You have three main options when customizing your store:
If you are a current Yahoo! store owner and have outgrown the standard template and functionality, you might want to consider either adjusting the variables and inserting custom HTML headers and footers, or continue building on the Yahoo! template using RTML. This is one of the biggest decisions you will make when taking your site to the next level. All three directions will take you down a different path, and switching back to a different method can be difficult, time-consuming, and costly. Talk to current Yahoo! store owners or Yahoo! store development companies, such as Solid Cactus (www.solidcactus.com), before you start your customization. Tip You can join Y Store Forums, provided by www.ystoretools.com, and post questions about the Yahoo! Merchant Solutions. This is also a great forum for other Yahoo! store owners and developers to review your store. Let's take a closer look at all three methods and the pros and cons for each.
Adjusting Variables and Inserting Custom HTML Headers and FootersInstead of going through a major redesign and creating a new template, you can simply add custom HTML in the header and footer to give your site a new look. Also, adjusting variables such as font, color, background, button style, and type can give the standard Yahoo! template a custom feel. In addition, you can upload custom image buttons without any programming. Table 5.1 compares the pros and cons of using variables and inserting custom HTML headers and footers.
Inserting Custom HTML Headers and FootersTo insert custom HTML headers and footers, just follow these steps:
You can also use a style sheet by adding it in the Head Tags input box and then uploading the .css file to the hosting account.
Using Web Hosting to Customize Your StoreWeb hosting lets you design your site using HTML building tools such as Yahoo! SiteBuilder and Macromedia Dreamweaver. When you're ready to upload your Web pages, you need to use an FTP client to upload your files. To add product data to your pages, you need to add special bits of custom code called Store Tags in the HTML of the page. The product data for the Web pages comes directly from Catalog Manager, where you add the product info. Before you can even add the Store Tags to your page, you must create the product(s) in Catalog Manager. If you are using SiteBuilder or Macromedia Dreamweaver, you can use Merchant Solutions Extension tools to more easily import product data and create the necessary Store Tags automatically. Table 5.2 compares the pros and cons of using Web hosting to customize your store.
Using RTML to Customize Your StoreRTML is Yahoo!'s proprietary language for building the store templates. Any changes to the template, such as design or functionality, must be programmed in RTML. With RTML, you reap all the benefits of a dynamically generated site and a static HTML site. Dynamically generated sites tend to be easier to manage, usually with an administrative interface, but they do not fare well with search engines because their content does not reside on the page. The product pages are usually generated by some sort of database. Static HTML pages, on the other hand, are more optimized for search engines but require an HTML authoring tool to create and edit each page one by one. Creating product pages one at a time, as you would do if using the Web hosting side, can be quite time-consuming. RTML enables you to continue managing your store and products using Store Editor and Catalog Manager, as you would do with a dynamically generated site. This will save you time, and you won't need technical knowledge of website programming. Although the product pages are generated dynamically when you perform a database upload of your products, RTML writes static HTML pages, which will help with search engine placement. If the RTML templates are developed correctly, you will never have to look at the code again. You should have complete control over any product or data. You should also be able to quickly add products, update products, and add sections. Table 5.3 compares the pros and cons of using RTML.
So which method is better? It is recommended that you either stick with adjusting variables and adding custom HTML for the headers and footers, or use RTML to customize your store. If you are going to start by just making changes to the variables, you will be able to upgrade and use custom RTML in the future. Avoid Web hosting, if possible. Yahoo! also recommends using RTML to customize your store for better performance and functionality. If Yahoo! is recommending it, you can bet it plans to build more features and functionality around the RTML concept. The rest of this book focuses on RTML advantages and features, but does not go into detail on how to program using RTML. If you would like to learn more about RTML, go to Y-Times Publication, (www.ytimes.com) (see Figure 5.4). Y-Times Publication offers books, e-books, and newsletters on how to program using RTML. Figure 5.4. Y-Times offers RTML books and e-books. If you're serious about learning RTML, take a look at its RTML Mega Pack; it comes bundled with a printed book and four e-books. |