Dos-and-Donts

[edit] Do's and Don'ts when using Shopfitter 4

Don'ts

Don't start to build your new webshop by editing the demo shop. If you do this then every time you install an update from Shopfitter it will be deleted and over written.
Don't use special characters in category or product names, especially forward slashes (/). They may adversely affect the navigation by altering the server file paths (the links on the site will be wrong) UPDATE '/', '&' can ONLY be used in category names.
Don't use the same name for any products or categories. SF4 uses the item name to create the filenames for the web pages so if there are any duplicates the navigation doesn't work correctly.
Don't use double quotation marks (or /) in product names, summary descriptions, options or keywords. This will stop the JavaScript shopping cart working correctly. Use two single quotation marks (or -) instead, it looks the same but doesn't affect the JavaScript. We have automated a find and replace to automate this in the publish process, but it's best not use them just in case.

Do's

Do be patient, it takes months (at least three for a new site) for changes in the search engine indexes to be updated.
Add as much descriptive text to each product as you can. This should be original and not copied from another source - Google (et al) knows what's been copied and where from, the original source will be seen as authoritative and so be given a higher ranking. If you've built your site with info. from your suppliers then work through the text and replace it with your own descriptions as soon as you can.
Do ensure you add the title and meta data for each category and product. Shopfitter will put default information in these, but adding and refining these will bring better results. Use the search term tools provided by Google and Overture to help you. See Market your site