Version 10 Layouts Offer Dynamic New Animated Content
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The Version 10 layouts offer new capabilities that did not exist on previous versions. Each new layout features customizable animated content called widgets. A widget is like a mini application that displays dynamic content on your website. Widgets are especially effective in increasing the visual impact of your website because of their interactivity. These new widgets will help your store stand out and will display your products in a variety of visually appealing ways. Take a look at the carousel widget shown below: 
This carousel widget is an immediate attention grabber. It displays your products in an up-to-date and compelling way. Click here to see this widget on one of the Version 10 layouts. Widgets are effective tools not only for the ability to easily customize them but also because they are interchangeable. Another type of widget that you can put in the place of the carousel widget is an image slider widget, which is shown below.      The image slider animates through colorful and attractive images of your products and is another effective way to grab the attention of your shoppers. Click here to see this widget in action on the sample Version 10 layout. Alternatively, you might want to place a 3D stack widget on this layout. Click here to see the layout with a 3D stack. Another new widget that you will notice on this layout is the accordion dropdown menu. Go back to the sample layout and click on the plus sign on the menu titled Featured Items as shown below.
Notice that the menu expands to reveal the featured items. By clicking on the minus sign when the menu is expanded, the menu will collapse. This new addition adds to the appeal of your website not only for its novelty but also because it allows your shoppers to have some measure of control over what they are viewing on your homepage. Another dynamic mini-application, or widget, that you will notice on the sample layout is the product slider, which is located below the accordion menu as shown below.
This widget allows shoppers to view products by clicking the arrows on the left and right of the widget. Try it yourself. This is a neat new way to draw attention to your products and to keep your shoppers’ attention. In all, you will find eight new widgets that you can place on the new Version 10 storefront. In addition to the image slider, carousel, 3D stack, product slider and accordion widgets, you will also find another type of carousel, a product gallery, and a video widget. Click on the widget name to see an example. Adding widgets to your Version 10 layouts is an easy process. After applying a new Version 10 layout on your site, you next see the layout settings page as shown below:
The layout settings page shows a map of places on which you can place widgets for the chosen layout. This layout has three places where you can place widgets. After you click the area for placeholder #1, you next see the widget library screen, where you can choose from the widgets that will fit into this placeholder. Your site will contain some pre-built widgets for you to choose. You can also very easily create some new widgets, which we will go over soon. This screenshot shows an example of the widget library, which you see after you click on placeholder #1:
This page displays all of the widgets from your widget library that you can choose for this position. Here we see five types of widgets that you can place here: carousel 1, carousel 2, image slider, 3D stack, and gallery. After choosing which widget you like for placeholder #1, you next see the layout settings page where you can repeat these steps and choose widgets for the second and third placeholders. Version 10 contains ten brand new layouts. Each new layout has a unique layout settings page because each one contains a different map showing where you can place each widget. No matter which layout you select, you will find it easy to add a widget to that layout; simply click on its placeholder and select a widget from your widget library. The widget library is the place in your Site Manager that holds all of the widgets that you can use on your site. You can very easily create new widgets or change the properties of existing widgets in your widget library. To create a new widget, go to your widget library and click Add Widget. You will then see this page:
After you click on the type of widget that you would like to create, you next see the widget details screen for that type of widget. This screenshot shows an example of the layout details screen for the carousel 1 widget:
After you enter the widget name and the optional widget description, which only you see, you then choose which products you would like to display in this widget. The easy ability to choose products for these widgets makes them a versatile and powerful tool! Look at all of the choices you have in the product list:
These choices give you a lot of flexibility and open up some new and potent ways to display your products. For example, choose the Top sellers choice from the dropdown and you can create a widget on your home page which displays your best selling items. For a great way to get your shoppers interested in the top selling products, show Top sellers on your homepage. In addition, this helps give shoppers the impression that you have a solid customer base and will more likely inspire confidence in your store. When choosing the Top sellers choice, be sure that you actually have some top sellers on your store; if your site has not made any sales, the widget will not display any products. The Best reviewed choice displays products which have received the highest customer product reviews. This fantastic option gives you the ability to display the most highly praised products on your site. This option definitely positively influences the impression that shoppers form of your store. The Random products from a chosen department selection features a particular department you choose. You will find this option especially effective when displaying a discounted items department, a New products for the Week department, or a department which contains seasonal or holiday-related items. You can also choose to display Random products from the whole store. The good thing about the random product selection is that each time a visitor goes to a page containing one of these widgets, they will see a new set of products. This helps to keep your site content fresh and helps to keep shoppers interested. For example, look at this sample site that depicts one of the new Version 10 layouts. Notice the accordion widget in the right column labeled Product Spotlight. Each time a visitor views a new page, this widget displays a new set of products. Every widget (with the exception of the image slider and the video widget) has a very similar details page that allows you to choose from this type of product list. With the image slider, instead of choosing products, you choose which images you would like to display. We provide some images for you to choose from, and you can upload your own images as well. This screenshot shows the image slider details page:
The video widget has great potential for differentiating your site from others. A short and captivating video can effectively deliver a memorable message concerning your business. With video you can do such things as introduce your business, do product reviews, show testimonials from happy customers and much more. Once the video is created, you can upload it to YouTube and then display it on your website using the video widget. To set up the video widget, copy and paste the embed code from the site which hosts the video you’d like to display. This screenshot shows an example of that page:
See an example of a Version 10 layout with a video widget. We have also added a widget on the department landing pages. Click here to see an example of the new department landing page. When a shopper clicks on the link of a parent department on your site, this new widget displays random products from the particular parent department that they clicked. This feature provides another sure-fire way to keep your shoppers interested and to increase the chances that they will further browse your site. The Version 10 layouts contain some other great additions to add to shoppers’ ease of use and convenience. For example, take another look at this sample layout. Notice the three buttons on the top right labeled Exclusive Offers, Gift Cards, and Express Orders. These important features appear prominently on some of the Version 10 layouts to encourage your shoppers to make good use of them.
When a shopper hovers over the Exclusive Offers button, they see a place where they can sign up for your newsletters. After they enter their e-mail address here or click the button, they next see a page where they can sign up to receive promotional e-mails from your site.
Similarly, when shoppers hover over the Gift Card button, the screen displays some information about gift cards on your site; when they click it, they next see a page that displays information about your gift cards and offers shoppers an opportunity to check their balance. When visitors hover over Express Order, they see a place where they can quickly add items to their basket. In addition, by popular demand, we added a couple of layouts that accommodate wider screen resolutions. See one of the wider layouts. This layout fills 100% of the screen width. If the user has a screen resolution less than 1024x768, they may have to scroll horizontally, however most Internet users have screen displays larger than 1024x768. See another layout with a wider resolution. eMerchantClub geared all of the Version 10 layouts towards giving you new and attractive ways to display your products and give a good impression to your shoppers. The new widget capabilities give you several effective new ways to keep your site’s content fresh and vital. See sample sites of all ten new layouts in Version 10, and look at layouts 86 through 95.
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