Many business and marketing experts often raise the point that people will mostly buy from businesses they know, like and trust.
Are you looking for ideas to sell more products or services online and increase user interaction on your site? Then something you can do, is help visitors get to know you and your organization better.
If you have a WordPress site, one way to easily help people get to know you better is to use a WordPress directory plugin that will let you add information about your key people, your team, or your staff.
This step-by-step tutorial will show you how to create and add a simple and easy-to-maintain directory of staff members to your WordPress site.
Adding A Staff Directory To WordPress: Plugin Tutorial
In this tutorial, you will learn how to install, activate and configure a free plugin called Simple Staff List.
Simple Staff List
(Simple Staff List Plugin For WordPress)
Simple Staff List lets you staff.
The first step is to install and activate the Simple Staff List plugin.
Log into the administration and in your admin menu section, select Plugins > Add New …
(WP Plugins Menu – Add New)
In the Plugins panel, search for “simple staff plugin”. This brings up the Simple Staff Plugin in your search results area.
Click on the Install Now button …
(Plugins – plugin search results)
Activate the plugin …
(Activate plugin)
After your plugin has been installed and activated, a new entry will appear on your main WordPress menu bar called Staff Members …
(Staff Members)
All of the options and settings for your plugin are configured and managed in this menu.
Configuring The Simple Staff List Plugin
Depending on how many people are in your organization and how you want to structure your staff directory, you could start to add new staff entries at this at this stage, or create various groups (i.e. categories) that you will assign to your staff.
Staff Members – Groups
Let’s start by setting up your directory groups. In your dashboard menu, select Staff Members > Groups …
(Staff Members – Groups)
This loads the Groups settings panel in your browser …
(Groups section)
Note: Adding directory groups is very similar to working with WordPress categories …
(Groups work like WordPress categories)
Create new groups by entering the following information:
- Group Name – Enter your group category name here
- Slug – Type in the slug of your category. Note: make sure that all letters are in lower case and use hyphens instead of spaces.
- Parent – Use this section if you plan to set up a directory hierarchy
- Description – Type in a group description (optional)
- Click the Add New Group button when finished to set up a new category …
(Groups settings screen)
If you are a medium to large organization, the ability to create categories can be very useful. For example, you can create categories for investors, developers, faculties, etc.
Create as many groups and nested categories as you want by adding new Groups and then using the Parent drop-down menu to assign these to a hierarchical structure …
(Nested categories)
Remember to click the Add New Group button after creating new items …
To edit or reassign Groups for individual items, hover your mouse button over a category title and click on the Edit link …
Your selected group details open in the Edit Group screen. Select a new parent category from the Parent drop-down menu …
(Edit Group settings)
Click Update when done …
To change your Group name or slug, hover over the group name and choose the Quick Edit menu feature …
Click on Update Group to save your changes …
Add as many categories as you need to until you are done creating your directory structure …
Add as many nested groups as you like …
(Add nested groups to your staff directory)
Once you are done setting up your hierarchical structure, the next step is to start to add staff details to your directory.
Staff Members – Add New
From your WP admin menu, select Staff Members > Add New …
(Staff Members – Add New)
This brings you to the Add New Staff Member settings screen …
(Add New Staff Member section)
This area provides you with an easy-to-use interface for adding your staff member information and includes the following fields:
Name Section (1)
- Name: Enter your staff member’s name
- Slug: Here you can edit the permalink URL for your staff member if you want (this section appears after your first save).
Staff Photo Section (2)
- Photo: Add a photo in this section
Staff Member Info Section (3)
- Position: Type the person’s position
- Email: Enter your employee’s email here
- Phone Number: Enter the person’s phone number into this field
- Facebook URL: Type the person’s Facebook URL here (note: use the full URL, e.g. http://www.facebook.com/username)
- Twitter URL: Enter your employee’s Twitter username here (note: only enter the username, not the full twitter URL)
Staff Member Bio Section (4)
- Staff Member Bio: Type in a profile description for your employees here. As this uses the WordPress Text Editor, you can use HTML into this section.
Groups Section (5)
- Groups: Assign the person to a specific group (see the previous section to learn how to set up groups).
If you click on the Screen Options tab at the top of your screen …
(Screen options)
You can enable additional page settings …
(Enable additional fields in screen options tab)
Now that you know what each section does, enter your employee’s details …
(Add Staff Member settings)
Once you have entered details, assign your new item to a directory group in the Groups box in the sidebar …
(Groups feature)
Note: If you have not set up directory groups before starting to add staff member details, you can create a group now by selecting Groups > + Add New Group …
(Add a new group inside your Groups box)
A field will display allowing you to create a new group name, with a dropdown menu to assign your new entry to a parent group. Type in the name of your new category and click on Add New Group …
The new directory category will be added. Remember to tick the checkbox to assign a person to the group …
(Groups feature)
Note: You cannot edit groups when adding or making changes to new employee details. To edit a group item, go to the Groups section of the plugin’s settings (see “Groups” section above for details).
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After typing in your employee’s details, click the Publish button to add them to the staff directory …
Click View Post …
You can make changes to your member profile by clicking the Edit Staff Member link in the WP admin toolbar …
(Edit Staff Member link – WordPress admin toolbar)
To learn more about using the admin toolbar, refer to this tutorial:
Note: If you have set up groups and get ’page not found’ errors like the one shown below, check that you have correctly set up your site’s permalinks …
(Check your permalinks if you get an error)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, go here:
Continue adding more members to your staff or member directory as shown above until done.
Staff Members – All Staff Members
After entering employee details to your directory, you can view and edit their details by choosing Staff Members > All Staff Members in your main admin menu …
(Staff Members Menu – All Staff Members)
This brings up a table with all your employees and their details …
(Staff Members details list)
If you need to make changes to individual entries, hover over their list name, and a submenu will appear.
Click on Edit to make changes to their Staff Bio, or Quick Edit to change details such as their name, slug, group, and publish status. You can also remove a member from your directory by clicking on Trash, or view the entry on your site by clicking on View …
(Edit Staff Members info)
Depending on what you are using the plugin for, your list can get quite long.
You can use the Search Staff Members search box to locate a member if required …
(Search members)
You can specify which fields can display in this screen. To show or hide fields on your screen, click the Screen Options tab …
(Staff Members Screen Options)
Placing a tick in the item’s checkbox displays the field and unchecking a box hides the field. You can also choose how many staff members are shown per page. Click Apply when done to update your settings …
Staff Members – Order
The Simple Staff List plugin also features a drag-and-drop interface that lets you arrange the order that entries show on your directory page.
Choose Staff Members > Order on your menu …
(Staff Members – Order)
To rearrange the order of your listings, click and drag the item to its new position …
(Rearrange items using drag and drop)
Your list will be automatically reordered …
(Reordered listings)
Once you have added all of your employees’ listing details to the directory, the next step is to make your directory show to your site visitors.
Staff Members – Order
Simple Staff List also features a drag-and-drop interface allowing you to specify the order in which listings display on your directory page.
Click Staff Members > Order in the menu …
(Staff Members – Order)
To rearrange the order of your listings, click and drag the entry to the new location …
(Reorder listings using drag and drop)
Your directory will automatically be reordered …
(Reordered list entries)
After adding all employees’ listing details to the directory, the next step is to make the directory display to your visitors.
Simple Staff List – Additional Notes
The Simple Staff List plugin allows you to edit the style and layout of your employee directory items using template tags and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).
Templates Menu
To customize the style and layout of your staff directory, select Staff Members > Templates from the main admin menu …
(Staff Members Menu – Templates)
This opens the Templates screen …
(Customize your directory template)
To customize your directory listings, insert any of the allowable template tags inside the [staff_loop] [/staff_loop] code.
For example, below is a screenshot of the default template used for displaying listings …
(Default Simple Staff List Staff Loop Template)
The above code displays the listing shown below …
(Default Staff Loop Template Listing)
Notice that no Facebook or Twitter URLs are showing in the above listing. To make these fields display in your directory, you will need to add the [staff-facebook] and [staff-twitter] tags to the template loop, as shown below …
(Template tags can be added to Staff Loop Template)
Here is what your staff list should now look like …
(Directory listings with social media links added)
Note: If you want to customize your directory but don’t want to mess with editing code or are not sure how to edit the template as shown above, please contact us for help.
Usage Menu
In addition to being able to customize your directory templates, the Simple Staff List plugin lets you display your staff profiles differently using modified shortcodes.
In your main menu, select Staff Members >Usage …
(Staff Members – Usage)
This opens the Usage page …
(Usage Shortcode screen)
This screen displays all the shortcode variations allowed by the plugin.
A useful shortcode variation you can insert in your page, for example, to display only members of a specific group is the shortcode [simple-staff-list group=”group name”], (e.g.:[simple-staff-list group=”technical engineers”])
You can also make your listings display in ascending or descending order by inserting the shortcode [simple-staff-list order=”ASC”] (ascending).
Options Menu
Choose Staff Members >Options on the menu …
(Staff Members – Options)
This opens the Options page …
(Simple Staff List – Options settings screen)
This section lets you edit labels like Staff Members URL Slug and Staff Member title
Finally, you can also export your staff members details from the Tools > Export menu …
(Export Staff Members info)
If you need plugin help or support, visit the plugin faq page.
Additional WordPress Plugins For Creating Simple Staff Directories
Simple Staff List isn’t the only adding a listing of your faculty in WordPress. For example, here are some other free plugins you can look at for creating a staff directory on your site:
Modern Team Staff Directory
(Modern Team Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress)
Modern Team Staff Directory helps you collect your team information and showcase it anywhere on your site in beautiful grids, columns and tables. This premium plugin features over a dozen presets and provides editors that make it easy to edit and update your directory.
(Modern Team Staff Directory – Responsive Templates)
More info:
Staff Directory
(Staff Directory – Plugin For WordPress)
The Staff Directory plugin lets you easily create a directory of team/staff/faculty members. The plugin supports staff categories and can be used for churches, schools, etc.
The plugin lets you create custom fields …
(Custom Details Fields Screen. Screenshot sourced from plugin website)
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
Faculty And Staff Directory
(Faculty And Staff Directory – WP Plugin)
This plugin was developed to provide a simple and flexible faculty and staff directory for a small college or university.
The plugin also installs a widget that allows you to feature profiles in a widget area.
Learn more about this plugin here:
Company Directory
(Company Directory – Plugin For WordPress)
Company Directory lets you easily add your employees, team or faculty to your website. Different layouts are included, including list and table views, as well as fields like title, email, phone number, photo and bio, allowing you to present your company and capabilities.
Visitors will be able to click through from your list, grid, and table views to read more about each staff member in a customizable single view …
(Display your staff and faculty in an easy to view format. Screenshot sourced from Company Directory plugin website)
This plugin uses simple shortcodes.
To learn more about the plugin go here:
Employee Spotlight
(Employee Spotlight)
Employee Spotlight displays employees, partners or just a single person in a 4-column circle grid page. This page can be easily created with a setup assistant upon plugin activation.
The Employee Spotlight pluginincludes two sidebar widgets that let you display featured and recent employees selected in the editor, plus two responsive views which adjust to the screen in the viewer’s device.
Detailed information about each employee can be displayed in their own page, as well as in summary …
(Responsive layout with employee circle grid. Screenshot sourced from Employee Spotlight plugin website)
More info:
Staffer
(Staffer)
Staffer uses custom post types for employee management and supports the display of staff members via a shortcode, allowing you to easily create and manage an onsite employee directory …
(Staffer archive page. Screenshot source: Staffer website)
Staffer works immediately with many popular WordPress themes, and also allows for custom template use and custom content wrappers.
For more details, visit the plugin site here:
If the directory plugins listed above aren’t what you’re looking for, search the WordPress plugin directory or go online and search for:
- Add Staff Directory To WordPress
- WordPress Staff List
- WordPress Plugin Staff Directory
- Simple Staff List Template WordPress
- etc.
Hopefully, now you know how to easily add an easy-to-update list directory of staff or team members to your website using a free WP plugin.
Images of persons used to depict fictitious staff members were sourced under creative commons license from pixabay.com
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum