that we would like to recommend.

1. WordPress theme will be something that if you are developer with PHP and MySQL database experience can chose or employ either a reliable freelancer or a web site design company to work upon.
2. It will be a good idea to go without any WordPress plugin and go for all code development branching out from your primary application theme. However, this can prove to be prohibitively expensive due to the coding needed and because developers charge for time.
3. Siachen business profile directory employs up to 30 plugins and they serve variety of purposes critical and non-critical.
4. Our central theme has been coded by our freelancer who originally developed the site as already mentioned.

WordPress or no WordPress?

There is no mandate that you must go with the WordPress for your business profile directory. However, this makes life easy if your budget is relatively small. The advantages of using WordPress are listed below.

1. Advantages of cost: WordPress’s most celebrated advantage is its reduced cost of building. You may still need to rely on your developer for many aspects of your business directory. However, that reliance can be greatly reduced by its use of plugins with or without the help of a developer.
2. CMS advantages: As these days most sites are done in the content management fashion, your business directory can also follow the same method making it easy for your profile editor to keep publishing the business profiles as they are posted on the site by business owners.

3. Core and plugins are constantly updated: Almost daily, you find that the plugins get updated and periodically WordPress core also gets updated. This can be a major advantage in thwarting the hacking attempts using the latest security vulnerabilities.

4. SEO advantages: How the SEO is handled is a major consideration for any website. In Siachen free global profile directory platform, we have Yoast installed as a plugin and hence we get on the spot evaluation of the pages SEO status before we publish the business profile. This helps reduce the SEO considerations a lot. Also, the directory name at the end of the title tag that you see is auto inserted by Yoast on every page. Such steps help reduce administration greatly.

5. Ease of using a new developer: Once you engage a developer, it is normally not easy to go to another because the developers are normally hesitant to take up another one’s project. However, with the WordPress they normally find a common ground and that makes it easy to transition if you must.

Here is a list of plugins that we employ on Siachen that will give you an indication into the possibilities of handling various functions of the site using plugins.

Backup, backup and backup.

We have already mentioned the challenge of security to be a big one in setting up and maintaining a global business directory. Combined with that, any accidental action that can impact you, the web host or the developer must also worry you.

The business profiles that are published must also get the best protection possible as it is not just your effort but also the effort of numerous clients who painstakingly built that the content for their page and spent time on your site.

There is nothing of more paramount importance than regular backups. Web host offers you a backup solution through control panel whether you chose to go with the shared hosting or not. However, do not rely on it entirely. It is better you do your own backups of your WordPress site.  One plugin that we would like to mention that helps with the backup in a great deal is the UpdraftPlus plugin.

UpdfraftPlus WordPress plugin is free. However, if you want features such as scheduled backup, ability to backup even the word press core, you would need to choose the premium version which comes at a reasonable cost.

Making a mark in the search engines for your business profile directory.

Here comes probably the crux of the story. One of the toughest parts in popularizing a free or premium business profile directory can be creating the right imprints on the major search engines.

No number of tricks will play here because Google, Bing or Yahoo is smart enough to spot your tricks quickly.

I have one simple advice here. Most of your ranking comes from the quality, quantity, and uniqueness of your content. Whether it is your blog or your business owners’ profiles, go for clean sweeps in the sense that go for no compromise. Only the best word, text and sentence must get posted. Except for very rare occasions where a copy cannot be avoided, do not allow a profile with a copied text.

Search thoroughly whether the submitted profile has been copied. In majority of the cases, we are finding that the submitted business profiles are a copy of their website content, profile.

My point is that if you are a business owner or an employee who understand the business, you must be able to right 200 words for a unique new business profile as demanded by Siachen business profile directory.

This is probably going to be the key to our current popularity and going forward the key to our continued popularity.

Using Asana for managing the project.

Asana is a tool I learned about during the first association with the freelance developers who helped us. However, this has been one of the great learning experiences. It is an excellent tool to manage your business directory project.

Asana Project Management Tool Screenshot:

For you to organize well after the planning has been completed, it is best that you go for Asana app for the project management. It is a great tool to put the work in perceptive.

There may be many ideas here and it does not matter how to conduct your project management. We were only making you familiar with a tool we used using initial project execution that we found to be extremely meaningful for prudent business directory or another similar projects execution.

Focus on the common visitor and the business profile owner.

I have been asking myself a question for which I found no answer. That’s whether my site visitor or whether my site visitor who is a business owner is more critical to me.

Going forward once the premium features get activated in the process of your directories project of course the critical section will be the one who is owning profile. However, if there is no visitor coming to find and interact with the business profile owners, there is no life in your free business profile directory.

Hence, please focus on the following for your two main visitor categories:

Type 1:

Site visitor (let us call them profile viewer): they are coming to find a business.

• Ensure that they find the information that they are looking for fast and easy.
• Ensure that the site loads fast.
• Ensure that the search is hassle free.
• That they can easily leave some comments about the business if they wish to do so.
• That they can contact the business owner through phone or online enquiry easily and effectively.

Type 2:

Business owner visitor (business profile creator): they are visiting to post a profile.

These are the type of visitors for whom you have built your building directory platform. However, the key is not you have built for them. More than that, the key is what they give it to you in terms of profile content. To get a clean unique and profile with quality, we sweat a lot and it may be the same case with you.

• Ensure that the platform, mainly the dash board is well presented, and the directions are clear.
• Ensure that you give them precise directions to ensure the top profile content quality.
• Once you have received the content posted, process it as fast you can and communicate with the profile owner wherever changes are expected if you are withholding publication.

Challenge of the unique content; people never stop copying.

As far as this topic is concerned, please refer our profile creation guide for additional reading into the subject.

Our suggestion is that, ensure the business owner writes a fresh, unique profile about their business. Even if you must reject ten profiles not meeting that objective, it is not unwise since the company is likely to have copied the same website content to LinkedIn Facebook and other such online profiles.

On the profile creation guide cited above, we have explained with a sample profile giving clear steps as to how to go about creating a fresh, unique sample business profile.

If you make compromises in profile quality, you will go on making it and the business directory is unlikely to gain much foothold in the major search engines, in customer community or even the businessmen community.

Hence it is our sincere advice to make no compromise on content quality. Maintain your standards at any cost. Once the popularity has been achieved, people will realize the potential and start submitting profiles despite the difficulties in creating a fresh content for your business profile. Siachen business directory has accepted several unqualifying posts in the past due to not formulating clear terms and conditions. However, after our experience with the type of incoming content, at Siachen free global profile directory, we are no longer accepting any profile page content that does not adhere to our content creation standards or requirements.

Importance of the CDN; it is your first line of defense and booster shot.

CDN or a content delivery network serves two purposes for your global business directory.

1. They speed up your access to host by accepting connections from the nearby geographies.
2. They help filter your traffic acting as a proxy to filter malware and act also as a critical line of defense in attacks such as exploiting vulnerabilities and DDoS.
3. They cache all the caching possible content that will help speed up the delivery furthermore.

In the case of Siachen, we have setup Cloudflare CDN for our delivery and it serves great purposes. In fact, after the migration to the VPS hosting, we were critically short of network performance and till the time CDN was setup, the site was erratically nonresponsive.

Your goals with your business directory – Do no harm and serve a purpose.

One gratification you earn out of hosting a global business profile directory that is free to all, is that in the process of maintaining your platform, you are very likely helping a lot of small business owners who may have various difficulties in setting up or maintaining a website including some of them who may have financial challenges.

While it is understandable that to excel and improve, we need to deploy funds, never remove the free component and do not impose restrictions that are insurmountable for the smallest business men.

Only regret we have is that we are imposing 200 words mandate on the profile owner. But while we are aware, they are coming to us to get a good search engine exposure and some business through the Siachen directory as we grow on audience, we are unable to remove this restriction.

However, at Siachen, it is our endeavor to try to constantly make useful changes that will ease any difficulty that a profile owner on search visitor might face on our platform.

Importance of the improvisation and constant learning.

The below folder structure has been presented to give you some ideas on where to look. What type of learning a business directory platform creation project and constant improvement activities entails.

Building a business directory platform is not a one term affair. It is a constant set of actions that you need to continue to undertake. There is no constant here. It is an ever-moving scenario.

These days videos are the way to quicker understanding as you may agree. You will never know when the next issue or challenge will be posed while you are maintaining a business directory. It is best to prepare and be ready for the next incident rather than scrambling and firefighting as you grope in the dark once it strikes.

Learning and Research ideas for Siachen.com – Folder Snapshot:

Set your goals high – a dream, free, global business directory of international repute.

I have seen the US based directories such as yelp grow before my eyes. In the same way, Sulekha and Justdial which is India based is other two examples to cite.

We don’t have to copy them. But as an aspiring business directory owner, there is no harm in learning.

They all have their own style of functioning. While some need you to enter your phone number to just enter, some let you browse around with no conditions. My love for democracy makes me a fan of Yelp who present to you everything without forcing you to give any information to them.

In the long run building trust of the visitors and users is what matters. Understand that your goal is not to let someone to visit you when prompted to do so but on their own free will and having told that there is a great business directory out there that lead them to potential customers.

To build that reputation, if we must follow some strict stipulations such as 200 words in a certain form field, Siachen Global business directory is willing to do so for the business owners, visitors, and the platforms benefit.

Location, location and location. Local search is where the search is going.

Search is beginning to get local. When your visitors come, they want to be able to find the business nearest to them easily and effectively.

Hence the location detection, search in the filtered location will be crucial going forward. With the mobile devices ability to find the location and combined with the sites content filtration based on location, search is likely to get more and more personal and location centric.

Users have started talking to their mobile phones and ask it to search and produce results. You can imagine the direction the technology is taking from just this aspect of the change in search methods.

Most of the well-known directories are letting the user search based on the lo

ation. In fact, there are few which are truly global and directories that fill this void is not likely to do poorly.

Get them the ranks and tell them what you need from them.

Your business directory visitors want the ranks in search engines and business through your site. You want a great platform. On the intersections on these two objectives, in my opinion the factor that is central is content. How you deal with this central component is what will decide whether your business directory succeed or fail.

It is not astronomically difficult to get the right content in quality and quantity. While users might not be able to produce it, guide them on some premium plans or content writing services so that they have some alternative methods to crack their content rich profile creation objective.

On this front, Siachen has constituted some content creation services for which we have associated with some content writing services. You may learn more about our services from the premium services page.

Whether your visitors provide the necessary piece of content to you or not, it is of paramount importance for them that they achieve the best possible search engine ranks for their own page which is one their primary objectives for their listing with you in the first place.

Be ready for business profile entries in multiple languages.

We were not fully prepared to process business profile entries in other languages. Currently we are employing google translator to understand the meaning of their content.

Going forward, we understand that we need to employ better methods to process these types of profiles in order to help the visitors who are coming to find results in other languages.

At Siachen, being a free global business directory, we have a need to be prepared for entries in multiple languages.

Our Standard profile rejection communication:

The following communication is what we sent out to a profile owner whose profile does not qualify to be listed. We hope you can use this for your template.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Greetings from Siachen.com – ‘Your business needs a page’, a global business profile directory!

Kindly note that we found the business profile you have submitted to be inappropriate in content. Hence, we will not be able to publish the profile.

Please understand that the reason for rejection is most likely one of the following.

• You have only created an ID and no business profile has been created yet either due to technical or other reasons.

• Substantial portion of the content that you have used to create your profile is a copy from some source, including from your website.
• You have submitted too little unique content as our standard requirement is 200 unique words of content for the business profile.

We are confident that you can write 200 unique words about your business as your business profile which is a mandatory requirement for business summary field; a small business story about how you built and operate it. Please create a piece of content that is not a copy from anywhere (including your own site). Lack of such an original text in your business profile is the most likely reason your business profile entry has not been accepted.

Please note the following two issues around any sort of copied content.

1. It is not useful to rank your business profile through Siachen, on the major search engines, since the text is already indexed by major search engines and the content you have submitted will be treated as duplicate content.

2. 2. It is detrimental for us to host copied content as it will denigrate or end up in a total ban of this platform, going forward.

Please follow the ‘profile creation guide’ on Siachen.com top right corner and prepare the business profile data as fresh and unique as possible. Only profile that follows our content standards will be helpful to you and us.

Remember that the quality, uniqueness, and quantity of your profile content will ultimately determine the search engine rank your profile page will receive through Siachen.  Siachen dash board provides you plenty of opportunities to write a detailed, long, and unique profile. Please note that search engines or their visitor are not interested in any copied content irrespective of its source. Please make use of the opportunity to write a detailed profile to achieve a mutually beneficial organic search engine rank for your page through content SEO.

Please consider this communication as a humble request from our end to create / edit your business profile at the earliest and resubmit it to us.

Also, please note that the properly written profile will be published after review / edit on a First-Cum-First-Served basis at this time in Siachen platforms progress.

Thanks, and Best Regards,

Siachen.com Profile Admin.

Our communication to business owners after an update:

This is what we send out after some interim update to a Siachen business profile.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Greetings from Siachen.com – ‘Your business needs a page’, a global business profile directory!

Recipient specific message:

Kindly take these actions if appropriate, at the earliest.

1. Kindly add more unique content to your profile to improve search engine ranking for your page.
2. Check and add the Google map of your office location if it is not yet added.

Importance of the quality, quantity, and uniqueness of the content on you profile page cannot be stressed sufficiently. It will ultimately decide how well you rank in the major search engines. For more information on understanding how the pages achieve better Search Engine ranks, kindly refer our Profile Creation Guide.

General Message:

We sincerely apologize for any delay in publishing or updating your business profile on Siachen.com

The below business profile page belonging to you, has been published / updated. Kindly check the veracity of the published content.

https://www.siachen.com/hienz

Please use the registered email address at the below link to reset password if you have lost access to your business profile and would like to update it. We would like to recommend writing a unique (containing no copied text from the web anywhere including your site) profile with a strength of 500 words if you are trying to gain good search engine rank through our listing.

Please do check in your junk/SPAM folder for the new password once the reset has been initiated and if it does not arrive in your inbox.

https://www.siachen.com/reset-password

Thanks & Best regards, Profile Admin, Siachen.com

You may write to us through the contact us link on the site or at the following mail address on any concern related to your listing. [email protected]

Discuss the current issues in Siachen and feature wish list:

This section discusses how we are tracking the platforms pitfalls and planning features. We believe this section will be valuable for any would-be business directory owner.  It will lead you to the understanding about some common issues and features that he or she may require to target as the platform moves forward with improvements in reliability, security, performance, and ease of use.

Every item in this section is prefaced with the type of item, detail and additional description.

It is delivered in a way in which it is communicated to the developer and noted for reminding about the issue / feature to the owner who is building the directory.

Document the platform as it is a fundamental reference for improvements.

Type: Documentation

Detail:  Document the architecture including db an application. – targeted to a moderately technical person, covering all aspects of the platform.

1. Technical document that has business explained
2. Explains how the site functions as it is and what fundamental changes are needed.
3. Takes into account the problems discussed in this document.
4. Makes actionable suggestions to create a better platform.

Review and report site pitfalls and document it leading towards a new revamped platform called Siachen 2.0 that would incorporate the solution to the identified issues and other important and mandatory improvements to make the site such as the following.

• User friendly
• Bug free
• Fast performing
• Secure
• Fault tolerant

Write all about the current directory platform in a way that any new programmer can quickly understand the critical areas.

Along with the points noted in this document a comprehensive review from your side is the aim of this item. The result of this task will be a document and discussion that can take the site to a ver 2.0 of Siachen.com in terms of performance, security, reliability, and ease of use.

This document will create the possibility of introducing premium services soon. This can be a business review based also on technical team’s inputs.

Stipulate the unique ID length to 15 characters.

Type: Change

Detail: The business Unique ID is now too long and it doesn’t fit in mobile screens.

Need a better way to attach the business category to the business profile.

Type: New Feature

Detail: Currently, attaching a business category to a business profile is taking too much time from the backend and even from the dash board. This needs to be simplified through a search box here.

Screenshot of the current business category screen section – to be modified.

Optimizing the search in the best possible way.

Type: Bug

Detail: As seen in the screenshot below, search is not working as expected. All the items in the profile must be searchable and should give the rights results.

Screenshots showing the search issues:

Siachen Load Speed issue – no compromise here.

Type:  Performance Issue

Detail:As seen in the screenshot below, the page loading is very slow as reported by Alexa and as seen in real time. This is most probably coming from some plugin execution during page load or due to erroneous code. This needs to be troubleshot and rectified to make site load instantly.

Screenshot; Site Load speed issue as per Alexa.

Latest blog post and profile of the month in home.

Type:  Change

Detail: Make changes as explained in the subject.

Create a clean system for profile category icons that’s easy to administers.

Type : Change:

Detail:  Find a convenient solution to this matter from a location where all kind of images would be available. As can be seen in the shot below, (icon image) we do not have images for all the categories and need a smooth solution for this.

Screenshot; Profile category icons section.

Make registration email ID and Contact email ID visible in the backend.

Type: Change

Detail:  Also, all initial registration details picked up must be shown on top of the profile owner dashboard.

Make one item mandatory – The telephone number and city fields:

Type: Change

Detail:  The landline or mobile number must be made mandatory in the profile owner dashboard. Also, city or nearest major city must be made mandatory. Remember it is either one. Not both.

Option to change the registration email ID in profile owner dashboard.

Type: Change

Detail:  Currently there is no option to change the registration email ID.

Implement CAPTCHA everywhere. It is already implemented in some forms.

Type: Change

Detail:  CAPTCHA is critical to preventing SPAM. Hence this request.

Howdy that is appearing in production as someone login to be corrected.

Type: Change

Detail: We do not want this word. It should be changed to an understandable English greeting.

Reviewing the search function.

Type: Change

Detail:  This task aims to carry out the following.

• Siachen directory search function quality
• Search function issues
• Optimize the search function in such a way that the visitor finds it fast, easy to use and intuitive.
• Check the relevancy of the results and identify any issues that require rectification.

A specific search issue found

Type: Issue

Detail:  A search for restaurants results in all sorts of businesses as listed below.

Screenshot; A search for restaurants results in all sorts of businesses as listed below.

Discuss, identify and fix all mandatory fields.

Type: Change

Detail:  A review of mandatory fields are required and action to be taken.

Collapse fields that are empty in Admin edit and Customer edit modes.

Type: Change

Detail:  Currently admin screen opens up a long page. Empty fields need not be auto opened in the admin section.  Customer edit section is already actioned for this function.

Option to add Google authenticator to the member accounts.

Type: New Feature

Detail:  It will help improve the security in an era where hacking is common place.

Show the search result rank in customer portal:

Type: New Feature

Detail: If ten customers who owns restaurants in calicut register, based on his time of entry, he will be moved to the top of the search results. For example, if there is a restaurant called sagar in Calicut among other ten restaurants in Calicut which were registered later on, sagar will be pushed to the top of the search result because it was the first entry. This must be shown in the customer portal in the way below.

Rank status:

Search term ‘restaurants’ – rank number — (this rank will be based on all restaurants registered universally in the site).

Search term ‘restaurants in Calicut’ – rank number 1 as it was the obviously first entry.

Customer editing screen improvements:

Type: Change.

Detail:  Manage Profile section to be moved to the right side, rating system by the visitor to be revamped and not allowed to be SPAMed, profile completeness to be more prominently displayed in a nice graphical format. Current editing window is given below.

Screenshot; Profile owner dashboard.

Prepare the site for the following premier services in the next platform version Siachen 3.0

Type: New Feature.

Detail:  Manage Profile section to be moved to the right side, rating system by the visitor to be Premium services planned:

1. Siachen verified seal – platform preparation and content preparation.
2. Profile Creation Services – content already published.
3. Force movement to the top of the search result – a paid customers profile will be pushed to the top as part of this plan. Prepare the platform update and content required for this feature.
4. Payment gateway and rate advise – prepare the platform for payment gateway incorporation, and provide business advice on suitable rates to be charged.

Account Information’ mail is not coming for some:

Type: issue

Detail:  Serious mail failure issues have been identified.

There is still some problem with account information mail not coming to some mail domains.

I am not aware what other domains are affected like this. But I see a major issue with many domains not working. It could be possible that many people are not receiving the ‘account information’ mail after creating their ID.

Account Information’ mail needs to change.

Type: Change

Detail:  Change as dialed below:

Currently the account information does not say that you need to create your profile after the activation. Hence the below change is urgent to direct the profile owner to the next step of a proper profile creation.

Current ‘account information’ mail content sample:

Account Information

Thank you for your business registration.

Account Email : [email protected]

Business Unique ID : popularprinters

New ‘account information’ mail content sample:

Account activation and Profile creation advice:

Thank you for your business registration.

Account Email : [email protected]

Business Unique ID : popularprinters

Kindly create your business profile and keep it always updated in the future after activating account by clicking the link below. Before the profile creation, please ensure that you read the instructions in the help section of the Siachen.com. This is necessary to ensure that the content quality and quantity is maintained to achieve the best possible ranks in search engines.

Kindly also note that, we may take up to a week to review and approve the listing for public consumption. A listing decline may follow in case the content quality and quantity is not maintained. You will be notified by mail whether the profile has been listed.

Correct the ‘No Image’ in the home page section below.

Type: Issue.

Detail:  Issue has been detailed below.

Please ensure that the available image in the blog post / business profile is displayed in the home page section below.

Your Account is activated’ text needs some additions.

Type: Change.

Detail:  Change has been detailed below.

Please refer the screenshot below. The above screen that appears when you click the activation link, needs a text below ‘your account is activated’ message. Please add the text ‘Kindly login to your account to proceed with your business profile creation’.

Screenshot; Your Account is activated’ text needs some additions.

Unable to login after creating a new ID.

Type: Issue.

Detail:  An issue as detailed below has been identified.

Please refer the screenshot below. I tried the email address, first part of the email address, and business unique ID as the user name from both Chrome and Firefox. Nothing works, and I was unable to login.

Screenshot; Unable to login after creating a new ID.

Please make clear what is ‘username’ marked in the screenshot below.

Type: Change.

Detail:  Currently the ‘user name’ has not been defined clearly.

We do not have a field called username when we ask user to sign up. But when they login to create a profile, we mention user name or email. What is user name here? Is it business unique id or name part in the mail address? Please make appropriate changes to the form or forms so that there is no confusion to the user. Also in the account information notification email, make the necessary changes.

Screenshot; Please make clear what is ‘username’ marked in the screenshot below.

Site Contact Us form is not working.

Type: Change.

Detail:  Mail issue has been identified.

Screenshot; Mails sent from Siachen ‘contact us’ page also is also not coming to any siachen mail IDs.

Inserting the Map from the profile is not working.

Type: Issue.

Detail:  The map is displaying a ‘developer only’ issue and does not work for the dash board also.

It was possible for the profile owner to easily insert the map earlier. Please check what is the issue? Google allow 25K loads every day free of charge when I checked.

Screenshot; Inserting the Map from the profile is not working.

Organization name and postal address is exceeding the borders.

Type: Issue.

Detail:  The issue as identified needs to be rectified.

While viewing some profiles, it looks ugly when this happens. Please have these fields wrapped so that they move to the next line instead of crossing the line borders.

Screenshot; Organization name and postal address is exceeding the borders.

Please build an ‘email the profile owner’ feature.

Type: New Feature.

Detail:  Currently once the approval or decline has been done, the profile owner can’t be contacted from admin side.

Thousands of profiles have been found empty as you are aware, probably because of the login failure issue which we recently found. There must be a way to easily email the profile owner with a short message any time to request them to complete their incomplete profile. This feature must be always available from the admin console.

Share this business is not working.

Type: Issue

Detail:  An issue has been identified as described below in the ‘share the business’ option.

Please check the highlighted part of the screenshot below to find the issue. This used to work before. It is not clickable anymore.

Screenshot; Share this business is not working.

Two reset password related issues.

Type: Issue

Detail:  Issues have been identified in reset password as described below.

1. Reset password resets password and no email comes.
2. Please check the highlighted part of the screenshot and correct the spelling. Please make it ‘kindly check’

Screenshot; Two reset password related issues.

Attribute all content’ seen below doesn’t work. 

Type: Issue

Detail:  Once a user account has been deleted for some reason, there must be a way to associate to another profile.

Since there are so many IDs converted as admin, due to some earlier bug or mistake, there is a need to create a new ID and associate the properly created profile belonging to the old ID to the new ID while the old ID with ‘admin’ as user name is deleted. This method below seems to be working. But after logging in as new user (attributed content of the original user), the completed profile comes up empty with no content.

Screenshot; Attribute all content’ seen below doesn’t work.

  Restrict the words and insert ‘Business Summary’ below ‘organization’.

Type: Change

Detail:  Changes as requested to the field length and position.

Please refer the below screenshot and make the following changes.

1. Restrict the ‘business summary’ filed with minimum 200 words.
2. Insert the ‘business summary’ after organization. Please test it properly and make sure correct alignment.

Please add a field called ‘contact name’ before ‘your position in company’

 Type: Change

Detail:  This is a request to add a ‘contact name’ before the position field.

Screenshot; This is a request to add a ‘contact name’ before the position field.

Method to ensure no duplication of phone numbers.

Type: Change

Detail:  Currently the profile owner can repeat the same in several fields.

A method is needed to ensure that users do not provide the same number for all communications. I want to be able to mark such profile as requiring improvement in business owner’s dashboard. Mark the profile as providing ‘inaccurate information’.

Also, build a suitable check when they first create the profile to ensure that mobile number is not the same as the land line number and allow only one as necessary.

Screenshot; Method to ensure no duplication of phone numbers.

Enquiry button click does not work after a search.

Type: Issue

Detail:  The issue as described below needs to eb addressed.

Enquiry does not click in search. Numbers are displayed inaccurately.

Prepare the site for proper profile rating by visitors.

Type: Change:

Detail:  Please make change as requested.

The below screenshot is from yelp.com. We want to build something like this for Siachen.com

Screenshot; yelp.com visitor rating picture.

Photo Gallery for businesses to upload.

Type: Change:

Detail:  Please make change as requested.

The business will be allowed to upload any photos that they want to showcase in their profile. An example of this can be seen in justdial profile.

Approval every time profile is updated.

Type: Change:

Detail:  Please make change as requested.

To avoid any junk or inappropriate data coming into the directory and to maintain quality, either the updated parts alone must be frozen before it is reviewed and approved, or the profile should be delisted fully and sent back to admin for review. Two options are given below.

• Freeze the part of the changes till approved and the existing profile remain published.
• Delist the profile completely and send it back to admin for approval.

Need the ability to include in two categories.

Type: New Feature

Detail:  There is a need to be able to add a business in two categories.

Please see the sample ‘Abhinam Yoga School in India’. I am able to select in categories, but the page displays only one.

Screenshot; There is a need to be able to add a business in two categories.

Uninstalling unwanted plugin and documenting the use.

Type: Change.

Detail:  There is a need to ensure that only required plugins are maintained.

This task required the following.

1. Uninstall unnecessary plugins
2. Document the installed plugins in detail and provide the document at the end of the task.
3. Ensure that all plugins are updated with the latest ones.
4. Test and ensure that the functions of the site is unaffected after the plugin’s uninstallation / update.

Install some caching plugin.

Type: New feature.

Detail:  The addition needs to be evaluated.

Speed of the site is a number one concern. This request is part of improving the speed.

Here’s the lineup: WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache, WP Fastest Cache, Comet Cache, and Cache Enabler.

Setup a HTTP 404 page.

 Type: New feature.

Detail:  The addition needs to be evaluated.

An urgently needed page on the site. Please ensure that all standard recommendations are followed and the user is given correct link and guidance once he reaches this page.

HTTP 404

The HTTP 404, 404 Not Found and 404 error message is a Hypertext Transfer Protocol standard response code, in computer network communications, to indicate that the client was able to communicate with a given server, but the server could not find what was requested.

Issue while trying to register the profile the same mail ID.

Type: Issue.

Detail:  The issue needs to be rectified.

Instead of coming back with a message that the ID is already used, the form comes back empty. Please check and correct the issue.

Introduce location-based search.

 Type: New feature.

Detail:  The location needs to be added to the site search.

The user needs to be able to search based on his current location or choose whatever location he chooses to search from within the home page search option.

Unable to write comments. Asks to give rating, but I see no option.

 Type: Issue.

Detail:  Comments has not been working correctly.

There should be two ways a visitor can comment.

1. The first one is who he has the regular Siachen credentials. This user already has a business user role.
2. The second method is through the social login that they have through the plugin or a similar plugin seen in the below screenshot. This user must be given subscriber or a similar less privileged role in the WP.
3. This is required for business pages and well as blog articles.

Screenshot; Unable to write comments. Asks to give rating, but I see no option.

Obscure the email address and show it only on mouseover.

Type: Issue.

Detail:  email address shouldn’t be directly visible on the view page.

Currently the email address listed in a profile is directly shown to anyone visiting the page. To avoid SPAM BOTs harvesting and to protect our client’s privacy, I need this information to be visible only on mouseover or through some other way.

Profile page has several empty areas.

Type: Issue.

Detail:  Alignment of the view page is not proper due to the three adsense ad blocks.

Pages needs perfect alignments and no empty areas must be seen in pages.

Screenshot 1: Following screenshots show some empty areas.