ProStores Quick Tip: Linking to a Product Search
Written by Matt on February 24, 2010 – 12:44 pmEver wish that you could direct your customer to search results for ‘blue funky widgets’ in your store?
You can! http://www.fs4sports.com/servlet/Categories?$catalog.keyword=cleats
Example:http://www.fs4sports.com/servlet/Categories?$catalog.keyword=cleats
Just change the address and the keyword and to your store and your keyword or phrase and you can!
Tags: prostores, prostores tips
Posted in Tips | No Comments »
ProStores Quick Tip – Using discontinued products to build ranking for new ones
Written by Matt on February 18, 2010 – 10:47 amQuick tip:
When you have a product that has been discontinued and there is a new model coming out, you can replace that old product’s information with the new model’s information. Note: this works best if the product is a new/update version of the old one.
Example: http://www.fs4sports.com/servlet/the-772/Easton-SV12-Baseball-Bat/Detail. Note: ProStores uses the first 4 words of your product title as part of the url.
This was last year’s model and was out of stock, but ForSports got the 2010 model of the bat and I replaced the old product image, updated the product title (keeping the same first 4 words to keep the url the same), attributes, pricing, etc.
The reason this works is that this page already has been online for over a year and has better rank than a brand new page. So now you have your updated product, a well aged url, and a much better chance of ranking well and getting customers.
Tags: prostores, Tips
Posted in ProStores Admin, Tips | No Comments »
Link building strategies: video
Written by Matt on February 13, 2010 – 8:37 pmAn excellent Link Building video from the Ian Lurie at Conversation Marketing
From: Conversation Marketing embedded with permission.
Tags: seo, Tips
Posted in Tips, Tutorials | No Comments »
ProStores Google Analytics Ansynchronous Tracking Plug-in – FREE
Written by Matt on February 12, 2010 – 12:00 amI am happy to offer our new ProStores Google Analytics Ansynchronous Tracking Plug-in for free here on our blog.
From Google, “asynchronous tracking optimizes how browsers load ga.js so its impact on user experience is minimized. It also allows you to put your Analytics snippet higher in the page without delaying subsequent content from rendering.”
Its also much more flexible and advanced, as well as more accurate, you can push multiple commands at once and you can even split the snippet up depending on your configuration.
1. Remove your old Google Analytics code from the footer if you have it. If you have Google E-commerce tracking in your Order Confirm page leave it, neither code will bother the other one.
2. Open your Header Template, saving a baseline as always, and paste in the code below just after the <body> tag.
3. Make sure you replace UA-xxxxxxx-x with your Google Analytics account number.
<!-- Begin Google CODE -->
<ss:if test="$page.bodytemplate.name = 'orderconfirm'">
<ss:comment>do nothing</ss:comment>
<ss:else/>
<script type="text/javascript">
var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-xxxxxxx-x']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
(function() {
var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
(document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]).appendChild(ga);
})();
</script>
</ss:if>
<!-- End Google CODE -->
If you still need assistance Professional install service is available, if you follow me on twitter you can get a discount.
Tags: coding, google analytics, google analytics in prostores, order confirm template, prostores, ProStores Certified Designer, prostores plug-in, ssml, Tips, tracking code
Posted in ProStores Coding, Tips | 3 Comments »
Minimize CSS Image Flicker in IE6 with HtAccess
Written by Matt on February 5, 2010 – 12:22 amUse these htaccess rules to minimize or even eliminate CSS background-image “flickering” in MSIE6.
# minimize image flicker in IE6
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/gif A2592000
ExpiresByType image/jpg A2592000
ExpiresByType image/png A2592000
Tags: css, htaccess, tip
Posted in ProStores Admin | No Comments »
New ProStores Template availible!
Written by Matt on January 21, 2010 – 4:48 pmSteel Blue – $299 – Preview Steel Blue ProStores Ready Template – Purchase the Steel Blue ProStores Template. Includes 30 minutes of Customization time by One Take Media!
We have two other ProStores Templates:
Earthy – $299 – Preview Earthy ProStores Ready Template – Purchase the Earthy ProStores Template. Includes 30 minutes of Customization time by One Take Media!
Streamlined Modern – $399 – Preview Streamlined Modern ProStores Ready Template – Purchase the Streamlined Modern ProStores Template. Includes 30 minutes of Customization time by One Take Media!
Do you like these ProStores Ready templates but would like some changes or a different color? Let us know! We can accommodate you. Our Contact Form
Tags: prostores, ProStores Certified Designer, prostores design, prostores templates, shameless self promotion
Posted in ProStores Admin, Shameless Plug | No Comments »
Power outage in San Jose affecting ProStores.com and Admin page
Written by Matt on January 19, 2010 – 10:01 am*UPDATE* Merchant’s stores are coming online.
*UPDATE* ProStores is working with the power company to restore working power and are attempting to get back up to full capacity in 2-3 hours.
*UPDATE* PG&E Power that services the San Jose area has upgraded the outage from under to 50 customers affected to 50-5,000 affected. No official word from PG&E on when things will be restored. If you must call ProStores please be patient and remember that they can’t do anything about the power. 
Keeping your customer’s updated is a good reason to get on Twitter or some other social media platform. I’ve got mine up and will keep updating as I have information, you can follow me if you would like for quicker updates.
——————————–
Well folks due to the bad storms in San Jose CA, power is down at the California ProStores offices. Right now this affects ProStores.com and your admin pages. City power officials are working to restore power.
Follow my updates on my twitter account
I will be updating primarily on Twitter.
Article on the storms and power outages.
Tags: Downtime, prostores
Posted in ProStores Admin | No Comments »
Real Life Vendor/Client Relationship examples
Written by Matt on January 10, 2010 – 10:00 amHeh, i feel like in the past month I’ve had each of these conversaions.
The vendor-client relationship in the real world:
I wish this wasn’t so true… If it wasn’t so frustrating it’d be funny.
Posted in ProStores Admin | No Comments »
Follow One Take Media on twitter!
Written by Matt on December 24, 2009 – 11:03 amFollow us on Twitter For updates, early news, and sometimes limited time, twitter follower only offers!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Years!
Posted in ProStores Admin | No Comments »
**RESOLVED** ProStores Stores can no longer upload sitemaps to Google.
Written by Matt on December 21, 2009 – 4:55 pm***UPDATE***
Found a way around this, just put in the root domain, i.e. www.perrysjewelry.com without the /servlet/StoreFront on it. That pretty much makes it a non issue.
***UPDATE***
Very recently Google made a change to their Webmaster Tools that will adversely affect a ProStores store that wants to add their site and get it
verified. They have started to automatically append a trailing ‘/’ slash to the urls entered into their ‘Add a site’ function.
Google Webmaster Tools is a great website dashboard that you can add your site to, it allows you access to reports, error tracking, site speed tracking, sitemap upload, SiteLinks, as well as the infamous “Help I’ve been banned from Google!” reinclusion request form.
There are two ways to verify your site in Webmaster Tools;
1. Add a ‘meta’ tag to the Header template above the ‘/head’ tag.
2. You can upload an html file to the root folder of your store.
Problem here is that typically you don’t have access to your root folder ‘/servlet/StoreFront’ so you are left with option #1.
This issue with Webmaster Tools directly affects ProStores sites because it changes the URL of the Store that it looks at to verify your meta tag. A ProStores site thats on standard hosting ends its URLs without a trailing slash.
Example: http://www.perrysjewelry.com/servlet/the-Women%27s-Jewelry/Categories if you add a trailing slash you kill the URL and the ProStores software generates a 404 error.
Example: http://www.perrysjewelry.com/servlet/the-Women%27s-Jewelry/Categories/. For whatever reason, probably CPU cycles, there isn’t any redirection done when you visit a ProStores URL that has a trailing slash. So instead of the site sending you to the page without the slash it dies and gives a 404.
This 404 error causes verification to fail and denying access to the best parts of Webmaster Tools.
This issue also directly interferes with a ProStores store’s ability to upload a sitemap to them because you can’t have access to Webmaster Tools at all until you are verified.
If you have already verified your site before this change went through then you should be ok.
If you are on a custom hosting solution, or running on a version of ProStores 8.0 or so you may not have this issue as you probably have a different URL scheme or have the ability to do some URL re-writing.
I have forwarded my thoughts and research to ProStores already and I hope to get Google’s attention as well. If you have a ProStores store, I would log into Webmaster Tools, click help, and fill out a help request on their user forums. Draw some attention to the issue and hopefully we can get a solution.
- Matt
Tags: google
Posted in General Info, ProStores Admin | No Comments »
