Setting up your home page as a gallery of subject matter categories is the single best way to make sure potential customers can quickly find what they are looking for on your site. Subject matter categories give those potential buyers a jumping-off point and entice them to click around on your site and hopefully purchase. To help get this process completed promptly, Art Storefronts has made it easier than ever for you to set up your home page.
What do I do next?
You’re getting so close to getting your site launched! The next step will be to enable a payment processor to accept orders.
To learn more, check out our article [Master Article] How To: Set Up and Use Payment Gateways.
Setting up your home page as a gallery of subject matter categories is the single best way to make sure potential customers can quickly find what they are looking for on your site.
Subject matter categories give your visitors an easy-to-navigate site experience, which will hopefully get them to buy. To help with that, we have made it super easy to set this up.
Before we get into HOW to set up your home page, let’s talk about WHY it’s crucial.
Setting up your home page as a gallery of subject matter categories is one of the most important ‘best practices’ that Art Storefronts recommends to its customers. It provides simple site navigation to your visitors.
On your home page, you’d want to create a category labeled Animals. This describes the content of your gallery and what they will find inside. Example: You have pictures of tigers and other animals.
Sometimes, adding more and more categories can get out of hand. We advise not being too specific with your Galleries don’t have a gallery for lions and one for tigers and one for bears, oh my! Customers will only spend three seconds on your home page, so make sure it counts and direct them quickly to where they are most likely to make a purchase.
Keep the home page simple and easy to navigate to make sure you’re winning.
Table of Contents
Set Up Your Categories
Make sure you are logged in to your Site Manager, find your Product Gallery named, e.g., Abstract, and click on it. This type of Product Gallery is used to help you create categories on your home page. This is how you’re going to populate images for display on your website’s home page.
You’re going to be taken into one of the pre-generated Product Galleries we provide on your site in the beginning. This first step will be important in making sure the category will appear properly on your home page. Before you make any changes to the category, you need to find the tab labeled VIEW & SORT PRODUCTS. This is where you will find existing products for that particular gallery. You can change the order by dragging and dropping your images. You could also choose an image that will be used as your gallery’s thumbnail or preview image.
On the next tab named ADD/REMOVE PRODUCTS, you will find an option of adding products to your current gallery.
Step 1: Search for your products – This will allow you to filter your products according to the Store, Folder, and Keyword. The first item you want to find is titled Filter By Store. You can select the store you wish to use in this drop-down menu. If you are only selling Open Editions, you’ll want to choose your Art Print Store. Suppose you’re selling both Open Editions and Standard Products (Originals, Limited Editions, etc.). In that case, you’ll want to select the appropriate store, or you can choose to display ALL the images at once from all stores.
Step 2: Select Products to Add / Remove – This allows you to choose the products you’d like to add to this gallery. After selecting your preferred images, you can click on ADD SELECTED.
After adding the selected, you will find a prompt informing you that your images have been successfully added to your gallery.
On the next tab, you will find the options to provide your gallery with a name description and configure a few items
Art Storefronts Recommendation: We recommend naming the first category on your home page Best Sellers. This will allow you to showcase your best-selling art and potentially grab a customers’ interest.
After the name has been changed, you’ll scroll down further until you see a section titled Headline Text. Currently, it says, e.g., Animals. You’ll want to change this to something less generic. It can be the same name as the page itself, left blank, or filled with any other one to two words you would like.
Then, you need to scroll back toward the top of the page and find a tab titled SEO OPTIONS. You’ll need to click on this. You’re going to update the Smart URL to reflect a custom name instead of, e.g., Animals.
On the next page, find the area labeled Smart URL. In that box, enter the same name as you put in the named section on the previous tab. If your page name has a two-word title, enter it using a hyphen. For instance, my page is named Best Sellers, so the Smart URL should be best-sellers.
Please Note SMART URLS CAN’T CONTAIN SPACES, CAPITAL LETTERS, OR SPECIAL CHARACTERS.
From here, click on the Save button. Do this before moving on to ensure you don’t lose your changes.
When you’ve finished rearranging them, you can scroll up and click on the button titled PAGES.
Now, you’re going to want to complete the same process for, e.g., Abstract and, e.g., Nature.
Set Up Your Home Page
Now we are going to set up your home page. In this setup, we are going to show your other galleries. If you’re sure you’ve done that, you need to make sure you are on your Site Manager. Then click on the page named Shop Art.
On the next page, select the INFO tab.
Scroll down the page to the section labeled Display these Product Gallery Pages as Categories and put an X next to each category you would like to appear on your home page.
Now, you can scroll down the page and click on the Save button. Be sure to do this to save your work.
Finally, you can click on the View Live Site button, and you will see that your home page is set up and appears appropriately.
Troubleshooting
The image I want as my thumbnail isn’t appearing correctly on the home page.
If your thumbnails are not appearing correctly, your Smart URL may not be working correctly. You’ll need to navigate to the back end of your site, click on the category that is having the problem, and click on the tab labeled SEO Option. In that section, look at the Smart URL and make sure its name matches the name of the page itself.
My page won’t save properly.
You may need to use an approved browser. If you’re using anything other than Firefox or Chrome, you should stop using either Chrome or Firefox.
If you’re using an approved browser, you may need to clear your cache. Check out how to clear the cache using the article How To: Clear your Cache.
My Smart URL has a bunch of letters and numbers on end.
This means that the Smart URL you are trying to use is being used elsewhere on your website. The most likely culprit is you have created a folder in your Warehouse and named it the same thing as a category on your home page. You’ll need to either change the name and Smart URL of the category, or you can go to your Warehouse and change the Smart URL of the folder listed there.
What do I do next?
You’re getting so close to getting your site launched! The next step will be enabling a payment processor, so you will be able to accept payment for orders. To learn more, check out our article [Master Article] How To: Set Up and Use Payment Gateways.