If you have access to the Site Administration menu, then clicking on its icon will allow you to edit the site-wide settings. These are described in detail below.
- Site Name - in the field provided enter the name you want to call your site. Usually this is your company name, or name which you are most commonly known by.
- Default Template - by clicking on the drop-down menu you are able to choose the overall design of your site. The pull down menu will list different designs which when chosen you are able to view. A small image of the design chosen will be on view, and you can preview your selection by clicking Preview.
- Default Keywords - keywords are one of the things search engines use to decide how relevant your web page is to a person's search enquiry. If you are a customer looking to buy blue widgets, you would type "blue widgets" into a search box at any search engine (e.g. MSN, Lycos, Alta Vista and so on). If the search engine finds these words on your site, it will display your page to your potential customer.
Keywords are not actually displayed to a human reader on your web site, but the search engines can read them, and so it's important that you choose keywords that are relevant to your business.
An example of some good keywords for Blue Widgets Ltd would be "blue widgets, green widgets, red widgets. 48-hour widget delivery". Note that each keyword or phrase must be separated by commas. - Supply Chain - in the field provided, list the products you are selling. Like keywords use a comma to separate. Products entered here will be grouped together with other member's keywords to form a local supply chain. Any member or visitor who types in one of your product keywords using the search facility, will be directed to your site as well as similar sites, which have also entered the same keywords.
An example of this would be if you were a menswear company and entered "jumpers" as a keyword. Using the search facility, a visitor wanting to purchase a jumper would type in "jumpers". The search facility would then search through every member's web site keywords to find a match. All the sites which had entered "jumpers" as one of the keywords would be listed.
- Default Description - the description is also something which search engines use to determine how useful your page will be to the person making the search. In some search engines, this paragraph is displayed to the potential customer, and then that person decides whether the page looks useful. Hence you need to make this paragraph a clear, brief summary of your business, even though it's not visible to humans looking at your homepage.
An example of a good description for Blue Widgets Ltd would be "Blue Widgets Ltd supply the best in blue, red and green widgets. We are located in Bolton, UK, and can deliver widgets in 48 hrs."
- Text to pop up for external links - if you will be adding external links to your site, the field provided allows you to state a disclaimer to tell the site viewer that they will be leaving your site. Leave this blank if you are not adding any external links or do not want any such disclaimer.
You have now completed the site administration, but you can return to make changes to it at any point, such as add more keywords or change the default description.
Once you feel that everything is correct, click on the Store Changes button to store the changes and return to the main menu.
