The Online Shop Designer Blog

Creating news articles in Viart Shop is both simple and effective. The reason news articles are effective is that they perform a dual role: on the one hand they can keep site visitors informed about the latest products or services, while on the other hand they can assist with Search Engine Optimisation. Naturally to be most effective for SEO they will need to be carefully written around a chosen keyword phrase, and that keyword phrase should be included in the main article Title, the Descriptions, The ‘Alt’ text if you are using any images (and that is a good idea), the Meta Title and the Meta Description.

To create a News article:

• In admin go to Articles / News
• Fill in the relevant fields to suit – taking particular care to use the keyword phrase in those sections mentioned above.
• Click [Add New] to save.

As a long term strategy try and post effective news articles on a regular basis. Once a week would be good, but whatever it is, make it a habit. It is a great way to help move your eCommerce site away from just codes and prices to meaningful content that Search Engines and customers can relate to.

This is a two step process:

1. Create a zone called ‘Australia’
2. Create a tax code called ‘GST’ and assign it to the zone ‘Australia’

Creating a tax zone

• In admin select Shipping/Zones and then click ‘Add new’
• Assign the name ‘Australia’ and save
• Tip: while you are there remove any zones that are not applicable

Creating a tax code

• In admin select Payment / Taxes and then click ‘Add New’
• Enter the name ‘GST’ and ‘10′ for the rate
• Tip: as above, while you are there remove any taxes that are not applicable

You should now be set up to assign GST to products when you create them.

See also:

• Prestashop Quick Start Guide
  

Processing offline orders (i.e. those that are not processed automatically by a payment gateway in real time) received from Viart Shop is quite straight forward. Two methods that are common within Australia are Offline Credit Card processing (via a businesses EFTPos machine) and electronic Bank Transfer. The typical sequence of events is as follows:

• The customer places an order
• Confirmation is sent to the sit administrator
• If the customer selected offline Credit Card processing, the administrator will also receive an email with the last 4 digits only of the credit card number. The rest are encrypted and stored in the database for viewing in admin.
• The administrator logs into Viart admin and goes to Orders/Sales Orders
• The orders received are listed under the section “Orders Maintenance”. The most recent order will have the highest Order number, but the orders are also date stamped.
• Icons for HTML and pdf versions of the invoice are provided under the “Invoice” column. The pdf in particular provides an easy means of printing a properly formatted version of the invoice.
• On the far right hand side of the order line is a view/edit link. The following tasks can be performed after clicking this link:
  • Updating the status from “New Order” to reflect the appropriate status of the order e.g. “Goods Shipped”. It is important to keep the status up to date as the customer will be able to check this when they log in to their user account.
  • Adding a additional information: To the right of the pull down status field is a link that allows the administrator to attach a note for future reference about the order. There is also a link to add the serial number of the item to be shipped if these need to be recorded and a shipping tracking number (above the update button).
  • Payment method is below the Shopping Cart section and Personal details, which show the shipping address. If the customer has elected to pay by Babk Transfer the order status should be set to pending until payment has been received. If the order is to be paid by credit card then the first 12 numbers of the card only will be displayed. The remaining 4 digits are sent to the administrator by email. Note that those digits of the credit card that are stored in the database are fully encrypted.
  • The Order Change Log is at the bottom of the screen. This records all order changes and provides a very quick way of checking the particulars of any delays. e.g. how long it has taken to pack the order, or how long the administrator has been waiting to receive the Bank Transfer funds from the customer.
• Finally when the order processing has been completed and the goods shipped to the customer the status should be rolled over to “Goods Shipped”

Note: while processing orders in general with Viart Shop is not difficult, the most important thing, from both a customer and administrator perspective, is to ensure that the status always reflects the true situation.

Whether you have a modern CMS such as CMS Made Simple, or and online shop based on Prestashop or Viart, the facility exists for administrators to insert meta information to describe the page to search engines.  Here are some good references I have come across to help with this task:

• Making the most of meta description tags
• Writing meta tags
• Meta description tag

And this is a nice article on writing page titles just to round off the subject. While titles are arguably not as imortant as descriptions they are still relevant:

• SEO page title tips

And what about meta keywords?

Well, the truth is that they are no longer very relevant at all. Still, if you would like to use them ensure that you use no more than about 5-6 words. Long lists of keywords are more likely to have your site flagged for spamming.

‘Offline’ order processing refers to orders where the customer submits there credit card  details as part of the checkout process for secure, encrypted storage in the  database. The site administrator then (in the Australian context) retrieves the numbers and processes the transaction via an EFTPos terminal or online gateway. In this way processing offline orders in Prestashop is quite straight forward.

Here is the sequence after accessing your shop’s admin:

• Click the [Orders] tab
• Click on a line that displays the order of interest -the detail of the order is now displayed. The most recent orders will be listed at the top, and those requiring processing will be flagged “Awaiting Credit Card Validation” in the Status column.
• Click the [Click here to reveal the information] button under the Credit Card Information box to see the credit card details
• IMPORTANT: For additional security click the [Remove Credit Card Data] button after you have processed the order.
• Change the status (top left) during processing to reflect the stage that the order is at. The customer will see the status when they log on to their account.
• At the bottom of the screen there is a New Messages box. This can be used to add a comment to the order or send a message to the customer.

See also:

• Prestashop attributes (options)
• Prestashop quick start guide
• Prestashop image preparation and upload

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