The first thing that comes to mind if you want to add maps in your WordPress blog post is, to use a reliable and easy to use Google Maps plugin for WordPress, such as, WP Google Maps and MapPress Easy Google Maps. MapPress is my favorite Google Maps plugin because of the simple user interface. One more thing that i found good about MapPress is that fact that you can create maps when you are creating the post and integrate it to your posts with short-code without having to open a new page.
Without any doubt, Google Maps is the best map service on the internet. However, the usage of their Geocoding API has some limits. You can’t make more than 2,500 requests on a single day and for business uses. You cannot make more than 100,000 requests per day.
Google Maps Alternative
There are several alternatives to Google Maps, such as, Bing Maps and Yahoo! Maps, but my favorite alternative is Open Street Maps.
Open Street Maps is called as “Wikipedia of Maps,” since all the data found on the map is obtained by people contributing to the community. Thousands of contributors across the globe share useful information to share data with one another. On top of that, people who add information to Open Street Maps are most likely to have 1st hand experience and makes the whole thing hyperlocal.
Flexible
OSM is more flexible when compared to Google. You will be able to create maps that are more customized. There are no limits when creating maps with OSM.
Free
As mentioned earlier, Google Maps has some limitations in the number of requests sent per day. This is not that case with OSM, you don’t have to pay even if you have integrated it in to an application or website which uses it a lot.
On the downside, OSM is not perfect. I don’t think any map out there is perfect. OSM certainly has a long way to go to catch up Google Maps, but there is a lot of potential.
WordPress Integration
I found a few plugins in the WordPress plugin database that helps you integrate OSM in your WordPress blog post. I tried many and the integration worked perfectly well only with one plugin. its called ‘Leaflet Maps Marker.‘ You can download the plugin here. You can also add it directly to you blog right from the dashboard.
With OSM you can have several views, like how Google Maps offers Terrain, Satellite, traffic etc. I have showed the screen shots of 3 of my views that have used while testing the plugin.
I will soon write a complete review for this plugin, since there are lot of options this plugin offers could be overwhelming for many.
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