Where the business details of the site are kept and how the contact and footer modules use them. The contact and footer modules have their own pages.
What it is
One place to enter who your business is, where it is and how to reach it. Open Components, Webal Blocks, Options (the Options button) and choose the Business details tab. The contact module, the footer module and the navbar all print what you enter here, so the details agree everywhere and you change them once.
Leave out anything you do not need: every box is optional, and an empty box is simply not shown.
What you can enter
| Group | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Company | Trading name, registered company name, the wording before the company number (see below), company registration number, VAT number, a regulator or membership line, and the registered office. |
| Address | Building name or number, street, area, town or city, county or region, postcode, country. |
| Telephone numbers | Up to six numbers, each with a name, a kind (landline, mobile or WhatsApp) and an optional icon. The first one is your main number. |
| Email addresses | Up to six addresses, each with a name and an optional icon. The first one is your main address. |
| Opening hours | Monday to Sunday: closed all day, or an opening and a closing time on the 24 hour clock. A note, and a switch for hours that run past midnight. |
What is checked when you save
- Company registration number: 5 to 20 letters and numbers. UK numbers are 8 (for example
12345678orSC123456); numbers from other countries are accepted. - Registration wording (where the company is registered): there is no default, because the right words depend on where you registered. Examples:
Registered in England and Wales,Registered in Scotland,Registered in Northern Ireland. Leave it empty to print the company number alone. A number startingSCis Scottish and one startingNIis Northern Irish, so Webal Blocks shows a warning (not an error, and your details are still saved) if the wording seems to name a different place. - VAT number: with or without spaces. UK numbers (
GB123456789,GB 123 4567 89, 12 digits for branches, or just the nine digits) and EU numbers (DE123456789). - Postcode: any country's code. UK postcodes are tidied when printed, so
zz9a9zzshows asZZ9A 9ZZ. - Telephone number: an optional
+, then digits, spaces, brackets and hyphens, 5 to 15 digits. A visitor on a phone can tap it to call. For WhatsApp give the country code (+44 7700 900123); a UK number that starts with 0 is treated as +44. - Email address: one plain address, checked with Joomla's own rule. Names, lists, apostrophes (
o'brien@...), quotes, brackets, percent signs and accented letters are not supported. An address with accented letters in its domain must be written in itsxn--form. - Opening times:
09:00,9:00and9.30are all accepted and tidied toHH:MM. A day needs both times or neither, and the closing time must be later than the opening time (24:00 means midnight). Switch on Some days close after midnight to allow, for example, 18:00 to 02:00.
A wrong value is refused with a plain sentence next to the box; nothing is saved until it is fixed.
Company and VAT numbers are printed as plain text and never become links.
A space or line break pasted at the start or end of a value is removed for you. The lists hold at most six numbers and six addresses; free text boxes hold one short line (up to the length shown in the box).
Using different details in one module
Contact and footer modules have Use the site business details (Yes by default). Choose No to give that module its own details; the boxes appear. Modules that hold their own copy of a part ignore the site's copy of that part only.
A site in more than one language
The business details are one set for the whole site: the numbers, times and address lines are the same in every language, but the words in them (the registration wording, the regulator line, the names of the telephone numbers and email addresses, the opening hours note, the country) are in one language.
Webal Blocks does not add a second set of boxes for each language. It uses Joomla's own way of working in several languages instead: one copy of the module for each language. Make a copy of the Contact or Footer module for each language, set the copy's Language to that language, choose No for Use the site business details, and write that language's words in the module's own boxes. Joomla then shows each visitor the copy for their language. The words that Webal Blocks itself adds (such as "Open now" or "Registered office") come from Joomla's language files, so a language pack or System, Language Overrides changes them for each language.
What UK law expects on a business website
This is a plain summary of what is commonly required, not legal advice. Check your own position with your accountant, solicitor or trade body.
- A limited company commonly shows its company name, its registered number, the place it is registered (England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland) and its registered office address on its website (the Companies Act 2006 and the Company, Partnership and Limited Liability Partnership (Names and Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2015). The Company group holds all four.
- A business that sells or advertises online commonly gives an email address and a geographic address (the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002). A telephone number is not required by those rules but is usual.
- VAT: show your VAT number if you are VAT registered.
- Regulated trades (for example financial services, legal, medical or data protection registration) usually have registration wording to show; the Regulator or membership box is for that.
- A sole trader's home address or mobile number is personal data. Putting it on a public website is your choice under UK GDPR, and anyone can then see it. Leave it out, or use a business address or number, if you would rather not publish it.
Structured data
A module's Structured data option prints your details as schema.org JSON-LD (an Organization, or a LocalBusiness when opening hours are given) for search engines. Only boxes that are filled in and valid are included, and only one block is printed on a page. A module writes only what it shows (a footer that does not show the opening hours does not write them), because search engines expect structured data to match the visible page. The telephone number is written only when it has a country code (+44 ... or 0044 ...).
Joomla's own System - Schema.org plugin can already print an Organization on every page. If it describes the same business, switch the module's structured data off, or you will have two. A module kept in the module cache cannot know about the others on the page, so switch the option on in one module only. The website address written into the data is never taken from the visitor's request: it is the Live Site box of the Global Configuration, or the Website address in Webal Blocks, Options, General.
Keeping spam robots out
Email addresses are printed as plain text, so robots can read them. If that worries you, leave the email address out and link to a contact form instead.