side link with redirect

[Dopefish]

Hello, I am trying to create a side link that point to www.mypage.com/zencart and have it open in the main area of my web page, I have tried <a href="www.mypage.com/zencart" id="current" target="_self" ><span>Products</span></a> but it just opens it in a new window, I want it to look like my webpage and open it in the main area of my page.

any help ?

Thanks

[gjh42]

You will need to replicate the look and feel of your HTML pages using Zen Cart header/footer/navigation elements restyled as required.

If we can see your site live, we can advise on what steps to start with.

[Dopefish]

Thank you, here is the site I'm working on www.jandscle.com
the links on the left side, I want the zencart link to do the same as the about us link, open in my page and not open a new page.

Thanks

[gjh42]

To do that, you will need to change the Zen Cart template to look like your other template. As your outer pages are extremely simple, this will not be a big job. Do you plan to have a lot of complex content in your main site (like a forum, gallery, etc.)? If not, you will be best served by making Zen Cart your main site (install in the domain root) and using ez-pages or define pages (look them up in the tutorials) for your content pages like About Us. Design and maintenance will be much easier into the future if you have only one system to manage, and Zen Cart is built to handle basic CMS content as well as products, customers and checkout.

[Dopefish]

is there a way to get zencart to load into my page like the about us does? I am going to make it look more like the page after I get this figured out, I don't want to have complex things, if I do that it won't be till much later, I thought about ez-pages but I didn't see any keyword support using ez-pages, I need to be able to put my keywords on my home page and each category page I make, please keep in mind I'm new to this, I used to just use paypal to make my shopping cart icons and place them on my old webpage, that was difficult and time consuming, is it possible to use ez-pages to make my website and place my keywords in every category page ?

thank you

[gjh42]

Do you mean metatag keywords? Those were abused so badly in years past that search engines generally ignore them any more. Anyone who says they are important for "SEO" is years behind the times.

Zen Cart automatically adds metatag information to every page based on certain formulas, and you can add custom metatags to most pages (in category & product pages, click on the "nuclear" icon at the far right of the listing). In general, Zen Cart is very search engine friendly out of the box, in the real sense if not the "SEO consultant" sense.
The most important factor for SEO is writing good content. Google especially has come to place utmost importance on this over things that can be manipulated; good content is real. Write your content for understanding, using your keywords naturally, and it will place well.

[Dopefish]

ok, I got zencart set up as my main website www.jandscle.com , I think I got it now, the only other thing is the HTML Content of the zencart editor has no options, like in web builders they have options like bold, add link, bullets and so on, how can I get a good editor on the page, I mean I can put in my own codes for now but that just takes time, I have notepad+++ but I don't know how to get it to display html or php code.

Thanks

[gjh42]

CKEditor Plugin for Zen Cart

[Dopefish]

Ok, I got it........wow, allot of work to get this right but now its working perfectly, thank you for all your help !