Every term in every MLSImport taxonomy can carry a featured image and an HTML description. The image is what the Category Slider and Display Categories blocks show on their tiles, which is the main reason to set it.
Both fields live on the term edit screen, alongside the name and the slug.
Setting an image on a term
- Open MLS Properties and pick the taxonomy, for example Cities.
- Click the term you want to edit.
- Under Featured image, choose an image from the media library or upload one.
- Click Update.
Expected result: a Category Slider or Display Categories block showing that term uses the image on its tile.
The HTML description
Below the image is HTML description, a full visual editor with media buttons. Use it for the copy you would write about a neighbourhood or a property type: a couple of paragraphs, a link, a heading.
Be aware of what it is and is not. It is stored on the term and available to a template, and the bundled archive template does not print it. On a stock install it is content you are keeping for a custom template or a developer to use, not something that appears on the front end on its own.
On the Add new term screen the description is a plain text box, because the visual editor does not initialise reliably in that inline form. Save the term first, then reopen it to edit with the full editor. The screen says so, and it catches people out once.
Which taxonomies have this
All eleven: Property Types, Listing Types, Statuses, Cities, Areas, Counties, States, ZIP Codes, High School Districts, Features and Labels.
In practice the ones worth photographing are Cities and Areas, where a picture of the place means something, and Property Types, where a representative home does. Photographing every ZIP code is work with no payoff.
Picking images that work
Tiles are wider than they are tall and crop to fill, so a landscape photograph survives and a square logo loses its edges. Titles print in white by default and sit over the image, so a photograph with a quiet upper area reads better than a busy one.
Renaming a term changes what visitors see everywhere at once, on tiles, in search dropdowns and in the archive heading, without changing what the import matches on. It is the right tool when the MLS spelling is not the wording you want to publish.
If it does not work
- The tile has no image. The image is set on a different term than the one on the tile, which happens easily between Cities and Areas. Check which taxonomy the block picker took the term from.
- The image is cropped badly. Set an explicit Item height on the block, or use a wider photograph.
- The description does not appear anywhere. Expected on a stock install. It is stored for a template to use.
- The term is gone after an import. A term with no listings can be cleaned up. The import recreates it when a matching listing arrives, but the image and description on the removed term do not come back.
Frequently asked questions
Do these settings survive a plugin update?
Yes. They are stored with the term in WordPress, in the same way a category image works anywhere else.
Can I set images in bulk?
Not from the admin screens. They are set one term at a time, which is manageable because the list worth doing is short.
Does the image show on the term’s archive page?
Not in the bundled archive template, which leads with the listings. It is the tile blocks that use it.
Is the description good for SEO?
Only once something prints it. Text stored and never rendered is invisible to search engines, so it earns nothing until a template outputs it.
Related
- The Category Slider block
- The Display Categories block
- Properties, agents and the eleven taxonomies
- Manual category names like FOR SALE and FOR RENT
Send us the term and the block and we will check which taxonomy the tile is reading from.