Ecommerce Theme Pages

Element is a web design and hosting platform. Site Designer is Element's site builder with direct integrations into Volusion's ecommerce offerings. When you create a new theme in Site Designer, you will notice that it comes pre-loaded with pages that display ecommerce related content, such as products and categories.

Here, we will examine each of the pre-built ecommerce-related pages that come with a Site Designer theme, learn about their settings, and look at their default component blocks.

Options When Creating a New Theme

If you want a head start with the fonts and colors, visit Site Designer, view your list of themes, click the "Theme Gallery" button, and choose a pre-designed theme. If you create a new theme from the link on "My Themes," the design will be simpler, but will still include all the same ecommerce pages.

Home Page

All default themes come with a Home Page, usually the default landing page for a site.

Your home page will start out empty if you are creating a theme from scratch, or be pre-populated with a few blocks if you choose a theme from the gallery. All themes, by default, come with a header and a footer block as part of their global template.

To learn more about working with your template, see "Add Blocks To Templates."

Header

The header will display your store's logo, or if that doesn't exist, the store's name. Add your logo in Settings > Store Information.

The header also includes your menu, which you can change using the Menu Editor. The menu may behave differently on mobile devices than on larger displays.

Footer

The footer may contain a set of suggested links—the pages for those links do not exist yet. You should add those pages to your theme and then edit your footer block so that it links to those pages. Otherwise, remove the links to any pages that don't exist.

A company address appears in the footer by default, along with an email address and phone number. You should edit those from the footer block.

You may see some social media icons in the footer as well. If not, add them in the Social Media Accounts at the bottom of Settings > Store Information.

Also at the bottom there is a copyright notice in small text. Change the company name by editing the block.

Product Details

All default themes come with a Product Details Page, which displays detailed product information to shoppers.

This page will be easier to work with if you have created at least one product from the Volusion admin. Ideally, you would have at least two products and would set them up as related to each other.

Page Settings

When you click the settings icon in the page dropdown across from "Product Details," these are the settings that will be available. You do not need to alter any of these fields:

1. Page Title: For optimal SEO, the page's title will be the product name. This Page Title is the display name used inside Site Designer.
2. Page Path: The page path is useful as a reference. (Note: If you have an Agency account, you can edit the path, but this is not recommended as it will remove the path from the Site Map.)
3. As with the Page Title, the SEO field values will come from the individual products. Edit the product in the Volusion admin to set these values for your product.

Please note that agencies with full agency accounts can delete the Product Details Page. If you want to sell something, you will need a Product Details Page, however.

Product Details Block

By default, all Volusion Product Details Pages come configured with a Product Details Block for displaying detailed product information. You need at least one product created in your Volusion store for the Product Details block to display in Site Designer.

You can to rearrange the product data in the Product Details Block by moving the image to the left or right and deciding where the description should go. Display options for when you have more than one image will appear here.

If you have an Agency account, you may specify which product is displayed. This is not useful here where the URL determines the product—instead, it would be used for displaying details of a specific project on a separate page. For example, you could build a standalone landing page with a slideshow and an article about one product, and then include the Product Details block on that page.

Related Products Block

By default, all Volusion Product Details Pages come configured with a Related Products Block for displaying products related to the current one.

A couple notes for Agency accounts:

1. Do not change the Product directory path field unless you have changed the Page Path above in Page Settings, which you should not have done.
2. The Get related products of field is not needed on this page. That field is mainly useful for including the Related Products block on another page, such as your home page.

Search Results

This page will show a grid of product search results. As with Product Details above, there is no need to change any of the page settings. Editing the Page Path could result in it needlessly appearing in your site map.

Search Results Block

Here, you will find column and color controls. Again, Agency accounts should leave the Product directory field alone.

Category

The settings for the Category page load dynamically from the Volusion Admin categories.

Category Page Block

Do not select a category from the category field. The category field is for embedding the category block in another page where the URL does not dynamically select a category. If you select one here, each of your category page URLs will show the same category.

For Agency accounts, there is no need to edit the Product directory path field.