Listing Your Business

If you run a business in the Upper Yarra — a café, a shop, a gallery, a service — your Local Trader & Business membership includes a listing on the Waterwheel site.

You write it yourself, from the front of the site. No WordPress login, no admin training, and nothing to send to a volunteer.

Allow ten to fifteen minutes the first time. Edits after that take a minute.

It goes faster if you gather these first:

• A cover photo — wide, landscape, JPEG, PNG or WebP, up to 8 MB. A shopfront or the actual product works better than a logo.
• Up to five more photos: inside, your work, your team.
• Your street address, or the towns you cover if you come to customers.
• Your opening hours, day by day.
• A phone number, email or website: at least one of them.

You don’t have to finish in one sitting. Save what you have and come back.

The join form asks for your business’s name, as customers will see it — Bellbird Bakery, not your own name.

Once you’ve confirmed your email and saved your card (nothing is charged until you’re approved), your business is waiting for you on your account, ready to fill in. You can set it up while a volunteer looks at your application.

Sign in and you land on My Account. Your business is your dashboard:

• Tiles across the top: whether it’s live (and open now), when your membership renews, and how many people viewed it and tapped its buttons.
• The tracker: the five steps, and what each still needs.
• Needs attention: anything we’d like you to answer.
• Quick actions: close for a day or a few, take it off the site, or open it to edit.

Your business has five steps — Details, Photos, Location, Hours and Contact & links — and then Live.

It stays off the site until the steps marked "needed to go live" are done, so nobody sees a half-finished listing. Then it goes live by itself on the save that finishes the last one. There’s no button to press and no one to wait for.

The tracker says what each step still needs. Click a step’s name to jump to it. You can save at any point.

Business name and Business type are what this step needs. Visitors find local traders by type.

Tagline — one line about what you do; search engines and link previews show it. Lead with what you actually do, not with adjectives:

Sourdough, pies and good coffee on the main street.

About your business — the longer description on your page: what you sell, what you’re known for, anything a visitor should know before making the trip.

The Cover photo is the one this step needs. Visitors are trying to recognise the place from the street, so a shopfront or what you sell does more than a logo.

Add more photos takes up to five more.

Note the line above the picker: by uploading, you confirm you own the photos or have permission to use them, and you allow the Waterwheel to show them while your listing is active.

Where do customers find you? If they come to you, choose At my shopfront or premises and type the Street address. When you save, the site puts the pin on the map.

If the pin isn’t quite right, drag it, or click the map where you are, then save. A pin you place yourself stays where you put it.

A plumber, a gardener, a mobile mechanic? Choose I come to customers and fill in Where you work: the towns or area you cover, e.g. Warburton to Yarra Junction.

Your page then shows that area instead of an address and a map.

Tick each day you open and set From and Until. Hours are optional, but visitors look for them first: with them, your page and the traders list say Open now or Closed.

A note about your hours shows under them — Closed on public holidays, say, or Later in summer.

Further down, Closed for a while takes dates when you’re away: your page stays up and says Closed until ….

A Phone number, an Email for enquiries or a Website is what this step needs. Each one shows as a button on your page.

There’s room for a Booking link (if customers book with you online), a Menu, Products or online shop, Facebook and Instagram too. Each needs the full address including https://. Leave out what doesn’t apply: an empty one simply doesn’t appear.

Then Save.

When the last step is done, the save puts your business on the site. Changes you save after that show straight away, so it’s worth opening your page once it’s live and reading it as a visitor would.

Still waiting for your membership to be approved? It says Ready · goes live when you’re approved, and goes on the site the moment you are.

Opening hours are what visitors get caught out by. Somebody drives up on a public holiday, finds the door shut, and the listing said you’d be open.

So your dashboard asks. Before a public holiday on a day your hours say you’re open, it asks whether you are: click Closed that day or We’re open. Every few months it also asks Are your hours still right?: Still right, or Change them.

• Closed today — turn it On and your page says Closed today. It turns itself off at midnight.
• Closed from … until … — for a break; see the next slide.
• Show my listing — Off takes your business off the site until you turn it on again.
• Edit — Open goes to your business, or click a step’s name to go straight to it.

Closed is not hidden. A closure keeps your page up and tells visitors when you’re back. Hiding takes it off the site.

Click Set dates, choose the first and last day you’re closed, add a reason if you like, and click Save these dates.

Your page stays up and says Closed until …, then goes back to your normal hours by itself.

Closing for a season, or changing hands? On your business’s page, click Hide for now, choose a Back on date if you know it, and click Hide it.

It comes off the site and is kept exactly as it is. On that date it comes back by itself, or click Show again (or turn Show my listing back on) whenever you’re ready.

I run two businesses. Can I list both? Local Trader & Business covers one business. If you need a second, email info@yarravalleywaterwheel.org and the committee will talk it through with you.

Can people buy from me through the Waterwheel site? Not from your listing — it sends them to you, to your own shop link, phone or door. (Artisans & Makers selling through the Waterwheel’s own shop is a separate arrangement.)

My membership has ended. What happens to my listing? It stays on the site for a while after your membership ends, then comes off. Nothing is deleted: renew, and it comes back.

My business isn’t showing on the site. Look at Your business on your account. A step may still be to do (the tracker says which), Show my listing may be Off, or your membership may still be waiting for approval.

Something else? Email info@yarravalleywaterwheel.org and a volunteer will pick it up.