Categorising your products allows customers to find what they need easily when visiting your website.
It also helps you manage your shop more effectively and can provide excellent opportunities to boost your shop’s SEO.
Creating A Category
- Click Categories and select Create Category.
- Enter the name of the category
- If it's a sub-category select the parent category it sits within. Please note your shop can only have 3 sub-category levels.
- On Product Sorting select how you want the products to show within the category i.e. newest to oldest, alphabetically or by price.
- Under Description explain what this category is to your customers.
- Under SEO enter a brief Title and Description of the new category. This will help search engines draw traffic to your website although this won't be visible to customers on your website.
- In Sort Order enter, in numerical order, where in the list of categories you want this category to appear. For example, if you're adding a category for Valentine's day set this as '1' as you'll want this to be shown first.
- For Display Start/End Date, entering a display start and end date will mean the category is only displayed during a specific period. For instance, the run up to Christmas or the month prior to Valentine's Day.
- Category Banner Images and List View Images can be added if needed to give the category page some more visual appeal. Simply select the "Image Manager" button for each and select your preferred image.
- Once you are finished change the status at the top of the page to Enabled/Visible and hit Save.
Updating Categories
If at any time you wish to edit or delete this category you can do so using the Actions column on the Categories page.
- Click the Edit button to adjust the category details.
- Click the Red 'Delete Category' icon at the bottom of the Category to delete it. Note that there is no warning for this, and if pressed, the category will simply disappear.
- If you wish to temporarily disable the category all you need to do is click the Edit button next to the relevant category, select Disabled/Hidden from the dropdown box, then hit Save.
Parent & Child Categories
At some point you may need to add a sub category to your site. For example, if you are selling clothes online you may need to have a Category of Men's with a sub-category of Trousers or Jackets. In this example the Parent category would be 'Mens' with the Trousers and Jackets being the Child category. This is very simple on the Stor platform, here's how:
- Add all 3 categories individually as described above
- Edit the Child category and select the Parent category from the dropdown box.
- Hit the Save button and repeat as needed.
- Note: categories can only go 3 levels deep. So you could have Clothing>Mens>Trousers (3 levels) but you could not have Clothing>Mens>Trousers>Linen (4 levels deep).
Adding Category Images
You can now add category images which will show on the relevant category page and associated buttons (if your theme allows). This is as simple as adding an image to a product:
- Click to Edit the relevant Category
- Scroll down to the Category Image Panel
- Click Image Manager
- Then select or upload the relevant image
- Click Save and you're good to go.
Category Details and Meta Descriptions
Each category page has an area for a description. This could simply be a couple of sentences describing what is within the category or it could be a paragraph with the story behind the products within. This is purely optional but does help to give the customer a better idea of your company's ethos and also manages their expectations of what they may find.
The meta description is very useful for SEO purposes. It's highly advised that you complete this box, as it will tell search engines what is on the page and aid any relevancy on pay-per-click and Search engine results. Keep this short and to the point (less than 150 characters) but try not to use duplicate copy e.g. copying other category descriptions. The Description and the Meta Description, however, can be the same.
Lastly, you can set the priority of the category within the category lists. This is optional and defaults to a priority 1; the list is then ordered alphabetically for ease. You set priority levels from 1 to 999 (1 being the highest priority).
Advanced - Using Category Dates
If a category is only relevant on a particular date or date range then you can stipulate this within the 'Advanced' panel when adding/editing a category. Such examples may be Halloween products, Christmas products, Valentine's or End of Season Sales.
Simply enter the date you wish the category to be visible and the end date (after which the category will be hidden).
If you have any queries about this feel free to get in touch with our Support team on Live Chat or via email.