Which would Google like best?

[HeidiHi]

Hi guys,

Before I start entering my products in to Google Merchant Center, I was just thinking should I make some changes to my site first?

At the moment my products extended info opens up in a pop up window as I though it would help customers to compare products:

(2nd hipflask)
http://www.engravemeagift.co.uk/acatalog/Hipflasks.html

Having said that, I've just tried playing around with other options (1st hipflask has it's own page) but looks a bit bare. My site is pretty plain as it is which is good for us because I wan't the products to have the stage- for want of a better phrase!

This company uses Actinic and I think would be the best option for us:
http://www.silver-incentives.co.uk/g...e/barware.html

So I just wanted opinions on what looks the best and what Google will like best. We have approx 200 products on the site so an additional 200 pages- good idea-bad idea?

Thank you

[leehack]

The popup option is awful IMO, imagine Google ranks that popup against a search term and returns that page, that would mean people get taken to a page that has no navigation or ways to get off it. Extended info pages that contain info, simply have to open in within the main site design, not a separate window. Your belief that people will use this to compare is just not true, it's more irritating than helpful, unless you have a boat load of screens, you cannot compare easily between popups. Popups are for PDFs, videos, larger images etc. never should they be used to house important text.

[HeidiHi]

Thank you for not mincing your words Lee! The pop up's are going then.

I think it would make more sense then to have products show up in the main site like you said in the http://www.silver-incentives.co.uk/g...e/barware.html
example, it's a good point about the customer being able to navigate the page fully. I'll sort this out before I tackle GMC!

Thanks again

[HeidiHi]

Sorry Lee, just having a bit of trouble, doing that. I've got the latest version of catalog and I'm in Site Options | Extended Into |Product but I'm not having much luck? It's opening up in the same window but not like in the example I gave, is there a way for me to do this in catalog through the Design Library?

Cheers

[leehack]

Unfortunately, this is not something that is easily done in actinic with current versions, next version will let you do this easily. You will need to replicate your current external layout onto your chosen extended info page layout (extended info pages are a complete layout in their own right, currently independent of the main overall layout). I think the KB has some instructions on how to do this, it will explain it far better than i could, probably takes longer to explain than do it, but it is quite technical, so backup before you have a go.

[HeidiHi]

Thanks for your help Lee, I'll have a look but will prob end up waiting till the new version comes out! I may just get rid on the pop up's and make do with the propper pages for now anyway.

Cheers

[leehack]

There's an SPP tutorial on my site which will explain to you and show you the structure, i think it is the much better SPP solution personally, i'd never use extended info pages myself.

[HeidiHi]

Thanks for your help Lee, you prob know all this but for anyone one else having the same problem as me and not being so clued-up on Web Design:

Just for future reference, I've upgraded to Business Plus v10 and I've managed to change the pop up page to 'Single Product Per Page'. I attended the 'designing your Actinic Store' and it was one of the first things I was shown. It's fairly straight forward but I imagin you'd be in a mess if you didn't do it properly and do a snapshot! I think it is also in the KB. (Of course don't forget to re-submit a Google Site map!)
Right now I'm just deciding what to call these html pages so I can start Google Merchant with relevant name/locations etc.

Cheers guys!
http://www.engravemeagift.co.uk