Create a Classifieds Listings WordPress Website – WPAdverts Plugin Review

WPAdverts is a freemium plugin that turns WordPress into a fully-featured classifieds website. If you want to accept listings from your visitors or create your own classified adverts for publication on your WordPress website, this could be the tool for you. In this WPAdverts plugin review, we’ll explore the main free and premium features to help you decide if this is the right tool for your project.

As well as covering the best features, our WPAdverts plugin review will walk through the process of publishing and managing adverts and listings on your WordPress website.

Who is the WPAdverts WordPress Plugin For?

As mentioned, WPAdverts is a freemium plugin that upgrades WordPress so that it can store and publish classified adverts. Everything you need to get started is included in the free core WPAdverts plugin, with more features that can be enabled at a price through the premium add-ons system.

Therefore, if you want to build a classified listings website to promote products, services, events, and other items, WPAdverts could be a good choice. Also, if you already have a WordPress website and would like to add this sort of functionality, WPAdverts could be suitable for you too. As it’s a freemium plugin, WPAdverts should appeal to anyone regardless of their budget.

Does WPAdverts sound like something you could use on your website? If so, read on to find out exactly what is can do in our hands-on WPAdverts plugin review.

WPAdverts WordPress Plugin Features

The WPAdverts features and functionality can be divided into two groups, free and premium. To help you see exactly what the free version of the plugin can do, we’ll explore the features of the core WPAdverts plugin before moving onto what the best of the premium add-ons can bring to your website.

Classifieds Custom Post Type

After activating the core WPAdverts plugin, a new custom post type is added to your WordPress website. From this section of your WordPress dashboard, you can easily create new classified adverts or listings, manage the existing ones, and create and manage classifieds categories.

WPAdverts also adds forms to your website, giving your visitors the ability to sign up and submit their own listings. These form submission are then stored in the Classifieds custom post type area. You can manage these listings through your WordPress dashboard. A user who has submitted a listing can manage it through their control panel on the front-end of your site.

Core Classifieds Fields

The free version of WPAdverts gives you access to the core set of fields for adding classifieds to your website. This includes the title, main description, and author name. As the plugin uses WordPress custom post types, the classifieds creation screen will be familiar to anyone who has ever published a blog post with WordPress.

You can also use the additional information panel to enter details like contact details, and the item price and location. As mentioned, earlier in this WPAdverts review, each listing can be assigned one or more of the classifieds category taxonomies.

There’s also a photo gallery section that makes it very easy to add multiple images to your listings. Simply drag and drop the image files into the area and they’ll be uploaded to your classified listing. You can also edit the image in the gallery section. Everything is fully mobile responsive with WPAdverts so your listings should look great on smartphones and tablets. Classifieds can also be set to automatically expire by a set date.

Monetizing your WordPress Classifications Website with WPAdverts

The core free WPAdverts plugin also gives you the option of setting a fee for creating listings on your site. Creating multiple payment options is possible, including a free plan if necessary.

However, you will need to purchase a premium payment gateway add-on in order to process payments through your site. The premium modules also give you the option of integrating WPAdverts with WooCommerce and its payment processing capabilities. But, if you’re only using the free plugin functionality, all you can do is give your visitors the option of paying via post or bank transfer.

With the core plugin, the only difference you can set between the pricing options is the number of days a listing is live for. So if you want to give your visitors the ability to create a classified advert that stays live for longer, you can easily do so. You can also create plans with different prices, for people who are renewing their listings.

As we’ll see in the Premium Add-ons section of this WPAdverts plugin review, there’s also a way to charge your visitors a fee for publishing a listing in certain categories as well as making their listing a featured listing.

Viewing the Published Classified Adverts

Once you’ve entered the details of the listing, it can be published. Now anyone accessing your website can view the advert.

The WPAdverts plugin should work with any well-coded WordPress theme. Due to this, if you’ve already got an existing WordPress website, this plugin should integrate seamlessly with your current configuration. On the other hand, if you’ve yet to start your website, you’ll be free to choose any quality WordPress theme that catches your eye.

As you can see, the core WPAdverts plugin adds a custom widget to your WordPress website. With this widget, you have the option of displaying links to your classifieds. These links can be displayed in the sidebar, footer, and other areas of your website, depending on your theme settings. You get a good amount of control over how the links are displayed, including which category they are drawn from, how they are sorted, and a few other options.

With the free version of WPAdverts, you also have the option of displaying a contact form under each classified. This makes it easier for your users to contact each other. Any messages sent through the form will be delivered directly to the person who created the listing.

Displaying the Published Classified Adverts on Your Site

When the WPAdverts plugin is activated, three new pages are added to your WordPress website. These pages are used to display all the live listings on your site, display the listings submission form, and display the listings management control panel.

All that these pages contain is a shortcode that when published, outputs the corresponding content. In the case above and below, this is the form for submitting listings on your site. But it could also be the list of all the live adverts or the page for users to self-manage their adverts. You can also use the shortcodes to insert the form or listings display into other posts and pages on your site.

If you’ve chosen to enable featured listings, then any classifieds with this tag will be highlighted a different color. This helps the featured listings to stand out and can be made available as a premium upgrade your visitors might want to pay for.

WPAdverts Premium Add-ons

The above features outline the core functionality of the free WPAdverts WordPress plugin. As you can see, the free version of WPAdverts gives you a quick and effortless way to add classifieds listings to your WordPress website.

These core features and fields provide more than enough functionality to get started and begin accepting and publishing listings. This includes using the image gallery, contact details, location, expiration dates, featured listings, and custom category features. However, you can do even more with WPAdverts by purchasing the optional premium add-ons. Here’s our pick of the bunch.

PayPal Payments Standard Add-on

The PayPal Payments Standard add-on is probably the extension that will enhance your classifieds website the most. For just $29 you can start monetizing your advert listings and earn money from your website. Payments are made through the PayPal processor. However, your users won’t have to have a PayPal account to make a payment. They can choose to use their credit card instead.

Once the PayPal Payments add-on is live on your site, there’s very little for you to do. Simply enter your PayPal account email address and decide whether to use the add-on in test mode or start taking payments via PayPal.

WooCommerce Integration

WooCommerce is the most popular ecommerce plugin for WordPress. If you’re using this plugin on your website already, then you can enable the WPAdverts WooCommerce Integration add-on to start collecting payment for your premium classifieds through the WooCommerce shopping cart system. For $39, this add-on gives you another way to handle payments on your WordPress classifieds website.

Fee Per Category

Another monetization related add-on is the Fee Per Category module. This add-on works with the PayPal Payments Standard and WooCommerce Integration modules, enabling you to charge extra for certain types of listings. For example, if a user wants to create a listing in the laptops category, you can assign a higher fee for doing so, compared to, for example, the accessories category.

For $29, the Fee Per Category gives you another way to monetize your classifieds listings WordPress website.

WPAdverts WordPress Plugin End User Experience

WPAdverts aims to provide you with everything needed to ensure you can offer the visitors to your website a way to submit, pay for, and manage classified listings on your site. Thanks to the features of the core plugin and optional add-ons, this is all easily achieved.

Once you’ve set up the plugin, visitors can use the front-end forms to sign up and create a classifieds listing. This also creates an account for them so that they can log back in later and manage their listings. If they choose to, they can also pay for a premium listing on the same page.

The listing will be added to your site once the form has been submitted and any payments made. You can then manage it through the Classifieds section of your WordPress dashboard.

As you can see, WPAdverts is very easy to use. From both the site administrator and end-user perspectives, creating and managing classified adverts is simple and straightforward.

Other premium add-ons for the WPAdverts plugin include:

• Custom Fields:  create custom forms with the drag-and-drop builder and set of custom fields.
• Maps and Locations: create a pre-defined database of locations and enable distance related features.
• Google Analytics: let your customers view stats for their adverts, such as ad views and time spend viewing the advert.
• reCaptcha: protect your forms using industry standard spam fighting tools.

WP Adverts All Extensions Bundle

You can also purchase all extensions bundle. This gives you the ability to enable all of the possible premium upgrades for WPAdverts for 65% less than buying the add-ons individually. The bundle also includes access to all future add-ons as soon as they are released. Another benefit of purchasing the bundle is that you can get access to the Advanced Priority Support channel. Definitely, something to consider if you want to create and run a professional classifieds listings WordPress website.

WPAdverts Plugin Review Final Thoughts

WPAdverts is an impressive plugin. Not only are the features all highly useful, but the user experience is also very intuitive. Setting up the plugin so that your WordPress website can accept free and paid listings is very straightforward. Your visitors are sure to find it easy to use the front-end forms to submit and manage their listings too.

The add-ons and module system helps keep the plugin lightweight. Rather than overwhelm you and your website with everything this plugin can do, you can pick and choose which of the free and premium modules and features you want to enable.

When it comes to the premium modules, they are all reasonably priced. However, the premium add-ons bundle gives you access to all of the paid modules for one discounted price.

As WPAdverts should work with any well-coded WordPress theme, there’s nothing to stop you from trying out this freemium WordPress classifieds listings and adverts plugin today.

Find out more about WPAdverts and try the online demo now.