Business tool builder

Put your local business directory online
with a review step before anything goes live.

Describe how your directory is organized and Netiva’s AI builds the web app: category pages, a page for every business, a public submission form and a queue your staff work through.

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Starter prompt

Build a business directory web app for a chamber of commerce. Listings hold a business name, category, description, logo, a contact block with street address, phone and website, opening hours, a status of Draft, Pending review, Published or Archived, and the date the owner last confirmed them. Categories nest two levels deep. Publish a browse page with keyword search and a category filter, a page per category and a page per business. A public form sends new entries and corrections into a submissions queue, and nothing appears publicly until a moderator approves it. Listed owners sign in to edit their own entry and post a dated offer.

Build it in Netiva Paste the prompt into a new workspace and adjust it to your business.
Overview

Who this business directory is for

A chamber’s member list too often lives in a PDF that was current two renewal cycles ago, next to a web page only one person knows how to edit. Businesses send in a new phone number or a moved address, the note gets buried, and readers call a shop that closed last spring. A business directory built with Netiva keeps listings, categories, submissions and member offers in linked collections, so every category page renders from the same records, new entries arrive through a form your team reviews, and owners can sign in to correct their own details.

Key features

What your business directory can do

  • Category pages that build themselves

    Categories nest two levels deep — Food and drink, then Bakeries — and each one gets a page. Bind the listings collection to it and the category page, the browse page and each business page render from the same records.

    • Two levels of categories, from Home services down to Roofers
    • A listing reaches its category page as soon as you publish it
    • Keyword search and a category filter on the browse page
    • Saved staff views: pending, archived, or still missing a logo

  • Submissions with a review step

    The public form writes to a submissions collection, not to the live directory. Moderators work a queue of new entries and corrections, read each one against the listing it changes and decide what reaches the site.

    • Review states: New, In review, Approved and Declined
    • Corrections linked to the listing they would change
    • A flag when a name and address match something you publish
    • Mail to the moderator the moment a submission lands

  • An area for the businesses you list

    Owners sign in and see only their own entry. They correct opening hours, swap a logo and post an offer that runs to a date you set, while the editor still sees each change before readers do.

    • Each signed-in owner sees only their own listing
    • Offers with start and end dates, shown while they run
    • Owner edits arrive as submissions instead of going live
    • The /submit link the office sends new members, which fills the same queue

  • Entries that stay current

    Once a year, scheduled mail reaches each owner at the address they sign in with and asks them to confirm their listing. The collection assistant tidies what drifts: phone formats, stray capitals and categories written three ways.

    • A yearly confirmation link that stamps the listing
    • A view of everything nobody has confirmed in over a year
    • Bulk cleanup of phone and address formatting across rows
    • Offers stop showing on the listing page after their end date
Data model

The collections behind it

Netiva keeps your records in built-in collections. Here’s a starting structure — the agent adapts it to your prompt, and you can change it any time.

Listings

Every business in the directory, one record per location.

  • Business name (required) Text
  • Category (required) Sets the category page the listing appears on Relation to Categories
  • Description (required) Shown in full on the listing page and trimmed on the browse list Paragraph
  • Logo Image
  • Contact details (required) Street address, phone and website; one record per location, so two shops get two Paragraph
  • Opening hours One line per day; blank for businesses without set hours Paragraph
  • Status (required) Draft, Pending review, Published, Archived Text
  • Last confirmed Stamped when an owner answers the yearly confirmation mail Date

Categories

The tree readers browse by, and the pages built from it.

  • Name (required) Text
  • Parent category Empty for a top-level category; one level of children below it Relation to Categories
  • Intro A paragraph at the top of the category page Paragraph
  • Sort order Lower numbers first; alphabetical when left blank Number
  • Header image Image

Submissions

What arrives from the public form, before anyone decides to publish it.

  • Business name (required) Text
  • Contact email (required) Who to write back to; never shown on the public page Text
  • Category requested Relation to Categories
  • Details (required) The description, address and hours the sender typed in Paragraph
  • Listing Set when the submission corrects an entry you already publish Relation to Listings
  • Review state (required) New, In review, Approved, Declined Text
  • Submitted at (required) Date & time
  • Moderator note Why it was declined, or what was fixed before approval Paragraph

Offers

Member deals and announcements tied to a listing, shown while they run.

  • Listing (required) Relation to Listings
  • Headline (required) Text
  • Details Paragraph
  • Artwork Image
  • Starts on (required) Date
  • Ends on (required) The offer stops showing on the listing page after this date Date
  • Status (required) Pending review, Published, Expired Text

Required field. Types are Netiva collection field types.

Screens

Pages and screens to start with

A typical first version. Ask the agent for more, or annotate the preview to change any of them.

  • Browse the directory

    Every published business, searchable by name and description and filtered by category, newest approvals first.

    Public

  • Listing page

    One business: description, address, phone, website, opening hours, logo and any offer running today, at its own link the owner can share.

    Public

  • Category page

    A category, the child categories under it and the businesses in each, under an intro paragraph your editor writes.

    Public

  • Add or update a listing

    The public form: business details, the category the sender wants and a contact email, with a note on what happens next.

    Public

  • Review queue

    New submissions and corrections next to the listing they change, with approve, decline and a moderator note on each.

    Your team

  • Your listing

    Where a signed-in owner edits their own entry, uploads a logo and posts an offer with the dates it should run.

    Signed-in users
How it works

From prompt to a live business directory

  1. Describe what you list

    Tell Netiva what belongs in the directory, how readers should browse it and who reviews what comes in. The agent drafts collections for listings, categories, submissions and offers, then sketches the public pages.

  2. Load the businesses you have

    Type your current members into the collection grid, or describe them and let the collection assistant draft rows for you to check. Set each one’s category, address and status as you go.

  3. Walk the pages with your editor

    Invite the directory editor into the workspace, open the browse, category and listing pages in the live preview and annotate anything that should read differently. The agent edits while you both watch.

  4. Open submissions and publish

    Publish in one click and connect your own domain from the Starter plan, then link the form from your newsletter and let the queue fill. Every later change is checkpointed, so an edit that misfires is easy to roll back.

Why Netiva

Netiva vs a traditional build

Building a business directory with Netiva compared with a traditional build
Criterion With Netiva Traditional build
New listings Submissions land in a review queue and become a listing page the moment a moderator approves them A form is emailed to the office and someone retypes it into the page weeks later
Stale entries Yearly confirmation mail, plus a view of every entry nobody has confirmed Wrong numbers and closed shops sit there until a reader complains
Getting started Describe what you need in chat and watch it take shape in a live preview Hire developers, or stitch together templates, plugins and a hosting plan
Content and data Built-in collections with nine field types, bound straight to your pages Set up and connect a separate database or CMS
Making changes Ask the agent; every change is checkpointed and reversible File a ticket, wait for a sprint, redeploy
Hosting and domain Global hosting and automatic SSL; connect a custom domain from the Starter plan Buy hosting, then install and renew SSL certificates yourself
Code ownership Clean production code you own and can export Locked into a template, plugin or agency setup
Examples

Ways teams use it

  • A chamber of commerce with 400 members

    Membership staff publish one listing per paying member and stamp Last confirmed at each renewal, so the office decides on a handful of queued submissions instead of retyping every address change by hand.

  • A local news site’s neighborhood guide

    The newsroom runs its top-level categories as districts, with shops, restaurants and services under each. Owners send corrections through the form rather than emailing a reporter, and a volunteer clears the queue on Friday mornings.

  • A trade group’s list of certified installers

    A regional association lists only businesses whose certification is current. Each listing carries the date it was last confirmed, and anything nobody renews moves to Archived and drops out of the public list.

Good to know

Before you build

  • Someone has to work the queue

    A review step only helps if a person opens it. Decide who checks submissions and how quickly, and keep the form short: a name, a contact email, a category and the details you would actually publish. That review is what keeps junk entries off your public pages.

  • Paid placements need a label

    Sell a top slot or a featured listing and the FTC’s native advertising guidance applies: an ad shouldn’t suggest it is anything other than an ad, and readers notice a label near the headline. Ask for a placement record that stores which slots are paid and when they end.

  • The listings are yours to gather

    Netiva doesn’t supply a business database or import a spreadsheet for you. Start with the members you already know, entered in the grid or drafted by the collection assistant for you to check, and let the submission form bring in the rest over time.

  • Maps and markup

    A map on each listing page means calling a maps provider’s API with your own key, stored securely. Search engines read a listing page more easily if you ask for LocalBusiness structured data on it. Basic SEO tools come with the Starter plan, advanced ones from Pro.

FAQ

Questions about building a business directory

How do business owners get into the directory?

They fill in the public form. It writes a record to the submissions collection with the review state New, not to the live directory, so nothing reaches readers until a moderator approves it. Your team opens the queue, checks the details against anything already published, picks the category and publishes the listing. Declined submissions keep a note explaining why, which makes the reply easy to write.

Can a listed business update its own entry later?

Yes. Owners sign in and see only the listing linked to their account, where they can correct hours, swap a logo or post an offer. You decide how much goes live on its own: most directories route edits back through the same review queue so the editor sees them first, while an offer with a start and end date can publish as soon as it is approved.

How do we stop duplicate and spam listings?

Ask for a check that flags any submission whose business name and address line already match a published listing, so the moderator gets a warning instead of a second entry. Asking for a contact email and reading every submission by hand keeps the rest off the site. When a business genuinely has two locations, publish two listings and let the address tell them apart.

Will each business get its own page in search results?

Every published listing renders at its own path, such as /directory/riverside-bakery, so it can be linked and indexed on its own instead of sitting inside one long page. You can also ask for LocalBusiness structured data on it; Google’s documentation says that markup can go on any page of your site, though a page about the business makes more sense.

Can we charge for a featured spot in the directory?

Ask the agent for a placement record: which listing is sponsored, which category page the slot sits on, the dates it runs and a mail to you before it lapses. Two things stay outside the app: label paid placements clearly so readers can tell them from the rest of the list, and take the money the way you already invoice dues or ad space. Netiva builds the directory, not your billing.

Can the directory run on our own domain, and can we take it with us?

Yes. Publish in one click, then connect your own domain from the Starter plan by adding the DNS records Netiva lists at your registrar; hosting and SSL are handled for you. What the agent writes is production code you own, so you can read it, edit it in the editor or export it whenever you want. Every change is checkpointed and can be rolled back.

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Drafted with AI assistance from Netiva’s product pages and reviewed by the Netiva team. Example data models, screens and prompts are illustrative starting points, not customer projects.

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