Maps Marker Pro Plugin for WordPress Review

With no less than 72 powerful features, Maps Marker Pro is (in its developer’s words) “the most comprehensive and user-friendly mapping solution for WordPress”. Whether you’re organizing a community bike ride, looking to increase foot traffic to your Thai restaurant, or are planning the launch of a boutique bakery shop, Maps Marker Pro is the WordPress mapping solution of choice.

In this article, we’re going to take a closer look at Maps Marker Pro and reveal how many of its most powerful features can be harnessed for your WordPress website.

Primary Features of the Maps Marker Pro Plugin

Maps Marker Pro’s most basic functionality enables you to create a marker for the geographical location you have in mind, use one of over a thousand icons to represent that place, and create a link for directions. Additional text can be added in a pop-up window.

You can create clusters of markers as well. Say for instance that you’re an organic dog food manufacturer and distributer. Your customers might want to know where to purchase your product locally. You can use clusters to identify each region of the city where your dog food can be found, and consumers can find individual store locations within each region.

Noteworthy Additional Features of Maps Marker Pro

• Use shortcodes to embed maps into your pages, posts, templates, and widgets.
• Display icons are customizable.
• Choose your own base maps, including Google Maps, Open Street Map, Bing, Mapbox, and custom WMTS-maps.
• Fully responsive.
• Add QR codes of your maps to packaging, etc.
• Create a map legend.

All of these features and more are available for a one-time license fee.

Standard support for one domain is available on the Personal plan for $31. Five domains are supported on the Plus plan for $87, and the Professional plan offers support for 25 domains at the cost of $164. Although each license is a one-time fee, updates and continued support incur a yearly fee.

You can test out these features before fully committing by activating a 30-day trial. The trial seamlessly transitions into the paid version if or when you’re ready to upgrade to the Pro version.

Deciding Which Features are Best for You

With so many features to choose from, you might be wondering which ones could truly benefit you and your business goals. Let’s explore some real case studies.

Ewetopia uses Maps Marker Pro to indicate where customers can find their products. In the image below, they use clustering, layers, and icons to point to markets and restaurants that carry their products.

Examples of clustering and various marker icons

Niagra Cycling Tourism Centre created multiple maps as well. Some indicate cyclists’ routes, and others indicate where cyclists could stop for repairs and additional services along those bike routes. The third image is of a Maps Marker Pro legend.

Screenshot of the GPX tracks for the Niagara wine route

Screenshot of bicycle rental and repair markers

Screenshot of a map legend

Cartography training isn’t needed to create your own maps that look as precise and professional as these.

Bringing the World to Your (Virtual or Physical) Door

How exactly is all of this done? Let’s say you’re the owner of Mindi’s Moochi Delights & Cafe – where you sell moochi desserts, beverages, and short cook menu items. You have both a website and brick-and-mortar shop, but your primary marketing goal is to get foot traffic into your store. What would be your next step?

Step 1

After installation, click Maps Marker Pro in your administration panel within WordPress, followed by Add new marker. You should be led to a page that looks similar to this:

“Add new marker” Screenshot

Step 2

Fill out all necessary fields. You want to name the marker, enter its location, choose its map size and zoom level, assign a layer (if desired), determine the type of control box and display panel, select an icon, decide if you’d like pop-up text, and if so, enter that text, and then click Publish.

You might be prompted to provide longitude and latitude coordinates for your desired location. Here’s the easiest way I’ve found to do that. Once all the fields have been filled out, they should look something like this:

Filling out “add new marker” fields

Step 3

Copy the shortcode of your new marker from the top of the page:

This is where you grab your map’s shortcode

Alternatively, you can click the Add map button located at the top of the text editor menu of your new page or post.

Alternatively, you can insert shortcode into a new page or post by clicking the “Add Map” link

If you don’t have an existing post or page in which to display your new map, create one, then add the shortcode into the appropriate area. Format your page or post as desired, and then test out your new map. Here’s the end result:

This is how your finished map will look

This basic map has a clear image with precise coordinates. It’s sure to help patrons gain a visual understanding of the business location. Information added to the pop-up box further enhances the customer experience, as they don’t have to search for basic information such as business hours or parking availability.

Using Maps Marker Pro With a Growing Business

When you create layers,
adjacent locations become clusters

As your business or organized event grows, so can the depth of information you provide to site visitors using your WordPress Maps Marker Pro plugin.

On average, site visitors who make one map request – as in requesting to view one geographical location on your website – require hundreds of map resources behind the scenes. When a web server has to recall that much information, pages can potentially load more slowly, which makes for a poor user experience.

Site visitors will typically search for another website instead of waiting around for a page to load. But the good news is that the clustering option offered by the Maps Marker Pro plugin reduces page load time.

In the image above, the green circle is an example of clustering. There are two cafe locations in close proximity, so they’re clustered together. Once clicked, viewers can see the separate locations of each.

To create clusters, you’d make layers similar to the markers we went over above. Instead of “Add new marker” you’d select “Add new layer”. After filling out all the fields and saving the new layer, you can then assign your markers to appear on the layer you created. This results in the image directly above – one map with multiple clustered locations.

Have You Tried Maps Marker Pro?

The Maps Marker Pro plugin is a nifty tool that positions you to offer an added layer of information to site visitors and potential customers. It boasts dozens of features and translation options, and has a shallow learning curve, so you won’t have to carve much time from your busy schedule in order to activate and display your maps.

Get Maps Marker Pro

Do you think that the Maps Marker plugin will be a viable solution for your business? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!