Category Name, Description

Overview

One of the most common things you'll ever do to a category is manage it's details.  This would include the name, description, meta data and more.  The category details represent the cornerstone of what may make a category successful or not.

Requirements

The following prerequisites will be necessary to accomplish the goals of this article:

• Have access to your Hotcakes store administration

Getting Started

There are no prerequisites to get started with this article.

Category Details

The Name, Description section is where you set your category information. Click Name, Description in the left panel in the Category section to see the category details.  

When you first arrive, you might notice some additional navigation options in the left panel.  The Close button will return you to the category listing view.  The View in Store button will open the landing page of this category in a new web browser tab.  

Main

The first section you'll see is call the Main section.  This is all of the most common information about the category that you might choose to manage over time.

Setting	Description
Name	This is the value that your customers will see whenever this category is included in any listing of categories.  This setting is also localizable, allowing you to save it differently for each installed language.
Description	This value potentially describes the category to customers, when they see it listed in anny view that lists available categories.  However, most views don't take advantage of this setting.  This setting is also localizable, allowing you to save it differently for each installed language.
Page Title	This is the value that web browsers will use in their title bar, as well as the value that's used as the title of the page when web browsers display your category in search results.  This value should be keyword-rich, but not be longer than 20-25 words.  This setting is also localizable, allowing you to save it differently for each installed language.
Meta Description	This description is only seen and used by search engines, such as Google.  This value should not only accurately describe the category and its contents, but it should also help to reinforce the meta title.  This setting is also localizable, allowing you to save it differently for each installed language.
Meta Keywords	These are words and phrases that search engines use to index your category page correctly in their search results.  Like the meta title and description, this value should be carefully populated.  However, many SEO experts believe that this value is not valued as much as it used to be by search engines.This setting is also localizable, allowing you to save it differently for each installed language.
Search Keywords	Search engines and your customers both will not be aware of these keywords.  These are used by the local search engine on your site only, which makes it very useful for things like common misspellings of your products and brand, as well as competitve terms.  This will make your onsite search that much more powerful.

Display

The next section you see is the Display Section, where you'll be able to edit how the category is displayed to your customers.

Setting	Description
Hide Category	This is unchecked by default.  If you ever need to hide or disable a category, you can simply check this checkbox.  Doing so will remove it from any listing, as well as prevent anyone from accessing it directly through existing links.
Category Name is Visible	In nearly every default view, part of displaying the category to customers includes showing it's name.  Uncheck this setting to stop displaying the name of the category.
Template	The selection you make here will be the default view that this category uses when displayed to your customers.  This value can be overridden by the settings of the Category Viewer module.
Icon	This will be the primary image that most sites use to navigate through the various categories in a store.  The exact size you should use will vary from site to site, but in general, the image should be smaller and optimized for the web.
Banner	This image should usually be larger in dimensions than your icon image. This image isn't used by default, but may be used by your site.  It also doesn't have any specific size requirements, but you should continue to make the image web-optimized.

Advanced

The advanced section contains a number of settings that are changed infrequently.

Setting	Description
Page Name	This is the human-friendly and SEO-friendly URL that will be used to display the category page to your custommers.  If you should choose to change this URL at any time, the previous ones will be remembered and listed here.  You can delete the old names at any time.
Parent Category	The main category listing makes it super-simple to sort your categories, but if you want to do a quick sort while you're on this view, you can choose which "parent" category that this one will be found under.  For example, you wouldn't make "Bracelet" a top-level category on your site if you had a "Jewelry" category already.  You'd make "Jewelry" the parent category for "Bracelets."
Sort Order	This setting will help you define what the default sort is for the products that are associated in this category.  When this category is viewed for the first time, this setting will ensure that your customers see the products in the preferred order.
Header Content Block	Content blocks are reusable snippets of content that can be applied to products and categories using a setting like this one.  If you're using content blocks, the one you select in this setting will be applied to the header placeholder in your category view.
Footer Content Block	Content blocks are reusable snippets of content that can be applied to products and categories using a setting like this one.  If you're using content blocks, the one you select in this setting will be applied to the footer placeholder in your category view.

Once you are done making changes, you can click the Save button to save your changes and remain on this page, or Save and Close to go back to the category listing page.