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      CATEGORIES

      Create your Categories prior to adding products to your site so that you can be organized from the start and save time and energy. This document will cover how to create your Category Tree and how to add them to your site.

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      Overview

      To help ensure eCommerce success you will want to take time to optimize your Products, Brands, and Categories. Categories give your site it's framework and will help customers shop you site through well organized navigation menus. Without them you cannot offer easy navigation for your products. Before finalizing your template with the design team you should have a pretty good idea of the Categories (parent and child Categories) you need for your site. To determine your Categories you will need to review your products and group them into parent Categories and child Categories when applicable. This exercise will not only assist you with grouping your like products but also help determine Category names which will appear in the menus displayed on your site. Category names should be names that your customers will think to search by and can be optimized for Search Engines, for instance "parts" could easily be changed to "Jeep parts".

      Other elements that you may want available when creating Categories are: Category Name, Description and an Image. Of course you can edit and update your Categories at any time but this list provides a good foundation to build upon.

       

      Creating your Tree

      The video below will provide you with details instructions on how to get started with creating your website's category tree. Once your tree is created see your WSM project manager to determine how your categories will be added to your site. Depending on your product data source the categories maybe created for you.

      Steps

      1. Log into the back-end of your WSM
      2. Hover over Catalog
      3. Click Categories
      4. Click Add Category button
      5. Fill in the information according to the following table and click Add Category at the bottom right
      Information
      *Category Name Name of the category.
      Page Title This is the page title for the category. This title is displayed in the browser window title bar. If you do not provide a page title, WSM will use the information provided for the Title.
      Description  The description is the text displayed on the category page. If you want to apply any special formatting or use separate paragraphs, you must type the HTML codes. The minimal amount of code you should type to keep the text consistent with the rest of your site is <p> this should appear at the beginning of your text and </p> should appear at the end. The <p> tag starts a new paragraph. If you want a line break but not a new paragraph use the <br/>at the end of the line. To bold type <b>before the text to start and </b> at the end where you want to stop the bold.
      Avoid the use of the <,>, and & symbols in the text itself, and use them only for HTML.
      Extended Description  Extended description of category (shown at bottom of category page). This can be used to display additional information on the category page and is a great place to add more SEO content to your category.
      Parent  Determines the parent for this category. A category cannot be a parent of itself. 
      Hidden When enabled, the category will not be shown in any listings. 
      *Priority Determines the order that the category will be displayed. Higher priority categories displays before lower ones.
      Template Template to display for this category.
      Page Description
      Page URL Sets the page's generated URL. If empty it will be created using the title.
      Meta Description Use this area to control the information people see when your page is included on search result pages. Limit to 200 characters or 2 sentences and do not repeat any word more than 4 times.
      Meta Keywords  The Search feature on your site and other search engines such as Google.com will use these key words to display a link to this page. Type as many words that apply to this category and separate them with commas. Limit to 1000 characters or 45 words with the most important first, and do not repeat any word more than 7 times.
      Thumbnail
      Image Images are a vital part of shopping online. Verify that you are following Google Shopping image requirements. The file you upload is the main category image and will be displayed as the largest image on your category page. There is only one image you can upload to a category page. View our recommendations for preparing images.
      Customer Access
      Login Required  When enabled, only logged-in customers with a registered account will be able to access the category or view it in listings.
      Field Name

      When selected, only logged-in customers within the selected group will be able to access the category or view it in listings. 

      Editing/Reorganizing Categories

      1. Log into WSM
      2. Go to Catalog > Categories
      3. You will click on to the left of resource that you would like to edit the desired category.

      Editing Options:

      1. Notepad/Pencil Icon = edit the category details
      2. Two Pages Icon= make a duplicate copy of the category. 
      3. Red X icon = delete the category
      4. Page with Magnifying Glass Icon = view the category on the front end of the site
      5. Box Icon = takes you to all products within the category
      6. Blue Folder Icon = takes you to all child categories

      Using the Notepad/Pencil button will allow you to add images, descriptions, restructure the categories allowing one to fold into the other and other category related items. To restructure the flow of categories, simply check the box next to the new "Parent" category to restructure.

      Add a Child Category

      1. Log into WSM
      2. Go to Catalog > Categories
      3. Click the Blue Folder next to the Parent Category that you need to add a child/subcategory too.
      4. Once the page reloads, click the add Category button, name your subcategory/child the desired name, enter any information (such as description, image, etc...) and click save.
      5. The new subcategory will automatically be assigned to the parent since you created it under the parent category.
      6. Reassigning or moving a category to a subcategory to a new category assignment you can click to edit the category and then use the radio check-boxes in the middle of the page to uncheck and check new category assignments.

      Editing Options:

      1. Notepad/Pencil Icon = edit the resource details
      2. Two Pages Icon = make a duplicate copy of the resource. 
      3. Red X Icon = delete the resource
      4. Page with Magnifying Glass Icon = view the resource on the front end of the site

      Using the Notepad/Pencil button will allow you to add images, descriptions, restructure the categories allowing one to fold into the other and other category related items. To restructure the flow of categories, simply check the box next to the new "Parent" category to restructure.

      Category Image Location

      Category images appear in two locations:

      • The catalog/parent category page
      • The individual category page

      In order to have the image appear in both locations you need to enable the Category Images in the site's configuration using the steps below:

      1. Log into WSM Admin
      2. Hover over System
      3. Click Configuration
      4. Click the Advanced tab
      5. Click the check box to Enable Category Images
      6. Click Save Changes
      7. Return to the front end of the website and refresh the page where the image was not appearing.

      Summary

      Take the time to fully optimize your Categories with images, descriptions, and meta data. A little time and effort will go a long way to help your customer's shopping experience, and help your site's attendance.