Can I never change anything about my website?

My online store was made by professional web builders, using the Zencart shopping cart. Those web builders now host my site. When the site was being made I knew very little about SEO (and still don't know much) and when I was asked to list what should be put in the title tag, meta name, keywords sections etc, I just gave pretty general, broad descriptive terms -- as I thought these could be changed later, when I had more time to do some research.

I now realise that it would be better to have more specific keywords etc on the index page and contacted my web hosts/builders to ask how I could get access to the site's code to make the changes.

They replied that I cannot directly access the HTML in the case of Zencart as each page is dynamically generated by PHP code -- but that I could change the meta tags on individual products in zencart admin, "using the black and white circles". I already know that I can set the tags for products in that way but I would really like to know how and if I can change the Title tag etc on the main page.

Surely the whole website is not set in stone at the time it is built -- there must be a way of making some changes. I had also planned to make some other small changes to the site's appearance (changing some borders) but now I'm wondering if this is possible.

What version of Zen Cart are you using?

This FAQ should help:
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=62

Namely this part:> Common Site-Wide

To define site-wide tags such as charset, keywords and description, go to includes/languages/english/YOUR_TEMPLATE_NAME/meta_tags.php and edit that file for keywords, site title, site tagline and site description.

The version used seems to be 1. 3.02.

I am almost too embarrassed to write this -- but I don't know *where *to go to to change anything.

I don't think I can make the changes I want via the Zencart admin, can I? I tried to access the site via Plesk, but I can't seem to do anything there either. I don't know if I'm supposed to upload files to Plesk, or what.

I had (a non-commercial) site in the past, and if I wanted to make changes, I just logged into my hosting service, went to the file manager, and made the changes. It would have taken me about five minutes to change the tags etc and I felt I had full control over my site.

Scottie,

Find out/learn how to backup your site files and your database before you embark on any alterations. This is to save yourself issues if you accidently create some error.

One of the reasons I had the site built for me -- rather than attempting it myself -- was that I knew I'd be hopeless/useless at doing it myself, as I seem to have a mental block when it comes to understanding anything like this. I can comprehend most things easily enough but the whole site design/coding/management business leaves my head spinning.

I asked my web-builders (when they were still building my site) about how I could back-up the site files and they told me it should not neccessary.

I am really busy just now but I know I'm going to have to learn about how to make simple changes to my site. For now I only want to change the title tag/keywords on the main page and think I should be able to do it through Plesk but don't even know which files I should be looking at. It may seem at bit stupid to say this but I thought I'd just be able to go to the file where the index page is located (wherever that is...) and replace the existing title/keywords with the new ones. But it seems I will not be able to do this as** " each page is generated by PHP code".**

You really should get a solid backup of files and database before attempting to make any changes.

Nevertheless, to make the change, do this:

DrByte:

To define site-wide tags such as charset, keywords and description, go to includes/languages/english/YOUR_TEMPLATE_NAME/meta_tags.php and edit that file for keywords, site title, site tagline and site description.

From that article:
includes/languages/english/YOUR_TEMPLATE_NAME/meta_tags.php

1. using your file manager, open your website files area ... probably called "public_html" or "htdocs" or "httpdocs".

2. navigate to the /includes/languages/english folder

3. since you've not given a URL to your site, and it sounds like your web designer only threw things together, they probably didn't use the overrides system, so you can probably skip looking for a folder named the same as your custom template (c/f the YOUR_TEMPLATE_NAME reference above)

So, look for a file named meta_tags.php

4. find the definition for SITE_TITLE in that file and fix the title according to what you want it to say.

5. save the file and pray that plesk doesn't mess anything up.

To get a backup, you're going to need to learn about FTP, how to download files, and phpMyAdmin and how to export database contents.
This article should scare you sufficiently:
http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.php/LocalCopySite#Copying_Files_and_Database_from_the_Remote_Server

Could I suggest dowloading a copy of either 1.3.02 or the latest version, and unzip it on your machine. You can then use that to view the folder structure and files and getting familiar with things without having to hobnail boot around a live system.

I had a look around in Plesk -- with someone who knows more about all this business than I do -- but we could not find those files. We found our product images stored there, and the logs files etc. But when we looked in the file manager and tried to find the files that have been mentioned, all we found were templates etc. This sounds crazy -- but is it possible that the files I'm looking for have not been uploading there? Or was I supposed to load them there myself?

I feel like such an idiot. I'm going to do as has been suggested here: find out how to back-up files etc and download a copy of 1.3.02 so I can have a look around. I think it will take me about a year to understand it. I won't touch anything until I have more than half a clue what I am supposed to be doing. I can't believe it is so diffficult to change a few words and that I'm stuck with the existing title/tags until I can find my way around what seems to be a fairly complicated system.

Thank you for all for your help -- and for the time you have taken to give me advice.

It sounds like you have the exact same problem as me. you hire a web designer to make you a functioning site. you pay them and they assure you it is done and later they lie about what they ddi, they refuse to help you,claim they did not do things that they did do...and worst of all you find out your site is not workable anymore.