drawbacks to custom pages?

[Ken Lanxner]

Hi. I am brand new to ShopSIte but I have been doing my homework with
all the help files and in this forum. I am still trying to grasp
exactly when it would benefit me to create custom templates and when I
am good to just design the entire store with custom pages. I am
definitely leaning toward custom pages.

But are there features I would be missing with an all-custom page
store? I can see how easily products are added but what about product
search and customer registration. And are all custom pages indexed for
searches? Is there anything I won't be able to do with custom pages?

Thanks for any help.

Ken

[loren_d_c]

Your own custom pages are not indexed for the ShopSite product search,
however if you have ShopSite Pro you can specify a search destination
URL for each product and they will be indexed and the search results
will include those products and a link to the specified URL.

The benefit of custom templates is that you can create the look and feel
once, or make changes to the look and feel once, and apply it to all of
your pages. You can also automatically assign products to
ShopSite-generated pages, while with your own custom pages you would
have to get the OrderAnywhere code for each product and place it in your
custom page. A custom template can also allow a merchant who is not a
web designer apply their custom design (probably created by a web
designer in a custom template) to all new pages that they create in
ShopSite.

-Loren


Ken Lanxner wrote:

Hi. I am brand new to ShopSIte but I have been doing my homework with
all the help files and in this forum. I am still trying to grasp
exactly when it would benefit me to create custom templates and when I
am good to just design the entire store with custom pages. I am
definitely leaning toward custom pages.

But are there features I would be missing with an all-custom page
store? I can see how easily products are added but what about product
search and customer registration. And are all custom pages indexed for
searches? Is there anything I won't be able to do with custom pages?

Thanks for any help.

Ken

[Ken Lanxner]

In article <c1qdja$991$1@support.shopsite.com>, Loren
<loren_d_c@yahoo.com> wrote:

Your own custom pages are not indexed for the ShopSite product search,
however if you have ShopSite Pro you can specify a search destination
URL for each product and they will be indexed and the search results
will include those products and a link to the specified URL.

The benefit of custom templates is that you can create the look and feel
once, or make changes to the look and feel once, and apply it to all of
your pages. You can also automatically assign products to
ShopSite-generated pages, while with your own custom pages you would
have to get the OrderAnywhere code for each product and place it in your
custom page. A custom template can also allow a merchant who is not a
web designer apply their custom design (probably created by a web
designer in a custom template) to all new pages that they create in
ShopSite.

Thanks. That is pretty helpful information. I am a Web designer but the
custom templates looked like a major hassle compared to custom pages.
But it is looking more and more as if it is worth the extra work in the
long run.

Ken

[Brandon Eley]

Custom templates are EASY! Just take the tags and place them in your
HTML code wherever you need... All our pages are made using custom
templates. If you get stumped or have any questions, just ask here.
There are quite a few of us who use all custom template driven pages.

We also have product templates with sub-product/cross-sell enabled.

---------------
Brandon Eley
2BigFeet.com
brandon@2bigfeet.com
www.2bigfeet.com


Ken Lanxner wrote:

In article <c1qdja$991$1@support.shopsite.com>, Loren
loren_d_c@yahoo.com> wrote:


Your own custom pages are not indexed for the ShopSite product search,
however if you have ShopSite Pro you can specify a search destination
URL for each product and they will be indexed and the search results
will include those products and a link to the specified URL.

The benefit of custom templates is that you can create the look and feel
once, or make changes to the look and feel once, and apply it to all of
your pages. You can also automatically assign products to
ShopSite-generated pages, while with your own custom pages you would
have to get the OrderAnywhere code for each product and place it in your
custom page. A custom template can also allow a merchant who is not a
web designer apply their custom design (probably created by a web
designer in a custom template) to all new pages that they create in
ShopSite.


Thanks. That is pretty helpful information. I am a Web designer but the
custom templates looked like a major hassle compared to custom pages.
But it is looking more and more as if it is worth the extra work in the
long run.

Ken

[Ken Lanxner]

In article <c1tr1e$e7g$1@support.shopsite.com>, Brandon Eley
<brandon@2bigfeet.com> wrote:

Custom templates are EASY! Just take the tags and place them in your
HTML code wherever you need... All our pages are made using custom
templates. If you get stumped or have any questions, just ask here.
There are quite a few of us who use all custom template driven pages.

We also have product templates with sub-product/cross-sell enabled.

Thanks. I've been playing with templates and now I see that my first
impressions were wrong. They *will* be easy to work with. I will
certainly ask here if I have questions.

Ken