Direo Directory Theme Field Notes From a Real Site Rebuild

I didn’t start this rebuild because I wanted a new look. I started it because I was tired of the same operational problems showing up in different disguises: pages that felt “done” but weren’t usable, content that existed but couldn’t be found, and a backend that grew heavier with every small change. The site was supposed to be a straightforward directory—listings, categories, location pages, and some editorial content to support discovery. In reality, it had slowly turned into a patchwork of exceptions: one template for this category, a different layout for that one, a special-case menu just for mobile, and a set of “temporary” redirects that became permanent.

The immediate trigger was a simple support message: a user couldn’t tell whether a listing was active, outdated, or just incomplete. That sounds like a content issue, but it was really a structure issue. When navigation and page flow are unclear, people blame the content because that’s the only thing they can point to. At the same time, I was seeing the usual symptoms in analytics: users landing on a deep page, not understanding where they were, then leaving without interacting. Not rage-clicking—just leaving. Quiet failure.

I decided to stop making incremental fixes and treat it as a controlled rebuild. I wanted to keep the scope honest: not a “new brand,” not a “new product,” just a more dependable directory foundation. In that context I built the new site around Direo - Directory & Listing WordPress Theme, but I approached it the same way I approach any infrastructure decision: I assumed the theme would not “save” anything by itself. I expected it to give me constraints that I could trust, so I could spend less time fighting the layout and more time improving the way users move through the site.

Before I touched design, I wrote down what I actually needed the site to do, in the language of operations:

• A visitor should understand where they are within ten seconds, even if they land deep.
• A listing should read like a decision page, not a profile page.
• Search and filters should behave consistently across devices.
• Editing a listing should not require me to remember a “special” rule.
• The site should remain maintainable after I add 500 more listings.

That last point matters. Many directory sites look acceptable at 50 listings. The real test begins when your directory stops being small enough to manually curate.

The first decision: rebuild structure, not surfaces

If you’ve maintained a site for any length of time, you know the temptation: start with the homepage. It’s visible, it’s satisfying, and it gives you a sense of progress. I avoided that on purpose.

I started with the content model and page flow instead:

• What is a “listing” on this site?
• What is the most common intent behind a listing view?
• Where do users go next, and how do they realize they can go there?
• What is the “browse” journey versus the “search” journey?

In the previous version, I had tried to solve these with design tricks—bigger headings, “featured” badges, extra blocks, and sometimes a long introductory paragraph to “explain” the page. None of it held up because the underlying flow was still unclear. A visitor should not need a paragraph to understand a directory page.

What I changed first was the hierarchy: I treated directory browsing like an application flow with predictable steps, not like a blog with random entry points. The directory needed stable paths:

• Browse by category (broad intent)
• Browse by location (geographic intent)
• Browse by attributes (need-based intent)
• Search (specific intent)

I intentionally avoided mixing these on the same page in a way that felt clever. When you let every page try to do everything, the site becomes busy but not informative. Users don’t experience “more options,” they experience “more uncertainty.”

I built a staging site that behaved like production

One mistake I’ve made in the past is using a staging site that’s too clean. It loads fast, it feels stable, and it makes me think the plan is working. Then I push to production and things get noisy: caches behave differently, images load differently, and plugins that were dormant become active.

This time I forced staging to be uncomfortable:

• I copied a realistic chunk of listings, including messy data.
• I kept the same navigation depth as production.
• I ran the same types of filters and search operations repeatedly.
• I tested the site after import, not before.

A directory is not a brochure. The way it feels under real usage depends heavily on its data shape. If your listings have inconsistent lengths, missing images, odd categories, and variable metadata, your layout and flow must tolerate that without collapsing. That tolerance is part of “design,” even if it isn’t visible in a screenshot.

A quiet problem: directories fail when confidence is low

People often explain directory success as a matter of having enough listings. I don’t think that’s the main issue. The failure mode I see more often is confidence: the user doesn’t trust the directory enough to act.

Confidence comes from unglamorous things:

• Clear signals of completeness (not “perfect,” just “reliable enough”)
• Consistent placement of key information across listings
• Stable navigation and breadcrumbs
• Predictable behavior when filters change
• Pages that don’t jump around when assets load

On the old site, the listing page changed too much from one listing to another. Sometimes the map was on top, sometimes it was missing, sometimes a sidebar appeared, sometimes it didn’t. That inconsistency wasn’t a “feature”—it was accidental, created by template drift and custom blocks.

So my second decision was to reduce template variation aggressively. Not because variety is bad, but because directory visitors are often comparing. They need a stable frame to compare within.

Page flow: I designed for the “next click,” not the first impression

I’m not against strong visual design, but for directory sites the primary job is to guide the next click without forcing it.

Instead of asking “what should this page look like,” I asked:

• When a visitor finishes scanning this section, what is the most likely next action?
• Is that action obvious without being loud?
• If they don’t take that action, do they still have a safe way forward?

This is where I changed my approach to category pages. In many themes, category pages are treated like simple archives. The user sees a grid, scrolls, and that’s it. That works for small catalogs. With a directory, scroll fatigue arrives quickly. People aren’t browsing for entertainment; they’re trying to reduce uncertainty.

So I structured category pages around progression:

1. Orientation: where am I, what does this category contain?
2. Narrowing: what are the main ways people narrow within this category?
3. Listing results: show results in a stable, readable frame
4. Continuation: offer an obvious next narrowing step if results still feel broad

I kept the orientation short. Long intros are ignored, and they also push the “real content” below the fold. The page should behave like a tool, not an article.

Mobile behavior: I treated it as the default environment

I work on desktop, but most of the visitors didn’t. That means if I design on desktop first, I end up “fixing” mobile later. Fixing mobile later usually turns into compromise: collapsed filters, hidden sorting, awkward sticky elements, and content blocks that were never meant to be stacked vertically.

This time, I decided the mobile experience would define the layout constraints. Desktop would get extra space, but not extra complexity.

What I observed during testing:

• Users don’t mind scrolling; they mind scrolling without progress.
• Filters need to feel reversible. If a user applies a filter and the page changes unpredictably, they hesitate to keep exploring.
• On mobile, “back” is a primary navigation action. If the site behaves poorly with back/forward, it feels fragile.

So I focused on stability: when filters changed, the results area changed, but the page didn’t jump to a different position. That sounds minor, but it’s the difference between a tool that feels trustworthy and one that feels improvised.

I corrected common mistakes I had been repeating

During the rebuild I caught myself about to repeat old habits. These are the ones I deliberately corrected:

Mistake 1: Treating listing pages like landing pages

A listing page is not a sales page. Even if the listing is a business, the directory’s job is not to persuade—it’s to clarify. When I treated listings like landing pages, I added too many blocks: testimonials, hero images, multiple CTAs, and long descriptions. The result was noise.

Now I keep listing pages closer to an “information contract”:

• Here is what it is.
• Here is where it is.
• Here is what you can do next.
• Here is supporting detail if you want it.

Mistake 2: Adding “helpful” UI without measuring confusion

Sometimes I added UI elements because they felt modern—badges, ribbons, floating buttons. But I wasn’t measuring whether they reduced confusion. If anything, they often created new uncertainty: “Is this important? Is this an ad? Is this part of the listing?”

In the rebuild, I only kept UI elements that directly reduced decision cost.

Mistake 3: Letting categories become a second database

When categories are too granular, they stop helping. They become a second database where I have to decide between nearly identical labels. Users then face the same problem: uncertainty.

So I simplified top-level categories and used attributes and filters for specificity. I’m still careful with this, because it’s easy to drift back into over-classification.

Operational stability: the theme is part of an ecosystem, not the ecosystem

I’m careful about attributing improvements to any single component. A theme can provide a cleaner baseline, but stability comes from the whole environment: hosting, caching, image delivery, plugin choices, and data discipline.

What I did operationally during this rebuild:

• Reduced layout customizations that required constant patching.
• Standardized reusable sections so I wasn’t editing templates in multiple places.
• Tested updates in staging as if I expected them to break something.
• Treated performance and UX as part of the same problem: if a page feels slow, users behave differently.

That last point is important. People talk about performance as a technical metric. In practice, performance is behavioral. When a page loads slowly or shifts as it loads, users stop trusting what they see. They become cautious and stop exploring.

After launch: what changed when real traffic returned

The most useful part of a rebuild is not launch day—it’s the two weeks after. That’s when you learn whether your structure holds under real use.

Here’s what I noticed after the new structure settled:

1. Bounce behavior changed Not “bounce rate” in abstract terms, but the pattern: fewer sessions that ended immediately after landing deep. People still left, but more of them interacted first—scrolling, filtering, opening a second listing. That’s a structural win, not a marketing win.

2. Search started behaving like an entry point, not a last resort On the old site, users often scrolled category pages until they gave up. Now, search and filters felt like primary tools. The experience became more intentional.

3. Content editing became less error-prone When templates are stable, editors make fewer mistakes because they aren’t guessing what to fill in. I spent less time fixing formatting issues and more time improving listing quality.

4. Support questions shifted Instead of “where do I click” questions, I got more “is this listing verified/updated” questions. That sounds like more work, but it’s healthier. It means users can navigate, and now they care about content trust.

The role of category browsing and why I kept it conservative

I didn’t want category pages to feel like endless grids. But I also didn’t want them to become over-designed “story pages.” My compromise was to keep category browsing predictable and let user intent do the work.

This is where I leaned on a general pattern I’ve used across multiple sites: broad categories should stay broad, and your narrowing tools should be the ones doing the precision work.

That’s also why I anchored the directory within a clean theme ecosystem. When you operate a site with lots of different templates and styles, you end up maintaining the differences rather than the site. I wanted a foundation similar to what I’d expect from a curated set of WordPress Themes—not in terms of visuals, but in terms of consistent structure you can actually maintain.

How I evaluate a directory theme now

I used to evaluate themes based on what they “include.” That’s not useful anymore. What matters to me now is:

• Does the theme enforce consistency, or does it invite endless exceptions?
• Can I keep page flow simple without fighting layout defaults?
• Does it remain readable when data is messy or incomplete?
• Does mobile feel like a first-class layout rather than a compressed desktop page?
• Can I update the environment without re-testing every corner?

When I frame it like that, my rebuild decisions become less emotional. I’m not chasing a look; I’m building a system I can keep running.

Closing notes: what I’d do differently next time

Even with a successful rebuild, I’d still change a few things next time:

• I would define listing data standards earlier (required fields, recommended fields, and what to do when something is missing).
• I would spend more time on “empty states” (no results, incomplete listings, missing images). Those moments define whether a directory feels dependable.
• I would instrument behavior sooner, so I could confirm flow improvements with clearer evidence rather than intuition.

But overall, the biggest shift was philosophical: I stopped treating the directory as a collection of pages and started treating it as a navigation product. The theme was a tool to enforce constraints, not a shortcut to results. Once I accepted that, the rebuild became less about design and more about operational clarity—and that’s the kind of change that tends to survive the next update cycle.