Latest puresilva website template updates

Our website template solution (puresilva) is updated often. If want read more about puresilva, here's the FAQ.

Click here for the full features list of the puresilva website template.

Here are the latest updates to puresilva in more detail:-

25th October 2016

new "zoom" option for product thumbnails - gives a zoomed in, filled picture for product photos on the home page and product listings pages - this can be tested out in backoffice > variables > shop options > product layout options > select radio button entitled "Show as Grid with zoomed in images (recommended when product images are a mix of landscape and portrait shapes)"
various bug fixes

31st October 2015

Further updates :-

new feature allowing you to edit multiple products via a spreadsheet (via backoffice > shop > edit multiple products > Want to edit multiple products via a spreadsheet?
various bug fixes

15th June 2015

Further updates :-

Bug fixes & various updates to mobile version through 2015
SagePay integration upgraded from 2.22 to 3.00

18th November 2014

Further updates to mobile design (backoffice > variables > mobile / small screen design options):-

New sales bullet points that can be added just above the main menu (see image below)
New CSS editor for the mobile view - now you have full control over almost every design aspect of the mobile view (e.g. ability to change font colours, sizes, background colours etc)
Big update to the footer area of the mobile view (a replication of the desktop footer, but in single column)

23rd October 2014

Updates to mobile design:-

Main navigation has a keyword search facility
Menu system is much improved and faster to access and browse

Further updates are being carried out for the mobile version and will be updated in the next week or so.
mobile

20th October 2014

Various updates:-

new "bundle" feature for products - now you can sell bundles of products as a single product e.g. a hamper set of exising products. You can set individual quantities and price for each item in the bundle (e.g. put each item within a bundle at 10% off pricing). Bundles are different to upsell products in that bundles are sold strictly 'as is' (as a bundle).
updates to basket stats - moving forward from this update, now the time is recorded anytime an item is added to basket, as well as whether the shopper has saved the basket or not
update to search stats - now search stats can be filtered by start and end date - for example, you could get a report on search keywords used on your site in the last 2 weeks
You can now hide individual categories from the category list (backoffice > shop > categories) via a new checkbox entitled "Hide Category from Category List?"

28th September 2014

VAT Exempt display - if you've elected to show both VAT and ex.VAT prices for your products (e.g. if you sell to trade), then you can now also highlight VAT exempt products within your range of products (if you have any VAT exempt products) - just tick the "VAT Exempt?" box next to the product price (when editing the product in backoffice > shop) to mark a product as VAT exempt - doing so will ensure that product's price display just shows a single price (with no VAT added)

25th August 2014

Annual code tidy-up - various minor updates / bug fixes

29th June 2014

Further updates to mailing facility:-

backoffice > mailing list facility emails-per-day limits have been changed from 760 emails-per-day up to a much higher 2880 emails-per-day that can be sent out (equates to 86,400 emails per month) - up from 30 per hour to 120 per hour. Our service now easily competes with large, dedicated mailing services you'd normally expect to pay for - ours is included for FREE, and built into your site, so you can easily add products, vouchers codes, articles etc using tickboxes.
Email campaigns no longer repeat if you leave them running - they run just once. This is because of the higher frequency of mails that can be sent out now (a typical subscription list of 2000 or so will complete in under 24 hours). It makes sense to send your mailing list NEW emails every few weeks anyway, and not the same, repeated message.

24th June 2014

now you can send an automatic email to all of your repeat customers notifying them of a discount you have put on. Just tick the "notify repeat customers of this discount?" option in backoffice > shop > discounts. Please note that this option only shows up once you've accumulated 10 or more repeat customers. This feature may be expanded to include more customers / a larger section of your mailing list - in a future update.

20th June 2014

Two new updates:-

each shop product can have up to 6 dedicated photos (up from 4).
update to customer feedback area (backoffice > orders > manage feedback) - now you can respond to feedback with your own comments to individual comments made by customers.

26th May 2014

New 301 redirect facility for product detail pages. Sometimes products on your site become obsolete - they're out of stock, and that particular line of product has finished (you're no longer selling this item). Your initial first though might be to simply delete the product from your site. However, you might also find that the obsolete product's web page happens to rank well in the search engines. It seems like a waste of traffic to simple delete the product. On the other hand, what's the point of winning traffic to a product that's out of stock and will never be in stock again? Now with this new redirect facility, you can redirect traffic from such an obsolete page to another page on your site, such as a very similar product that IS in stock and for sale. Note: redirects can only be to internal pages on your website, not external pages on other sites.

10th May 2014

New multi-category feature for products - now you can add your products to unlimited categories - see a new option when you add/edit a product (backoffice > shop, add/edit a product) entitled "Additional categories (optional)"

28th April 2014

New submenu feature (backoffice > variables > navigation > submenus - you can now create submenus for each of your main horizontal navigation links, like this example:-

match

You can create custom submenus, product category submenus that update automatically and can include product images, dynamic category submenus (see example image above) and blog entry submenus (which update automatically when you add a new blog entry).

8th April 2014

Minor update:-

new feature allowing you to colour backgrounds for slideshow and product image listings pages. It's easier to show than to explain:-

Essentially, the feature samples the general background colour of the image, then creates the total background for the slide or product listing to be "filled in" with this colour. You can switch this on in the slideshow via backoffice > variables > home page slideshow > edit slideshow colours/styling > tick box next to "Match Slideshow Background with Each Image Background?". To enable this for product listings, go to backoffice > variables > shop options > product layout settings > tick box next to "Thumbnail Backgrounds". Note: works best for images with solid colour backgrounds

3rd April 2014

Further updates:-

new sitewide search stats - found in backoffice > shop > user metrics (can be found toward right-hand side of sub-menu) > sitewide search stats - now you can see what keywords your visitors are entering when using your website's internal sitewide search facility. You can see all the keywords being entered, most popular keywords, number of keywords per day, in last 7 and 30 day period too.
now the home page slideshow can display your blog posts/articles. The slideshow will only show articles which have an image included somewhere in the body of the blog post/article. You can switch your slideshow to show blog posts/articles in backoffice > variables > home page slideshow > select the "blog slideshow" option.

25th March 2014

New mailshot updates:-

Mailshots can now be automated in backoffice > mailings > mailshot templates. The new system sends out 5 mails per hour 24 hours a day (120 emails per day) automatically. You can pause a mailshot campaign at anytime. This is perfect if you have a general message you want to give your subscribers over each month (3600 mails sent out over a typical month) in "set and forget" fashion. There will be a provision for larger volume send-outs (10 to 15 per hour) in a future update. If you require mass bulk-mailing (10,000+) done in one single send-out, you can always export your mailing list to a 3rd party mailshot service. Please note that if you run a mailshot, you will get one receipt email per day (the same email that you are sending out) at 12PM GMT just as a reminder that you have an active mailshot that is on-going.
Mailshot stats (backoffice > mailings > mailing list stats - button toward bottom of mailings page). You can see how many people sign-up to your mailing list on a daily / weekly / monthly basis:-

3rd March 2014

New updates:-

new pop-up image option for product thumbnails on home page and product listing pages (see this example screenshot below). This can be activated in backoffice > variables > shop options > product layout options > Show List of Products on Home Page > Show as Grid (larger images + large popup image when mouseover) (for home page), and backoffice > variables > shop options > product layout options > Product Listings Page > Two column grid + large popup image when mouseover (for product listings pages).
New payment gateway - Secure Hosting & Payments - available in backoffice > variables > taking payments

5th February 2014

Several updates to the enquiry form builder (backoffice > pages > add/edit enquiry forms):-

ability to add downloadable gift options to your forms (to encourage visitors to complete the form) - such as an ebook of their choice. When they complete the form, they receive an email with a link to the free downloable gift they chose. See this help page for more details
Now forms can be embedded anywhere on your site. See the new form icon in the WYSIWYG editor and simply embed any of your existing forms anywhere on any page (note: you will very likely need to refresh your browser to see the new WYSIWYG editor option!):-

22nd January 2014

Update to dynamic categories - now you can add descriptions to each of your dynamic categories in backoffice > shop > categories > dynamic categories > manage dynamic category descriptions

15th January 2014

New updates:-

New WYSIWYG editors for category (backoffice > shop > categories) and sub-category (backoffice > shop > sub-categories) descriptions
If you show your category images on the home page, you now have the option to hide prices on the homepage category images (backoffice > shop > categories, tick box next to 'Hide "From.." pricing label'
New option for Selected Items on home page (backoffice > variables > shop options > product layout options > Show as Grid (larger images, zoomed in) - a zoomed-in view of each product

30th December 2013

New "AddThis" share buttons that appear on left-hand side of screen on every page. If you don't like these, they can be deactivated in backoffice > variables > social networking options > share buttons, select "Show social network "share" buttons only on product and blog pages".

8th December 2013

Updates to the mailing facility (backoffice > mailings; if you can't see this link in the main menu of the backoffice, you can switch it on in backoffice > variables > add/remove facilities, tick box next to "Subscribe Box / Mailing List"). Now you can upload graphical banners to email templates, and the template layout itself is wider now to accommodate larger imagery. See this example:-

email

2nd December 2013

New social network options (backoffice > variables > social network options) - allowing you to easily create attractive social network icons for your site and link out to your various social pages
New option to give you the ability to add custom HTML to More Info Sections (backoffice > pages > Add HTML to More Info Sections) - allowing you to easily add sections like the following

30th October 2013

New feature allowing you to edit the shopper's 'thank you' page (this is the page the shopper is returned to after buying items from your site). You can edit the 'thank you' page in backoffice > variables > shop options > general shop settings > look for 'Thank You' Page Message.
New 'Notes to Self' facility. Now you can add your own reference notes as reminders/notes for yourself e.g. "must re-order stock on 3rd November". The notes appear in the backoffice as soon as you login. You can easily edit/remove the notes (and add new ones again). See example here:-

11th October 2013

New saveable baskets for shoppers (an option that you can switch on in backoffice > variables > shop options > general shop settings > tick box next to "Saveable baskets"). Once this facility has been activated, shoppers can save their shopping basket by entering their email address. A link to their basket is sent via email - they can access this basket by simply clicking on the link to resume their shopping at any time (days, weeks, months later). Shoppers are warned that prices and stock availability are subject to change (e.g. if they add an item to the basket, then go back to the saved basket two weeks later, perhaps one of the items has gone up in price - this will be reflected in the basket itself, as it will always check latest prices and stock availability).

6th September 2013

New (and free) Product Listing Ads service - get your products listed on Google's paid shopping platform for free

4th September 2013

Further updates:-

Google Fonts - now you can easily embed custom fonts to your site
New design service available - gives your website a completely fresh, new design

5th August 2013

Further updates:-

More options for the small-screen / mobile view of your website (now accessible via backoffice > variables > mobile phone design). Now you can upload your own custom logo to the top of the page like this example below:-
Annual code tidy-up - various minor updates / bug fixes carried out throughout July

29th June 2013

Two updates:-

New "Exceptions" option in backoffice > shop > shipping rules. When you edit one of your shipping rules, you can now state which (if any) products can NOT be bought when using certain shipping rules e.g. perhaps you have a very heavy item that you choose not to ship outside of the UK - that item can be selected against a shipping rule that was designated to addresses outside the UK. If that items is added to the basket, and the "Outside UK" rule that you created was selected by the shopper, they would be told that they cannot purchase the item as you do not ship it to their location.
You can now add your own notes for each order if you want to e.g. address change, slight order change etc - see backoffice > orders > edit one of your orders, see "Order Notes" text area at bottom of order.

4th June 2013

Two updates:-

New facility in backoffice > blog > Google+ Authorship allowing you to link your Google+ account to your blog entries. This means when your blog entries are listed in Google, they will look like the following:-
Added large share buttons (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+) to footer of each page on mobile-friendly version

20th May 2013

Part 2 of responsive, mobile-friendly updates to template:-

95% of template now mobile-friendly (blog, general information pages etc)
New header layout + ability to customise header in backoffice > design > design files > edit smartphone design settings :-

6th May 2013

Part 1 of responsive, mobile-friendly updates to template:-

Product listings pages, product detail page and basket page are now all responsive (mobile-friendly) designs - see screenshot examples below:-
Updates to backoffice > browser stats - with more smartphone stats (should be useful to compare before & after responsive design update)

23rd March 2013

you can now insert your Google Tracking Code (for Adwords) in backoffice > variables > Google Codes
new feature with Microblog - now you can add a countdown timer to the microblog if you are mentioning a time-limited offer on the Microblog - looks like this :-
new microblog icons :

10th March 2013

new payment gateway (Global Iris) - see backoffice > variables > taking payments
update to microblog - you can now set a deadline for your microblog message (optional) - after the deadline, the microblog message is automatically hidden. Useful if your microblog message refers to a time-limited event such as a discount offer that ends at midnight
update to home page slideshows - in backoffice > variables > home page slideshow > edit slideshow styling, you can now remove the border of the slideshow.

19th February 2013

A new "hide category" facility (backoffice > shop > categories) - see help page here first before considering using this facility

5th February 2013

A new geographic sales map found in backoffice > orders > then click on "View Geographic Locations" - this will show you the locations of your customers, like the map below:-

sales

map

This may or may not be useful for you depending on what you sell, and how important geography is to your marketing campaigns. The sales map might point out that you're selling to particular regions of the UK (or the world) more than others, and that might help with your marketing campaigns (perhaps you need to focus more on the regions not selling so well, OR focus even more on the regions you are selling well in). It can also help you with your keyword research too, for search engine optimization. Maybe you sell better in London because you're ranking well for particular keywords related to London, and you want to replicate that success in other regions. Furthermore, you could see the results of regional marketing campaigns by limiting the geographic data to the period of time a particular localised marketing campaign was occurring to see the results of it. Again though - it depends on what you sell, or what kind of service you provide (as to how useful this data is for you).

Some more information on this facility :-

It uses Google Maps API v3. The pins load a little slowly simply because the Google Maps API has a "speed limit" on how often we can use their service to geo-decode each address into latitude and longitude values.
It covers the world, so if you get an order on the other side of the world to where you are, it will show on the map - once all of your orders have loaded onto the map, the map will zoom out appropriately so you see ALL of the pins
Clicking on a pin reveals the full address of that particular customer

31st January 2013

Updates to basket page to make it more streamlined and easy on the eye for the shopper
New updates to product reviews - on the product detail page, now general feedback reviews are amalgamated into product reviews (obviously only from shoppers who bought the product on the product detail page), giving each product much more meaningful and visible feedback on the product detail page itself. The review score relates to the product quality score each shopper gives in their general feedback score. See screenshot below:-

21st January 2013

New Product Footer facility. Now you can append your product descriptions with some generic footer text / images / buttons - you can find this facility in backoffice > variables > shop options > product layout options (see Product Description Footer link). Examples of how you could use this facility include:-

an image banner highlighting that you offer free delivery
perhaps you have a short-term sale on for particular products and want to highlight this in the product description across dozens / hundreds of products
you could even add bespoke buttons that link to a bespokle enquiry form you've created - if you do want to add bespoke buttons to a specific range of products (usually these would be non-saleable items - e.g. items for hire), there is help available here that will show you how to do that - an example is shown here:-

The product description footer facility allows you to append such information easily across all (or a range) of your products quickly in one go, rather than have to update each and every product description. You can even choose to append it automatically to future products you add. You can also REMOVE the footer easily just by deleting the text in the "Product Description Footer" box. This facility is really useful because the product description itself is a vital selling point to a product, and perhaps you need to really highlight some information here that's generic across a number of your products.

13th January 2013

For those selling items, a new feature allows you to show full delivery options on the product detail page itself, so the shopper doesn't need to add an item to the basket to see your delivery options. This feature is OFF by default but can be switched on in backoffice > variables > shop options > general shop settings > tick box next to "Show delivery costs on product detail page". One exception to this feature being activated is if all of your shipping rules are weight-based. In that case, this feature cannot be activated as the shipping cost for any particular item may vary depending on the total weight of the basket.

Another new feature that is automatically activated on your site is that shoppers are alerted on each and every product detail page if you have a free delivery option available - a great selling point.

For all the new delivery information options, see screenshot below of what the shopper would see :-

8th January 2013

New free live chat facility which can be added to your site in backoffice > variables > Live Chat (live chat service from Zopim) - allows you to directly chat with your website visitors and is a convenient way for your visitors to get a quick answer from you - see screenshots below to see what it looks like:-

small

[click here to enlarge]

close

3rd December 2012

Updates to customer feedback facilities (backoffice > orders > manage feedback):-

option to disable automatic feedback email sent out to customers (which goes out 7 to 10 days after order is made)
option to set the number of days after an order is made when the feedback email is sent out (e.g. 15 days after order is made)
option to order customer feedback (on your reviews page) - you can order it by date order, or by highest ratings to lowest

8th November 2012

New updates:-

New product "labels" like the following:-

These can be applied individually to products (when you add/edit a product), or they can be applied across multiple products in one go via the edit multiple products facility. They overlay product images on the product listings pages - see this example:-
Christmas icons added to the Microblog:-

30th October 2012

A number of updates:-

New browser stats for e-commerce sales (backoffice > browser stats) - shows you what browser / devices (e.g. iPad / iPhone) your customers used to make their purchase - stats are displayed as percentage share
Customer Discovery page (backoffice > orders > How Did Customers Discover Site?) also shows which browser / device was used for each purchase
Various bug fixes through September / October
On-page SEO updates

28th August 2012

Updates to customer feedback facilities:-

Your customer feedback will now be reflected in Google results via microdata like the following:-

This will help with your click-through rate from Google - this service is automatically activated if you've had at least 2 customer feedback reivews
you now receive an email notification whenever someone leaves feedback about your service
all customers are sent a separate follow-up email between 7 to 28 days after they order asking them if they'd like to leave feedback

Further updates:-

on home page slideshow, you can now set background of slides to transparent in backoffice > variables > home page slideshows > edit slideshow colours/styling

18th August 2012

Further updates to homepage slideshows - now product and photo gallery slideshows are javascript based, not Flash. This means they will appear on all devices such as iPad, iPhone and other smart phones. The slideshow loads very quickly and is light on client-side resources too.

7th August 2012

New "Homepage Slideshow" area of backoffice (backoffice > variables > homepage slideshow) - now you can choose what kind of image slideshow you want on the home page in one single place.
New custom slideshow (backoffice > variables > homepage slideshow (toward bottom of page) > add/edit custom slides - allows you to create custom slides for the slideshow in a very easy way. The new custom slideshow is also HTML-based (not Flash) so will display fine on the iPhone and iPad (product / photo gallery slideshows will also be non-Flash in next update).

9th July 2012

New customisable Buy Now / Add to Basket buttons - you can change background colour / text colour of these buttons to suit your colour scheme or simply make them stand out more (these buttons can be customised in backoffice > variables > shop options > general shop settings, scroll down toward "update" button).

26th June 2012

New Affiliate facilities - allowing 3rd party websites to make money by driving traffic and bring extra sales to your website. There's an FAQ here about the facilities. You can find the facilities in backoffice > variables > affiliates

12th June 2012

Visual update to related products listings (you can add related products to a product detail page in backoffice > shop > add/edit a product, then click the "Manage Related Products" button):-

related

10th June 2012

update to the mailing list facility (backoffice > mailings, and the mailing facility needs to be activated in backoffice > variables > add/remove facilities first of all) - a new feature allows you to incentivise sign-ups to your mailing list via the disclosure of a voucher code to those that signup. So someone signs up, then they're emailed a voucher code that they can use in X days (1 to 7 days) for 1 time only. You can set exactly what kind of basket discount that voucher code will give them, and the number of days it's valid for (1 to 7 days).

26th May 2012

new microblog facility (backoffice > variables > microblog [found at bottom of page]) allowing you to get the attention of your visitors by posting a message at the top of each page - see screenshot:-

[click here to enlarge]

The microblog features on all your pages, right at the top of each page, so visitors cannot fail to see it. Therefore, it's ideal if you want to grab their attention for a particular deal you have on, or perhaps to show them you have new items in stock, or any company news you have, or maybe you just want to share your opinion on something with your visitors. It's also good in that it shows your site is "live" and being updated regularly.

This facility - like all new facilities - is switched off by default, and you will need to enable it if you want to use it.

4th April 2012

A number of product display updates:-

two new product display options on the "Selected Items" area of the home page: Large List, and Large Grid. See screenshot examples below:-

click to enlarge

You can choose these new layouts in backoffice > variables > shop options > product layout options

New layout for product category listings when you select "Show large images" in backoffice > variables > shop options > product layout options > product listings pages. See example screenshot below:-

click to enlarge
New "From..." label on home page category links (which you can set when you add a home page category image to one of your categories in backoffice > shop > categories). See example screenshot below:-

click to enlarge
New "sale" and "new" labels that overlay on images (these apply only to the new layouts mentioned above):-

21st March 2012

Updates to design files area:-

new colour picker for CSS editor (making it easier to change hexadecimal value colours in the CSS file)
new video showing how the design files area works (with example of changes in design)

16th March 2012

New slideshow editor - can be accessed via several places in the backoffice:- backoffice > photo gallery > edit slideshow, backoffice > design > design files > edit slideshow, or backoffice > shop > priority list/slideshow > edit slideshow. The slideshow editor allows you to edit:-

font size (individual settings for title and price)
font colour (individual settings for title and price)
hide title, price and/or "more info" labels (you can hide all 3 if you want to)
adjust transparency on text background
set colour of text background
apply drop shadow to text (or not)

One further addition to the slideshow is a fix to get around browser caching - the slideshow automatically refreshes through dynamic XML file renaming - so no more need to clear your browser's cache to see updates to the slideshow.

12th March 2012

Further updates to stock control facilities:-

for the shop area, all "offline" payment options (cheque/BACS/manually added orders) now have automatic stock control deductions immediately when an order is made
if for whatever reason an order can't be fulfilled, there's a new "revert stock levels" option for each order allowing stock levels to be reverted back to what they were (as if the order hadn't occurred). This option is also there for other payment methods like PayPal / WorldPay (etc) if an order is cancelled / refunded (you can then revert stock levels back to what they were as if the order hadn't occurred).
manually added orders: you can now add variations of products as part of the order you add.

6th March 2012

Now you can augment the category sidebar navigation with some home page category links too. See the example below:-

click here to see context
In backoffice > shop > categories, you can also upload a custom image for each category now (which can work with the new home page category links); the image you upload will also be used in the sidebar category list if you have images activated for the sidebar category listing
in backoffice > shop > stock levels & prices, you can update multiple product stock levels much faster now, as well as search for products in this area too.

21st February 2012

Updates to best sellers (backoffice > best sellers, button on home page of backoffice). Now you can search by date to see what's sold the most over a given period. You can also check to see how quickly it's sold too (1 item sold per X days), how much is currently in stock, and the predicted date it will go out of stock given it's rate of sales (if stock control is activated for the product).
minor update to backoffice > orders; name & address of customer now in convenient row format for easy copy/pasting to address labels
stock levels displayed automatically in backoffice > shop to show you quickly the levels of stock of particular items without the need to edit them to see the level.

10th February 2012

For any products you've activated stock control on, you can see exactly how many are in stock when you view your latest orders in backoffice > orders; useful if you've just received an order that's put a couple of items low in stock / out of stock - you can quickly identify low stock
updates to basket abandonment facility (backoffice > shop > product/basket stats > view basket / checkout stats > most frequently visiting IP addresses) - now you can see the most frequently visiting IP addresses and also links to identify where these IP addresses are (sometimes you can glean company information from an IP address).

28th January 2012

New feature allowing you to edit the "Out of Stock" label - useful if you sell one-off items (therefore you may wish to rename to "Sold"). With this update, the label is reset to "Sold Out" (a more positive term than Out of Stock). You can edit this label, and even style it with HTML here: backoffice > variables > shop options > stock control options
Some help on how to integrate your Twitter and Facebook feeds (opens in new window) to the template columns - you can also access this help via backoffice > variables > Insert Text/Images Into Columns
Improvements to Product Features facilities (backoffice > shop > product features). The search facilities have been improved to make it much easier for your website visitors to find products using the product feature search. For example, if you have a numeric product feature type called "mileage" (if you were selling cars), it will automatically create mileage ranges based on the mileage range of all the cars you sell like the screenshot below, which are also multi-select giving your website visitors a lot of ways to find EXACTLY the products they are after. Also boolean product feature types (yes/no type filters) are simply tick boxes instead of dropdown menus. The end result means you can create search boxes like this for your website:-

6th January 2012

New "single visit" voucher code - once you add this kind of voucher code, it's made public to everyone who visits your site like this example:-

The voucher code can only be used on that very first visit - when the visitor returns on a new session to your site, the voucher code is not visible, NOR can it be used. The point of this type of voucher code is to compel the visitor into using the voucher code right now as it's their only opportunity to do so.

You can set such a voucher code in backoffice > shop > vouchers (tick box next to "Single Visit Voucher?"). To discontinue the offer, simply delete the voucher code in backoffice > shop > vouchers.

3rd January 2012

New keyword research service - returns 50 best keywords for your website - knowing your best keywords is useful for:-

honing your website's content - you can tweak your content to make it more on-page SEO friendly to take into account your 50 most useful keywords
your Adwords campaigns, knowing the best keywords at cost-effective CPC prices
if you are link building yourself, you can use these keywords in your anchor texts
if you are hiring an SEO company, you can present them these lists and ask them to build a link building campaign around them
identifying your competition. Searching in Google with these keywords shows you the best of your competition and you can check out their sites to see why they are ranking so high
identifying the most searched for products in your range of products. For example, if you sell pashminas, and most people are searching in Google for silver, cream and white pashminas, you can stock up on those on your site and do SEO campaigns for the pages on your site that sell silver, cream and white pashminas

21st November 2011

Updates to checkout process to make it even simpler for shopper (navigation updates)
Various bug fixes
Three new design templates created:-

Folded Label (2 / 3 column)

You can preview this new design via backoffice > design, then select from "Design Templates" dropdown menu, select the "Folded Label " design and then click "Preview Design >>>").

Curved Label (2 / 3 column)

You can preview this new design via backoffice > design, then select from "Design Templates" dropdown menu, select the "Curved Label " design and then click "Preview Design >>>").

Fancy Label (2 / 3 column)

You can preview this new design via backoffice > design, then select from "Design Templates" dropdown menu, select the "Fancy Label " design and then click "Preview Design >>>").

8th November 2011

New design template created:-

Club (2 column)

You can preview this new design via backoffice > design, then select from "Design Templates" dropdown menu, select the "Club" design and then click "Preview Design >>>"). Default has a pink theme but you can change theme colours in backoffice > design > design files > edit the CSS file.

Club

18th October 2011

New banner slideshow service (example) - provides a new way to display your banner area using multiple non-Flash slides.
New field for products called "Search Tags" (you will see this whenever you add / edit a product). Allows you and your visitors to use keywords that may not be visible in the product description (or title), yet still find your products. This helps you with finding products when you search in backoffice > shop, OR in backoffice > orders if you are searching by a product code for example.

5th October 2011

2nd part to the discount facility - now you can rotate discounts on the home page automatically. This is good if you want to sell items with a very short deadline (a few hours), and when that offer deadline expires, a new products is put in its place with its own deadline. You can rotate unlimited offers and set their offer expiry time in hours (as little as 5 minutes, as much as 48 hours, per offer). You can try this new facility out in backoffice > shop > discounts, then add or edit a discount.
Much more compact layout to the offer box:-

22nd September 2011

Update to the discount facility that allows you to display an offer on the home page (you can set this up in backoffice > shop > discounts, add a discount, then tick the box "show on home page"). A large coundown clock has been added to it, similar to the new trend in "super offers" that are appearing everywhere online:-

This is part one of a two part update - the next update will allow you to rotate offers on the home page so you could add different offers to the home page without manually changing them e.g. set 7 offers for the next 7 days (that will rotate automatically without you having to do anything), or for example, 20 offers that rotate every 6 hours (you can set the time period too per change of offer). Another update will be to include serial offers on the home page too (so you could display a number of offers on the home page concurrently).

27th August 2011

Two new updates in regards to Google Products (if you have not submitted your products to Google Products, these won't concern you):-

Editable Unique Identifier fields for your products if that is a requirement for any products you've submitted to Google Products; can be found in backoffice >shop > Google Products / Sitemap > Unique Identifiers. Note: this rule hasn't been strictly enforced by Google - these fields are there in case Google start to enforce this rule at any time in the future
A number of updates to Google Products feed to take into account Google's new Google Products requirements that will be enforced from 22nd September 2011 (you don't need to do anything here, these updates are automatically patched to your Google Products feed).

16th August 2011

New landing page stats (backoffice > SE Referals [near barchart on home page of backoffice] > landing pages) - shows you the most popular landing pages from search engines and what keywords were used by searchers to find those pages on your site. Data started recording since this facility went live (16th August) so be aware that there won't be much data from launch date - but check back to this facility as landing page stats build up.

1st August 2011

Updates to blog - useful if you want to use your site as a dedicated blog; updates allow you to show full blog entries on your home page, and up to 30 entries too (while removing other details of the home page, just to show blog entries). Updates can be tried out in backoffice > variables > add/remove facilities > tick "Show full blog entries on home page instead of snippets?"

21st July 2011

New design for home page product grid layout - much more organized, slicker and also has more information of each product. Works with any background (uses transparent .png files for shading). If you haven't set the grid format on your home page (if you sell products), you can do so in backoffice > variables > shop options > product layout options > Show List of Products on HomePage > "show as Grid". Here's a brief example:-

19th July 2011

A big update to the footer editor - backoffice > variables > Edit Footer (previously "Footer Text") - you can now have full control over the footer area, and even arrange it in up to 4 columns, like the example image below. If you've already put in some custom footer text, this will appear below the columns. You can choose icons, titles and text for each column.

Example of new footer design:-

(click image to enlarge it)

4th July 2011

New Google+ buttons for home page, category pages, blog, and product pages. This may become a useful signal for Google in the future in determining rankings (remains to be seen, but no harm in having some discrete buttons)
product images can now be browsed much more easily with "prev" and "next" links within each image - useful if you have 2 or more images for any given product:-

25th June 2011

Further updates to suggestions centre :- suggestions on mailshots and Google Products submissions.
Link Building service now open again

22nd June 2011

New "suggestions centre" (see link at top-right of backoffice) - an analysis of your site's content and suggestions that may improve your site's conversion rates / search engine rankings.

18th June 2011

Now you can list sub-categories directly under your category list (see image below). This is only applicable if you have a total of 50 sub-categories or less (across all your categories) - the reason for the limit is to do with search engine optimization and link equity. Too many links on any given page will dilute the power of each individual link (particularly important on home page). You can try this facility out in backoffice > variables > shop options > general shop settings > Show Sub-Categories Under Categories in Navigation.

11th June 2011

Fixed price discounts - you can now set fixed price discounts (rather than just percentage discounts) - this makes the following kind of discount possible: ~~£3.99~~ £2.99 ... where you can explicitly state the discounted price, rather than have it be calculated by percentage. You can find this feature in backoffice > shop > discounts > fixed price discounts

20th May 2011

Updates to photo gallery - new Flash gallery + various updates to other gallery formats

17th May 2011

Various updates:-

more videos in the video section (marked as "new" or "updated")
updated orders area - now you can bulk change the status of a number of orders easily
more hourly visitors stats - just click on any number above the various bars in the visitor barchart
more sales stats - link can be found on home page of backoffice ("revenue stats")

8th May 2011

Final part to the Product Features facility (backoffice > shop > product features) - allowing shoppers to search based on product feature criteria, just like the following screenshot illustrates:-

You can choose which fields are to be included in the search by going to backoffice > shop > product features, and clicking on "edit" next to the field you want to include and simply ticking the box that states "Include In Search?". Of course, if you don't want this search facility at all, then you simply wouldn't select any fields to be included and so the search facility is disabled. Video help will follow this update very shortly.
Update to "monthly sales" page - shows comparison to previous month in terms of percentage change (up or down) - and this month's sales are pro rata'd too so you can see if this current month compares to the last even if you're only a week or 2 into the current month.

28th April 2011

New "Edit Multiple Products" facility (backoffice > shop > "Edit Multiple Products" button) - useful if you want to edit a number of products quickly and all the products require the same update e.g. hide 20 products in one click, or add a particular upsell product to your entire range of products. There's a lot of possible uses with this new facility and it should save you a lot of time too. Use with caution as it updates your chosen multiple products information in one go.

24th April 2011

Part 2 of product features completed - the front-end. After adding your various product features in backoffice > shop > product features, any of your products that have these features added will show them to the shopper that browses such a product - like this:-

(click to enlarge)

If the shopper clicks on the "Compare similar items to above features" link, they will see the following:-

(click to enlarge)

As you can see, it compares similar items to the product they are viewing - if another product has at least one feature that's the same (not incl. price) then it's matched and shown. The shopper can expand the comparison to view more products. This is a quick way for the shopper to compare similar products in your range.
New MP3 player for supporting files - if your supporting file is an MP3 file, it can be played "in line" by the website visitor using a Flash MP3 player that looks like this:-

This means if you sell audio files (ebooks, music) it allows shoppers to quickly preview dozens of products without leaving the page.

12th April 2011

Part 1 of a series of updates regarding product features (backoffice > shop > product features) - this new facility will allow you to add unlimited features to each of your products. This paves the way for new future facilities that will allow shoppers to :-

1. compare products side-by-side based on features;
2. filter their product searches based on features.

An example of what you could do with this - let's say you sell electric bikes. You could for example create the following features:- top speed, battery charge time, battery life, wheel size. Then shoppers could search based on those criteria, and also compare your products (side-by-side on that criteria). This new facility allows you to create any feature you like, and also unlimited features. You can then add (quickly and easily) values to each of your products that correspond to each feature. Let's say I set up the following features in product features: Top Speed, Battery Life, Battery Charge Time, Wheel Size. Then I can go to backoffice > shop > product features > assign values to products and put in values that correspond to those features e.g. a product called Bike ABC - I set Top Speed at 20Kmh, Battery Life at 6 Hours, Battery Charge at 4 Hours. The "assign values to products" page makes it easy to quickly add values to all your products.

Further updates will come next regarding front-end shopper facilities that are connected to product features.

4th April 2011

Some tweaks that makes the checkout process faster/smoother for PayPal, Nochex, SagePay and WorldPay payments.

15th March 2011

New Trends stats above your visitor bar chart:-

This indicates whether your stats are going up or down when compared to the previous month, corresponding 7 day block, or 24 hour block. This feature will appear if your site has been live during at least 2 different calendar months. More info here

6th March 2011

Products (backoffice > shop) now searchable by category, sub-category, or even sub-sub-category
More "add to basket" statistics - backoffice > shop > basket stats > most popular products bought / added to basket
Update to visitor stats bar chart and also revenue charts - shows explicit numbers of visitors above each bar
Added Facebook, Twitter and other social bookmark buttons to product detail pages and blog pages

1st March 2011

Added editable H1 Title field to "More Info" pages (found in backoffice > pages) - here's a help page about this if you're not sure what H1 tags are, and why editable H1 tags can be useful! This field becomes available when you edit (not add) a "More Info" page.

17th February 2011

general aesthetic updates to front-end of template (pagination tidied up, some icons updated)

13th February 2011

New "Add Video" button on WYSIWYG editor :

Allows you to EASILY add youtube.com videos to your general pages (backoffice > pages), product and blog descriptions - all videos automatically resized to fit your pages, and no embed HTML code necessary (this is automatically created for you) - just enter the URL of the video e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtFPdBUl7XQ - that's it.

10th February 2011

CSS-only speech bubbles:-

CSS-only speech bubbles added to forum, blog (blog comments), "news from the web" facility, product reviews and customer feedback pages
You can now embed quotes via the WYSIWYG page editor - just click on "add quote" within the editor
Ability to embed "tweets" (Twitter messages) to your website's pages (help here)

22nd January 2011

SEO and cosmetic updates to the forum section (which can be activated in backoffice > variables > add/remove facilities if you haven't tried the forum out yet).

20th January 2011

New Bulk Discount feature (help here) - allows you to set bulk discounts on a per-product basis like the screenshot below:-

You set a maximum quantity, and a corresponding percentage off for that maximum quantity. In the above example, it's 25 (maximum meaning 25 or more) and it calculates a sliding scale of discounts between that maximum quantity and a single item purchase. You can activate this Bulk Discounts feature in backoffice > variables > shop options > general shop settings > Activate Bulk Discounts. Once you've done that, you can then add/edit a product and set its bulk discount settings. You need to do this on a per-product basis. Bulk discount orders that come through are labelled as such so you'll know exactly how much an order has been discounted by (saves confusion when you see total prices of bulk discount orders!).

14th January 2011

Added Seasonal Trends in backoffice >Seasonal Trends (link found on home page of backoffice under "General Statistics") - shows you top 15 best sellers for each calendar month so might find some selling trends - also an easy export-to-priority list feature which means you could - for example - create a priority list (slideshow etc) based on February's top-15 best selling products (if you have sales history of course) - a good way to show-case best selling products in time for the up-and-coming months.

13th January 2011

New "Best Customers" report - can be found in backoffice > orders > Most Loyal Customers - tells you your best repeat customers - a follow-up update to this will be the ability to send them a quick email (e.g. notify them of a new voucher code), as these people are most likely to buy again

23rd December 2010

Added H1 Title field to product categories - here's a help page about this if you're not sure what H1 tags are, and why editable H1 tags can be useful!

22nd December 2010

Customer Order History - when you view an order, you can see if that person has ordered from you before (and when and what they ordered)
Updates to Spiders - now you can control specific traffic spikes if they occur more easily
Adding/Editing a product - now you can see the discounted price alongside the original price (if it's on discount) and also when the discount is due to expire

16th December 2010

new robots.txt editor facility here (backoffice > Spiders, just above visitor bar chart as you login) - allows you to filter traffic if necessary (like if you get a traffic spike from a particular service sending lots of IP addresses to your site). You can also see how frequently Google visit your site and other search engine spider visits too.
more banner design filters in backoffice > design - now you can colourise, spray, blur, dither, add borders etc to your website banner
new help page for your blog - gives links on where to submit your blog's RSS feed. You can also find out what your blog's RSS URL is by visiting backoffice > blog (if activated)

14th December 2010

New tabs facility for product descriptions - see more info here - allows you to create a tabs layout for your product descriptions.

tabs

21st November 2010

New Search Engine Friendly version of the photo gallery - more details here. The photo gallery can be activated in backoffice > variables > add/remove facilities). After activation, you can administer your photo gallery in backoffice > photo gallery.

16th November 2010

Google Products Service now runs daily updates (was weekly) - so products listed on Google Products are updated on a daily basis

18th October 2010

You can now set the default email address for lovepashminas.com in backoffice > variables > contact details (i.e. all emails generated from the website - orders, enquiries etc).
new custom metatags can be set in backoffice > variables > Sitewide MetaTag Defaults - useful if you need to enter meta tags to verify a Bing website ownership verification, Google webmasters, Norton verification etc)

1st October 2010

new "in-stock priority listing" - in backoffice > variables > shop options > stock control - order products by most in stock descending to least in stock (in product listings). This ensures your in-stock items are always at the top of your product listings (this ordering over-rides any other ordering you set). Very very useful if you have a range of products that goes out of stock quickly, and want to showcase the in-stock items higher up (it's not wise to completely hide out-of-stock items for search engine optimization reasons - always keep those products online if they're coming back in stock soon!).

8th September 2010

new "stock watchers" facility (backoffice > shop > stock watchers). In regards to your out-of-stock products, this facility shows exactly who is waiting for them to come back in stock (and which products they are waiting for). They will automatically be emailed when the product they're watching comes back in stock (a facility launched a while back). However, with this new facility, you can email all (or selected) "stock watchers" with your own message if you have something specific to tell them e.g. ("it'll be back in stock in just 2 days - you'll be notified then").

2nd September 2010

Update to blog section; now when you post a new blog entry, it's automatically submitted to a random selection of social networks including Jumptags.com, Brightkite.com, and Tumblr.com, for the purpose of speedy indexing - more details here.
Footer text now has no size limit so you can add footer links etc.
Switched the currency conversion system to lookup coinmill.com (RSS feed for latest conversion rates) as currencysource.com (previous conversion rate provider) recently went offline!

17th August 2010

New facility allowing you to send custom messages to your customers (when you change status of order)

21st July 2010

New stock library images for your website's columns. You can browse to this page via backoffice > variables > Insert Text/Images Into Your Website's Columns
sale on

8th July 2010

Sub-category and sub-sub-categories can now be listed with images next to each link (see example here) - you can switch this feature on here: backoffice > variables > shop options > general shop settings > Thumbnail Image Size for Sub-Category and Sub-Category Listings (set thumbnail image width to 50 pixels or more). You then need to select each image for each sub-cat / sub-sub-cat by editing each respective category in backoffice > shop > categories and selecting an image. You can set image sizes at 50, 75, 100, or 125 pixels in width.

5th July 2010

Updates to the keyword stats area of the backoffice (backoffice > keyword stats [just above bar chart]). Now you can see the what the corresponding landing page is for all the keywords that you are getting many click-throughs for, while also telling you if your listing in Google is an organic listing or a Google Products one. Keywords are also sorted by derived order (descending) to make it easier to see which keywords you should be targeting for your link building purposes.

24th June 2010

If you use Google Checkout as a payment provider, you can now import your orders very easily from the Google Checkout control panel to the backoffice (backoffice > orders > import Google Checkout orders)

20th June 2010

a new feature (backoffice > shop > product/basket stats) to show you how shoppers on your site behaved, and how far they progressed through the checkout process. This will give you a good idea of what shoppers added to the basket, and where some shoppers abandoned their basket.

Typical reasons for basket abandonment include:-

shipping prices are too high - nasty shock to see a large cost added onto the product cost on the basket page
not happy with the payment methods on offer (e.g. pay by BACS only)
lack of trust - perhaps they worry what will happen if they don't like the product they receive

If people progress to the checkout stage (i.e. they click through to a payment gateway like PayPal) and still abandon, it's probably NOT due to the above reasons - it may be the fact that they are simply at the point of decision and decide something like "no, I can't afford this purchase" or something that may be completely outside of your control. However, if you have a lot of basket abandoments that DON'T go to at least the checkout stage, consider your shipping costs and payment methods, as well as using the basket message facility (backoffice > variables > shop options > general shop settings) to put in some reassurances like money-back guarantees, expected delivery times etc.

9th June 2010

new wholesale feature (backoffice > variables > shop options > wholesale options). Allows you to specify individual products to be "wholesale"; these products have their prices hidden - only logged in (and approved) members can view the prices and buy these items. You can still regular products alongside wholesale products.
new "shop options" area in the backoffice (backoffice > variables > shop options). As this area has grown over the years, it's now split up into basic sections like this :-

31st May 2010

Added new sort filters for product listings page. They can be activated in backoffice > variables > shop options > tick box next to "Include Product Sorting Filter?". Here's a screenshot of what the product sorting option looks like:-

order

28th May 2010

Two updates to home page labels:-

The phrase "Selected Items" on the home page can be edited in backoffice > variables > shop options > product layout / display options
"Featured.." (above products in sidebar) can also be edited in backoffice > variables > shop options > product layout / display options

21st May 2010

Updated Search Engine Keyword Stats page (in backoffice) - allows you to get the ranking of each of the most popular keywords used in search engines to find your site. A "keyword value" score is then calculated based on : number of click throughs * ranking position. This is useful because it can highlight keywords that are performing well but may be ranking quite low e.g. a keyword ranked 8 in Google but happens to be your most popular keyword. Other less popular keywords may be getting you traffic because you're no.1 for those keywords. All well and good, but that no. 8 ranked keyword is where the big volume of searches are made. That would be a great keyword to work on to improve its ranking (via link building). There will be further updates to this facility including "sort by keyword value score".

17th May 2010

Added new variation filter within categories for your website visitors. This means that when they browse one of your categories, they can refine their search by your product variations. See example image below for an illustration of how it can work. The variations in the dropdown menus apply ONLY to the category (or sub-cat, or sub-sub-cat) the visitor is in. This is good if your various categories have different types of sizes/colours/whatever. For example, in one category you might sell t-shirts which come in small, medium and large. In another category you might sell dresses which come in sizes of 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16. Only the appropriate sizes would be displayed depending on what category the visitor was in. This works in categories, sub-categories and sub-sub-categories.

This can be activated in backoffice > variables > shop options > product variations > tick the box next to "Allow website visitors to search your product range by these variations? "

variation

search

29th April 2010

Integrated CardSave payment gateway to the template. Requires a merchant account. After you setup an account with CardSave, you can easily integrate your account to your website here: (backoffice > variables > taking payments)

26th April 2010

3 new design templates created. If you wish to change colour schemes for these you can do so in design files - backoffice > design > design files. e.g. for the Xtreme design, you can re-colour images to create thousands of possible colours (some examples follow):-

Xtreme (2 / 3 column)

You can preview this new design via backoffice > design, then select from "Design Templates" dropdown menu, select the "Xtreme" design and then click "Preview Design >>>"):-

Xtreme

Photographer (2 column)

You can preview this new design via backoffice > design, then select from "Design Templates" dropdown menu, select the "Photographer" design and then click "Preview Design >>>"):-

Night Time (2 / 3 column)

You can preview this new design via backoffice > design, then select from "Design Templates" dropdown menu, select the "Night Time" design and then click "Preview Design >>>"):-

18th April 2010

Updated the "buy it" button on product detail pages - this now directly adds to basket if there's no more options required for the shopper to select (e.g. not need to select size / colour), with quantity box next to it - quick way to buy. All the normal buying options remain unchanged below the product description (for the more discerning shoppers!).

16th April 2010

Now you can sort the order of product listings within individual categories, sub-categories and sub-sub-categories in a very specific way now. You can do this in backoffice > shop > categories > (select main categories, sub-categories or sub-sub-categories), then click on "edit product order" next to the category that you want to change the order of product listings for.

11th April 2010

New "add multiple links" facility (backoffice > links > add multiple links) - allows you to quickly add multiple links to your resource directory (if you've activated it). It has a .edu and .gov filter too so you can quickly find these types of sites to link to. More information here in this article - to summarise, it's generally a good practise to link out to trusted sites such as (but of course, not exclusively) .gov and .edu IF you feel they are relevant and useful for your visitors (key point). It's also good practise to link out to established blogs, forums etc that are not .edu and .gov as well. Trusted sites are the key thing.

8th April 2010

New sales bulletpoints feature (backoffice > variables > shop options > sales bulletpoints) - allows you to place succinct sales bulletpoint messages just above the "Add to Basket" button on your product detail pages (with some nice icons you can choose from) - will help with conversion rates as many land directly on your product detail pages from search engines and may miss some pertinent information about your shop (e.g. free shipping) - sales bulletpoints are ideal in that case to highlight your fundamental offers (e.g. free shipping, money back guarantee etc) right at the critical decision point for shoppers.

4th April 2010

Now voucher codes (backoffice > shop > vouchers) can have a limited number of uses assigned to each one. This opens up a lot of possibilities. You could for example issue a credit note to a particular shopper by way of a one-time-only-use voucher code. You can set the number of times a voucher code can be used (e.g. 3 times).
Another new feature with voucher codes: for both limited use voucher codes and time-limited voucher codes, these both now have the option to be publicly displayed on a special "Expiring Voucher Codes" page - giving your visitors more incentive to buy with these about-to- expire voucher codes (either they are about to expire because of a time deadline you've set, or because you've set them to be used only a small number of times - first come first served in that case). You must tick a box saying "Make this voucher public" for these to be displayed.
New page will feature on puresilva.com listing your voucher code offers (the ones you make public that is) - driving more traffic to your site
"Your Articles" service now just £1 per article written - that means you just need to write a 100 word article and we will publish it on a blog (giving you a link back to your site) - great way to link build with unique, natural articles

28th March 2010

Editable columns for your website (where you see category listings, "more info" pages etc) - now you can add custom text and images in your column(s) via backoffice > variables > Insert Text/Images Into Columns

22nd March 2010

When an item is out of stock, a visitor can enter their email address (on the product detail page) so that they can be emailed when the item comes back in stock. They get the email (automatically) when you update the stock level of the product in the backoffice. This facility needs to be activated first in backoffice > variables > shop options (under stock control toward bottom of page)

16th March 2010

Further updates:-

new SEO Stats area detailing how many pages of your site have been included in Google, Bing and Yahoo!, your Alexa and Page Rank - located in backoffice > above visitor bar chart on home page of backoffice.
Now you can add/remove item counter (see image) from category listings (backoffice > variables > shop options > Hide Item Counter)
you can now add descriptions to sub- categories of your product range (backoffice > shop > categories > sub-categories).

8th March 2010

Updates to on-page search engine optimization :-

rel=canonical used on product detail pages and blog pages. This consolidates all the various ways of URL rewriting into one single URL for each page and so avoids any duplicate content issues.
META keyword re-introduction - automatic keywords added for product detail pages and category listings pages
removed "more info" links (which were "nofollowed" anyway) and kept descriptive links

Also the template has undergone a full code audit and various minor bugs have been fixed.

19th February 2010

Two new services:-

"Your Articles" Service - you write your articles (sent to puresilva) - we publish them on blogs. A great way to link build cost-effectively
eBay Synchronise Service - Do you have an eBay shop? Import your eBay products to your website - everything updated hourly.

12th February 2010

Now you can remove the Resource Directory from your site if you don't use it or want it there. If you already have a LOT of links listed here, it's wise to keep the resource directory plugged into your site, as you will no doubt have built some links to your site with the directory and it's not a good idea to pull the plug on your link partners whose links are on your site! You can remove it in backoffice > variables > add/remove facilities
Now you can remove the "new" image next to new products if you want to (backoffice > variables > shop options > Hide "New" image next to new products)
New "unlink" option in the WYSIYWG editor.

9th February 2010

Added new incentives facility - allows you to offer free gifts to shoppers if they shop over a certain amount e.g. free gift if you spend £25 or more, another type of free gift if you shop £50 or more etc. Very easy to set-up and also easy for end-shopper to make selection. Entirely optional if you want to use it! Can be found in backoffice > shop > incentives.

4th February 2010

Added the WYSIWYG editor to both the blog section and add/edit product pages.
Made it easier and quicker to apply individual prices to products that have variations (e.g. one product with different stock control levels and prices for each different size of the product) - now all this can be done by clicking a button - "Insert Individual Prices For Each Variation" - on the add/edit product page (as you're adding/editing a product), and the page refreshes to show the boxes where you can enter the stock levels/prices for each variation

30th January 2010

Greatly simplified the page editing facilities in Backoffice > Pages; now it's much simpler to add links, images and files to your pages - the page editor is now a much slimmed down version of what was before, without losing any features.

26th January 2010

New "footer popup" window (see example) - you can activate this in Backoffice > Mailings (it's switched off by default) if you want to more pro-actively build your mailing list. It's a lot more discrete than a regular (annoying) popup window, but quite noticeable as it "sticks" to the bottom of the page. It can easily be closed by visitors and NEVER appears again if someone closes it or signs up to your mailing list.
Now you can add articles to your mailshots (see Backoffice > Mailings > Manage / Send Email Templates)
You can now see which are the most popular keywords used when shoppers buy items from your site in Backoffice > Orders > How Did Customers Discover Your Site? > View Most Popular Keywords Used

19th January 2010

New mailshot facility : allows you to send templated emails (which you can make with the email template builder) to your mailing list via the backoffice. Your mailing list comprises of all those who've subscribed to your mailing list directly, made enquiries (and opted into your mailing list, and your customers. You can create unlimited email templates too and easily add products and voucher codes to each template if you wish to do so. Where to find it : backoffice > mailings > click "Free native mailing service"; ensure you've activated subscriber list in backoffice > variables > add/remove facilities first!

30th December 2009

Added front-end stock level warnings for shoppers - you can activate this in backoffice > variables > shop options > stock level options (near foot of page). You can set the stock level quantity that triggers this warning (e.g. 3 items or less) - shoppers actually see how many items are left - good to get rid of clearance items quicker.

sale / new

Added "New" and "Sale" images next to each product title if applicable. "New" appears next to products you've added in the last few weeks (doesn't work retrospectively for copied products but will work for future copied products). "Sale" appears next to items that are discounted.

28th December 2009

Now it's possible to easily re-colour each image of your website's design in the design files area (in the Replace / Re-colour Existing Image Files section). This means you have now hundreds of thousands of colour combinations for your website's design at your disposal using an easy-to-use colour picker (like the image to the left) - re-colour menu background images, headings, in fact any image that's used in the design template you're using for your website.

18th December 2009

For those selling items, we've added a new payment processor to the template - eWay. Transaction fees/costs can be found here. They appear to be very good value, and certainly we've found them to be a very responsive and helpful company when we worked on the underlying integration of eWay to the template. After you get an eWay account (which requires an Internet Merchant Account), you can easily integrate your eWay account to your website in the taking payments section of the backoffice (backoffice > variables > taking payments).

15th December 2009

New facility allowing you to link to pages in the "More Info" sections rather than actually have to add a page (backoffice > pages > add URL instead of page). Example - you add a "More Info" section called "Favourite Websites" then add links (not pages) to external websites. Or add a "More Info" section called "Surveys" and directly link to a number of enquury forms you've developed on your site itself.
you can now toggle the embedded slideshow on the home page between your photo gallery and your products (by activating photo gallery slideshow in the photo gallery area)
you can now add your own custom slides to the embedded products slideshow (backoffice > shop > priority order/slideshow) - allows you to add your own custom text and images and place them in the slideshow whereever you like. Example here (see 2nd and 4th slide)
Files Manager - This area is a useful repository if you want to link to particular files on your website. You can find all the files you've uploaded across your various pages here, as well as upload extra files. This area is particularly useful if you want to add custom slides in the slideshow or use the same file on more than one page (by copy/pasting the file location below).

8th December 2009

Added "Replace Image Files" facility in the esign Files area of the backoffice. This allows you to upload your own custom images to replace the images used in the design of your site. Just like the CSS Editor, you can reset back to the original files if things don't work out! The range of facilities now present in the Design Files area can now give you the scope to actually create your very own design templates (however some knowledge of HTML/CSS is essential here).

Having said that, we will keep producing our own new templates for your use as always to add to the library of existing designs, so it's still easy to redesign your site without any HTML/CSS knowledge if you choose not to customise each template to the degree mentioned above!

7th December 2009

Introduced new subscription-type services. This allows you to sell a service and get paid on a recurring basis for that service you sell. For example, let's say you have a telephone tech support service or perhaps you allow a room you own to be rented out weekly for meetings etc. Those kinds of things can now be sold on your site and the buyer would pay you on a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly basis automatically via PayPal (you would get paid automatically without having to re-invoice the customer). You can set the frequency and number of times for this type of subscription payment (e.g. monthly payments, lastings just 12 months, or indefinitely on a weekly basis).

Firstly you must activate this service in backoffice > variables > shop options - look for "Allow subscription payment-type services". After ticking the box to activate subscription-type services, you will see new options appear when you add or edit a product allowing you to set the frequency and amount of payments required for that service you've added.

You can of course still have regular products you can sell with the single one-off payment! This new service is entirely optional and you can create as many or as few subscription-type products (likely a service you provide) as you like.

8th November 2009

Now you can add your own HTML title / META description to categories - backoffice > shop > categories. If you don't, then as always it just populates these with the category name (HTML Title) and category description (META description).
Removed META Keyword fields from product edit page and general page editor as these are now redundant and not necessary to enter (will give you no benefit in ranking as search engines now officially discount these as being useful in determining the content of your page)

4th November 2009

New Flash photo gallery module option so now your photo gallery can have a slick animated user interface. To try this out, first you need to make sure the photo gallery is activated on your site (backoffice > variables > add/remove facilities). Now go to backoffice > photo gallery and select "Flash" as type of photo gallery and finally click update. Then you can view your new Flash photo gallery on the front-end of your site
Much improved embeded products slideshow with many more transition effects. You can try this feature out by activating it here: backoffice > variables > shop options - tick the box next to "Embed Products Slideshow on Home Page" (if it isn't already ticked) and visit your home page.

25th October 2009

Now deadlines can be set for all discount vouchers (not just printable ones) - this is useful for example if you're doing a mailshot that includes a discount voucher; there you can state that the voucher's only usable for the next 7 days (example) - after which time it expires automatically wihout you needing to manually delete the voucher code in the backoffice. It also means you can RE-use the same voucher code again in the future by simply changing the expiry date of it to a new future date. You can access this facility via : backoffice > shop > vouchers

16th October 2009

A new FAQ facility allowing you to add FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) pages to your website. You can find this facility in backoffice > pages > add/edit FAQs. See an FAQ created by this facility here. You can add multiple FAQs to your site if you need. You can link to them in the usual way via a dropdown menu. For example, in backoffice > variables > navigation, you'd find your FAQs in the "links to which page?" dropdown menu. If you want to link to the FAQ via a normal text link in a paragraph of text, you'd edit that particular page in backoffice > pages, then select some text you want to be the link (in the body of the page), and then select the FAQ from the Page Links menu.

4th October 2009

New Design Files area (found in backoffice > design > design files link at top of page). This new area allows you to:-

edit the CSS file of your website - this gives you very deailed control over the look and feel of your website (requires knowledge of CSS)
upload a favicon
upload a banner DIRECTLY to your site (e.g. one you've created in Photoshop)
create a banner in puresilvabannermaker.com FREE and unbranded (saving $US8), and have it automatically added as your website banner (right size too, no matter what puresilva template you use!).

29th September 2009

new keyword suggestion tool - allows you to find new keyword for you to target in link building campaigns / make sure appear on your site. Link to keyword suggestion tool can be found just above visitor barchart on home page of backoffice.
New Design:-

Rounded (3 column / 2 column)

You can preview this new design via backoffice > design, then select from "Design Templates" dropdown menu, select the "Rounded" design, and then click "Preview Design >>>"):-

24th September 2009

new facility in the orders area to allow you to add shipping tracking codes / shipping company information so your customers can track the order directly with the shipping company. These fields appear when you edit an order, and then tick the box "Alert Customer of Status Change by Automated Email?" - the tracking information you enter will be sent in the "change status" email that the customer receives.

16th September 2009

new option for product description display - a "lightbox" feature for lengthy product descriptions. If your product description is 800 characters or longer, it is now possible to truncate it with a "[more info]" link taking the visitor to a lightbox popup which shows the entire description. This is useful because it raises all those important features BELOW the description (add to basket, upsell products, related products) much higher up the page and compacts the overall product detail page into a much more digestable format. This feature can be switched on in backoffice > variables > shop options > Show Full Product Description in Lightbox (NOT on page).
Page editor (backoffice > pages > add/edit a page) now has HTML table button - useful if you want to display tabular data or arrange photos and text in a particular way

9th September 2009

New facility allowing visitors to publish advertisements on your website (this facility is switched off by default). They can publish their text advert on your website; they then pay you via PayPal, you are notified by email of the new advert - and finally you login to the backoffice to activate/show on site their advert. You decide how much each advertiser pays you on a monthly basis (e.g. 10 per month per advertiser). You can access this facility in backoffice > variables > Advertisments on Your Site. More information can be found here .

6th September 2009

Ability to add text to the basket page in backoffice > variables > shop options ("Basket Message") e.g. you may want to alert shoppers that all items are sent by recorded delivery - that kind of message, or perhaps highlight that you offer free shipping (if you do).
updates to stock control page - out of stock items are highlighted in red, and items NOT shown on site are labelled as such
update to Twitter options - now you can show your latest Twitter messages in the sidebar of your website with a link also to your Twitter page, directly under your news/articles (news/articles must be activated to show Twitter messages).

5th August 2009

A 2nd products slideshow that can be embeded onto the home page - see this example. You can embed your slideshow by going to backoffice > variables > shop options > tick box next to "Embed Products Slideshow on Home Page". The slideshow uses the priority list to determine what products are shown on the slideshow and in what order.

1st August 2009

New option allowing your shoppers to give special requirements for products. This is basically a text box that will appear in the product detail page (if activated). It's useful if you are selling a product that may require a special message - like on a ceramic dish, or even birthday cake. Or perhaps special instructions about the configuration of a product. You can show this text box on selected products (where it's appropriate). This facility can be activated in backoffice > variables > shop options > Allow "Special Requirements" box. Then when you add/edit a product you will see a new option appear - a tickbox with "Show "Special Requirements" Box" next to it.
Ability to import affiliate products

23rd July 2009

New affiliate selling facility allowing you to sell other people's products on your site and make commissions if they click through from your site to the selling site and a sale results. You need to activate this facility first in backoffice > variables > shop options > allow affiliate products (tick the box). Once activated, whenever you add or edit a product you will see a new field called "Affiliate Link" (below Product Name). Put in the full affiliate link that this product needs to link to (incl. your affiliate code in the URL of course!). That's it. You can add as many affiliate products as you like, and affiliate to ANY other site (Amazon, John Lewis, anyone). You can even mix up your products with affiliate products or create a special category for affiliate products - up to you.

21st July 2009

"Size" and "Colour" are now editable variations for products, so you can re-label these to anything you like e.g. "Length" and "Material". You can do this here : backoffice > variables > shop options

19th July 2009

New view for product listings with much larger images - see screenshot here. You can set your website to show your products in this way in backoffice > variables > shop options > product layout options
New view for product detail page with much larger image - see screenshot here. You can set your website to show your products in this way in backoffice > variables > shop options > product layout options

14th July 2009

Ability to export/import prices (backoffice > shop > Import/Export Stock Levels / Prices)
New Design:-

Polo (3 column / 2 column)

You can preview this new design via backoffice > design, then select from "Design Templates" dropdown menu, select the "Polo" design, and then click "Preview Design >>>"):-

7th July 2009

Updates to blog commenting system - now comments are accepted via email (link in email to approve comment)
Screenshot examples of various shop options
Various bug fixes

18th June 2009

new "customer discovery" facility that records referals which went on to becomes sales. This is a great way to find out how paying customers found your website - and so you can target particular keywords for link building if you're finding certain search engine keywords are leading to more sales than others. It's live since 18th June 2009, so the recording starts from this date.
improved the WYSIWYG editor in pages to take into account certain incompatibilities with browser versions/security software

14th June 2009

new facility allowing you to export/import product stock levels - you can export import in backoffice > shop > stock level report
new page that collates all your product reviews and customer feedback. You can link to this page via the main navigation layout (select "product reviews" in page to link to) or when editing pages (you can link to this page easily by selecting "product reviews").
contact form and product enquiry form no longer use CAPTCHA to make the more accessible (they use another method to prevent form spamming).

2nd June 2009

Updated variables section as it was getting a bit too big and complicated to deal with! Now the various sections are broken down into separate pages and it's much easier to find the settings you want to edit for your site:-
New facility called "Events Calendar". It's similar to the blog/news section except it separates entries into two sections : past and future. Future events are highlighted and promoted, past events are held in an archive. You can also group event entries under one date. It's suitable for sites running events like pubs, DJs, hotels, businesses running training courses etc. You can alternate between running the blog OR running the events calendar.
A simpler backoffice. Now you only see the sections you've activated rather than everything. So if you're not running a forum on your website, you won't see the link to "forum" in the main menu bar. You can still add/remove section in the same way here.
An option to show a simpler view for the home page of the backoffice (you can toggle between "simple" and "detailed" view).

23rd May 2009

Updates:-

ability to show your products in grid format on home page - you can activate this by going to variables and selecting "grid format" on the "Show Selected Items" option

19th May 2009

Updates:-

design facility now has automatic previews of each design (as thumbnails) when you select them in the dropdown menu
supporting files for each product - maximum size now increased from 500k to 3MB (apart from MP3 files which will remain at 500k)

10th May 2009

Updates:-

New email support link at top of backoffice. This will appear more frequently (and contextually) in other areas of the site - to make it quicker and easier to send a support email (or suggestions)
"Getting Started" section if you're new to the backoffice!

Two new designs:-

Liquid (3 column / 2 column)

You can preview this new design via backoffice > design, then select from "Design Templates" dropdown menu, select the "Liquid" design, and then click "Preview Design >>>"):-

Liquid

Industrial (2 column)

You can preview this new design via backoffice > design, then select from "Design Templates" dropdown menu, select the "Industrial" design and then click "Preview Design >>>"):-

2nd May 2009

Updates:-

Increased digital download file size limit from 5Mb to 10Mb
Added video about how to add reciprocal links in the manage links directory

18th April 2009

You can now send automatic messages ("tweets") to Twitter (if you have an account) whenever you add a new product or article - this is yet another way to get extra visitors to your site as they can be alerted to your new product/article via Twitter. You can enable this in "variables" section. Once enabled, a new option appears whenever you add a new product or article ("Send Tweet About This Product/Article") - checking the box next to this option will then automatically send a "tweet" (a message) to Twitter with the following format : article/product title : article/product URL. Like all extra features, this is entirely optional (and you need to opt in, in "variables" section to enable it).

29th March 2009

Update regarding addition of items to shopping basket - now the shopper does not leave the page they added to basket - instead they get a small box above the item they added to basket like the following:-

20th March 2009

Two updates:-

new "Quick Add" facility (for products) which allows you to add products using a much shorter form that shows only the essential fields like product name, description, price, show on site etc.
new shipping maximum cost setting - allowing you to set a limit on how much shoppers pay for shipping. For example, if the limit is £8.25, then no matter what they order, they will not pay more than £8.25 in shipping.

14th March 2009

Added facility in "Discounts" of backoffice allowing you to show a special offer on the home page ("Show On Home Page" checkbox)

10th March 2009

Two further updates:-

WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) Page Editor found in Pages/Links (add/edit a general information page to see) using scalable images for reduced bandwidth.
New (and editable) look to backoffice :-

26th February 2009

If you are using stock control on some of your products, you can now view a list of the products using stock control in one view, ordered by lowest stock levels (so you know quickly what is out of stock, and what is about to go out of stock). You can find this new view in backoffice > shop > stock level report.

12th February 2009

Quick update: orders are now searchable by product name and also productID.

11th February 2009

Two new designs:-

WidgetLike (3 column / 2 column)

You can preview this new design via backoffice > design, then select from "Design Templates" dropdown menu, select the "WidgetLike" design, and then click "Preview Design >>>"):-

Temper (3 column / 2 column)

You can preview this new design via backoffice > design, then select from "Design Templates" dropdown menu, select the "Temper" design and then click "Preview Design >>>"):-

Temper

28th January 2009

Updated the template so both products and articles can now be indexed by a new puresilva product/article search engine / updates page. This page will launch in the next week or so here (click here) on puresilva.com, and will feature the latest products/articles added by puresilva sites as well as feature a keyword search for the entire product/article range. The latest products / articles page is good for search engine optimization as each new product / article you add will be linked to from puresilva.com automatically (using the title of the product as anchor text). Your site will be crawled once per day automatically and products / articles will be added to this updates page automatically.

24th January 2009

Further updates:-

option to show terms/conditions link on the basket page. You can set you terms/conditions in the Variables section.
Manually entered orders can now have status changes
New service - (in Extra Services) - information on checkrate.co.uk - a service that helps increase sales conversions by awarding you a Confidence Seal if your business has a good credit score.

19th January 2009

Two new updates :-

minimum order quantity on a per-product basis. For example, shoppers may need to order a quantity minimum of 5 for a particular product. All products default to 1 as a minimum order quantity. You can set this by adding/editing a product.
minimum checkout total (optional). Allows you to set a minimum checkout total; for example, if you set the value at £8.25, then shoppers need to add at least £8.25 worth of items to the basket before payment options become available to them. The minimum checkout total can be set in Backoffice > Variables under Shop Options.

16th December 2008

New update allows you to easily adjust prices for several items in one go. The facility can be found by going to Shop > Edit Products > Price Adjuster. You can adjust prices by percentage, fixed value or swap a specific price for a new price.

27th November 2008

Variable VAT rate (prices can be dynamically re-calculated according to any adjustment in VAT in a mouse click).

20th November 2008

Two (Google-related) updates:-

Google Products Submission Service. Our service ensures your products are listed on Google Products 365 days a year (for puresilva website owners only).

Google Products allows everyone to search for your products in Google itself - including showing product titles, product descriptions, prices and even product images within Google Search itself. See an example search here for pashminas. It's a great way for shoppers to compare products and prices between various online shops. It's a bit like Kelkoo / Dealtime except it's free :)

We've found visitor increases on 3 shops to have increased between 10% and 21% directly from using Google Products. It's a very significant (targeted) traffic channel.
Update to previous Google Adsense update! The previous update has been superseded by the following update (since this update makes the previous one redundant):- There's a new option in Backoffice > Variables in the Google Adsense area called "Randomize Google Ad text colours + positioning" - as it suggests, this option will randomize the colouring of your Google Ads and also the positioning of them - giving them extra visibility (without being garish). This should result in greater click through rates (having said that, this option is entirely optional and you need to opt-in to it in Variables).

12th November 2008

Update to dynamic categories: There's a new facility here:- Backoffice > Shop > Categories > Dynamic Categories. Now you can VERY EASILY add a list of dynamic alternative categories in just seconds, and even decide which order they appear in. They will appear in a separate location just below your main categories on your website. Why is this useful? Well now you can easily add a list of brand name categories (for example) to augment your main categories. Or you could list sizes, colours etc as an alternative way to browse your product range. This also answers the issue about placing a product in more than one category - now you can! Here's an example of how this works: http://www.lowcostbag.com/ (see handbag colour category range on left-hand column).
Further updates to referals. Now you can see which sites have linked to you in the last 30 days (that have clicked through and given a referal!).

10th November 2008

More updates:-

Referal statistics can now be searched by keyword
Introduction of dynamic categories. What are dynamic categories? You know about standard product categories - these are what you put your products into (if you are selling items). Dynamic categories are created by using the following linking covention :-

http://www.somewebsite.com/Keywords-Go- Here!/K.htm

Example: http://www.lovepashminas.com/White-Pashmina/K.htm

The link itself creates the dynamic category. In the above example, a dynamic category was created on your site called "White Pashmina " - your site searches for products that refer to "white" and "pashmina" in the product title and/or product description and will list matching items in this dynamic category.You need to make sure this link ends with /K.htm.

Why is this useful? It's useful for both shoppers and search engines - since you can create a link that lists very specific products like this:-

"Why not checkout our latest paisley pattern clothing range! You can find t-shirts, shirts and ties in this new exciting range."

The link creates a dynamic category called "paisley pattern" and matches all products with these words in them and lists them in the dynamic category. Since contextual links (see puresilva article) are very important for seach engines, you can really go wild with this new feature creating dynamic categories via links in your body text.

Once search engines follow such links, they will index them so that effectively you've just added a new page to your site called "paisley pattern" that lists paisley pattern products!

This is phase one of the development of dynamic categories. In phase two (next update), you will be able to create these dynamic categories in a very user-friendly way and save links that you can easily add to your web pages.

Two new design editions (remixes of current design templates)

Experience Banner (3 column)

You can preview this new design via backoffice > design, then select from "Design Templates" dropdown menu, select the "ExperienceBanner" design, and then click "Preview Design >>>"):-

Aqua Solid (3 column)

You can preview this new design via backoffice > design, then select from "Design Templates" dropdown menu, select the "Aqua" design and look for variations that colour the navigation bar too (e.g. Maroon Text + Nav Bar"), and then click "Preview Design >>>"):-

Nature's Charm

22nd October 2008

Two new updates:-

General sitemap (listed under "More Info" navigation when cache is next updated). This is automatically generated.
Watermarking of product images (entirely optional). Watermarking is where you place a faint watermark (with this feature, your domain name) over an image to prevent other websites using this image (they can still use it, but it's obvious where they've got it from, and so this normally prevents people bothering using your images). To enable watermarking, go to Variables and under "Shop Options" you'll see an option entitled "Enable watermarking option for product images" - check the box next to this option and update. Now add/edit a product an image in the backoffice. After uploading, you will see a new button entitled "Watermark Image" - click this button if you want to watermark the image. It will only watermark the largest image (what your website visitors see when they click "Enlarge Image" on front end of your website). Again, this feature is entirely optional and is switched off by default.

26th September 2008

Added two new design templates with a large number of colour combinations

Experience (2 and 3 column)

You can preview this new design via backoffice > design, then select from "Design Templates" dropdown menu, select the "Experience " design, and then click "Preview Design >>>"):-

Nature's Charm (2 and 3 column)

You can preview this new design via backoffice > design, then select from "Design Templates" dropdown menu, select the "Nature's Charm" design, and then click "Preview Design >>>"):-

23rd September 2008

Futher Updates:-

Date-based searches now possible for orders
Can export orders to CSV (based on search criteria e.g.completed orders in the month of September 2008)
Completed rel="nofollow" tagging of links that don't matter - 'more info' links on home page + footer links at bottom of page (home, about us etc).

20th September 2008

Futher Updates

Manual "Add Order" facility in Orders area. This allows you to manually add offline orders to your online accounts, or manually add any order not recorded in the backoffice (e.g. Google Checkout orders which aren't recorded). Manual orders can also be edited (and deleted).
Automated email sent to customer when status of order changes (to alert them of status change). For example, if the order status is set to "dispatched" (shipped), the customer is notified by email that the order has been sent. This feature is entirely optional.
VAT-excluded prices can now be entered for products (VAT is automatically added after adding/updating the product) - again this is optional, and only is shown as an option if you have stated you are VAT registered in Variables section of the backoffice.
Implemented rel="nofollow" tags to links on your site that are no value to search engines (e.g. "more info" links when you have descriptive product links that go to same page). The result means more value is given to the descriptive links which in turn should improve your search engine rankings.

15th September 2008

More articles/tips on home page of backoffice. These are dynamically linked to the puresilva blog so you will see more of these as new blog entries are added to the blog.

28th August 2008

Updated link directory so that it's a lot easier to approve other websites adding links to your directory - you will receive the normal email alerting you to the fact that someone has added a link to your directory, but included in this email is now a link you can click on to easily approve the addition. Upon approval, the linking website is sent a notification email.

11th August 2008

Updated voucher/promotional code facility. New "Loyalty Voucher" code is shown on customer confirmation emails whenever they purchase items (to entice them to buy more again) (Loyalty Voucher feature is entirely optional and needs to be activated). Also printable vouchers entice customers to your physical premises if you have a high-street shop (again, entirely optional and needs to be activated).

10th August 2008

Updated the resource directory addition page (e.g. see this example page)- now the HTML link code that other sites add to their pages (that links to your website) is a lot more random - it will take either a random category listing page of your website, or a random article (if you don't sell items, it defaults to this). If you don't sell items and have zero articles, it will revert to the title/description of your website you've already described. If THAT is blank (default), the HTML code is your domain name and description is blank.

The purpose of this update is to give your site a much more natural link profile. It's a lot better if sites link to various pages on your website and not just the home page.

1st August 2008

Added Footer Text Editor in Variables. Footer text allows you to add custom links, stats package code, and general disclaimers etc at the bottom of every page on your site. You don't need to have any footer text, so just leave it blank if you don't need to add anything here! (max length : 1500 characters)

25th July 2008

New facility within "News/Articles" allowing you to easily import news from around the web as a means of generating new articles for your own website. This can be used as a means to find topics for articles (recommended) or even simply as a news digest whereby you create articles that simply features news headlines/comments from your chosen news sources. This feature is entirely optional and you can still write articles normally as you have in the past.

22nd July 2008

A much-requested feature now finally released! : New "upsell" feature allowing you to sell multiple items together e.g. selling an electric bike with additional front light, back light and battery (these are optional extras to the electric bike). You can also change the prices of these additional items to give shoppers a "deal" if they buy all the items together; this facility means shoppers can buy multiple items in one go, and you can promote extras to any item. It's quite a powerful new facility that can be used in many different ways. More info on upselling can be found in this Wikipedia entry (click here).

20th July 2008

Added two new design templates with a large number of colour combinations

Rough Edges (2 column)

Smooth Edges (2 column)

4th July 2008

You can now see which websites are linking to you according to Yahoo! and Google. This new facility can be found here: Backoffice > Pages/Links > SEO Overview / Which Websites Links To You? You can check the page rank, anchor text and general value of each of these links
New link popularity/article writing service. You can sign up for a 12 month campaign that secures links pointing to your site on a monthly basis plus unique articles written and published for your website. Click here for more information

23rd June 2008

It is now possible to import products to your puresilva website template via a tab-delimited text file via backoffice > shop > import. You import an unlimited number of products in one single text file, including images too (as long as you supply image URL for each product), so no need to manually upload image files with this import - up to 4 images per product; particularly useful for people who already own an e-commerce site, but want to port their products to a puresilva website template.

19th June 2008

You can now hide content pages (Pages/Links) by checking the "Hide Page" checkbox when adding/editing a page - good if you are preparing content but you don't want particular pages to go live yet.
Instructions (for shoppers) on how to enable cookies in their browser if they have cookies disabled

12th June 2008

You can now present your product categories (if you are selling items) in a new way that shows a thumbnail image of a product that exists in the category as well as part of the category description; this is a great way to present your product range to your visitors, while giving them an idea of what to expect before clicking on a category description.

This new feature is entirely optional and needs to be switched on in the Variables section of the backoffice, and checking the box next to "Show Thumbnail Images / Category Description in Category Listings ".

It's a good idea to add descriptions to each category (backoffice > shop > categories > main categories) if you are going to use this feature.

Added one new design template :-

All Image (3 column / 2 column)

26th May 2008

Added one new design template :-

Environmental Brand (3 column / 2 column)

Zed

14th May 2008

Integrated WorldPay as a new payment provider for those selling items. You will need a WorldPay account to use this payment system (you can sign up here)

Added one new design template :-

Zed (3 column / 2 column)

Zed

1st May 2008

Improved products slideshow - now full size, with product descriptions when you roll over each item. You can see a working demo here.This is a beta version - planned improvements are : ability to select products for the slideshow, categorisation of products within the slideshow, and ability to choose colour scheme for slideshow.

23rd April 2008

Two more updates:-

You can now enter your Google Verification Code when generating your Google Sitemap (saving much time)
For your products, you can now add customised HTML Titles, META Description and META Keywords for each individual item you sell. You can add these on the add/edit product page.

22nd April 2008

Further updates to template:

Category descriptions; you can now add descriptions to shop categories and these descriptions appear below the category title (on product listings page).
Product thumbnails appear next to products that appear in the sitewide search results
Thumbnail images appear next to special offer descriptions on the special offers page
"Recommend a friend" facility added - your website visitors can recommend both your articles and products; you need to switch this on in "Variales" under "General Features/Sections/Layout" - check the box next to "Recommend Items/Articles To A Friend"
Updated "Review It!" link on product detail pages - looks better and more uniform with the new "recommend a friend" link too.
Added a facility in the backoffice that lets you see your products being viewed RIGHT NOW - you can also see the path your visitors take in terms of browsing your product range. You can see the current activity of the 3 most recent visitors (past/present). The facility uses AJAX technology so there's no need to refresh the page - you will see products appear as they are viewed LIVE on your site by your visitors. You can view this facility via backoffice > shop > stats > current item views.

2nd April 2008

Updates:-

"Move Products" facility making it very quick and easy to move multiple products from one category to another
Added 3 new video help clicks;
Increased quality of JPG banners in Design facility within backoffice
Added one new design template with a large number of colour combinations (you can preview this new design via backoffice > design, then select from "Design Templates" dropdown menu, select the "Aqual" design, and then click "Preview Design >>>"):-

Aqua (3 column / 2 column)

30th March 2008

Added "View by Price Range" facility - if you are selling items on your site, you can add price ranges that your shoppers can browse by e.g. show me all items between £5 - £8.25. The list of price ranges would be shown below your category list (see image to left). This facility needs to be activated to be used (it is entirely optional).

28th March 2008

Added social bookmark links at the bottom of each article/news item you add :-

Social bookmarks allow you or any of your website visitors to click on the above link to recommend your article / news item to any one or all of the above social bookmarking websites. This gives your article exposure to high traffic websites, which in turn bring you extra traffic. The more compelling and interesting your article, the more visitors you will bring to your site from these social bookmarking sites.

27th March 2008

Added "Latest Additions" link within category products list, along with RSS Feed for all your latest items (if you're selling/showcasing items) - see screenshot below. This lets your regular visitors know about your latest items you've added - they can even know about your latest items without visiting your site (via an RSS Reader).

latest

additions

25th March 2008

Added video tutorials to backoffice (9 videos, more to follow) to help people make the most of the puresilva website template

19th March 2008

Updated basket page and checkout pages for cheque, BACS, PayPal and Protx - more streamlined process for shoppers.

6th March 2008

Added one new design template :-

Puresilva Original (3 column / 2 column)

29th February 2008

Added one new design template:-

Granite (2 column)

16th February 2008

Added "Verify All Links" facility in the Manage Links Directory section.

This facility allows you to check ALL of those who have added a link to your link directory making it easier to identify those who have removed a link from your site.

13th February 2008

New search engine facility allowing you to search for quality link partners easily. This service has just launched and the archive of links pages is growing fast. You can access it here

Website update : minor bug fixes.

29th January 2008

Add new stats report - "monthly averages". This tells you month-on-month visitor trends and how much they are increasing/decreasing in relation to the previous month. Also added repeat visitor stats which tells you who returns to your site twice, 3-5 times, 6-10 times, more than 10 times, or everyday in a given date range.

26th January 2008

Added one new design template:-

Hard Cell (3 column / 2 column)

17th January 2008

Added "priority list facility" for product listings, allowing you a lot more control over the order of your products. You can even automatically place the most sought after products higher up the listings and permanently on the front page (replacing random products). Sought after products are purely determined by the amount of external traffic driven to your website and seeing which product pages they land on. By making these products more prominent, they will receive better rankings in the search engines (as they will be on the front-page of your site / higher up the listings).

3rd January 2008

A new referals view - you can see the latest search engine referals via the home page of the backoffice and the "Search Engine Referals" link above the visitor stats graph

2nd January 2008

Added two new design templates:-

Rayong (3 column / 2 column)

Silom (3 column / 2 column)

16th December 2007

Updated links management facility - now a lot easier to add links via "Quick Add" and also easier to identify the page you've added the link to. Also added an extra field to allow you to express which page you want the link partner to link to - because you should not always just get links that point to you homepage

10th December 2007

Integrated Google Checkout allowing your shoppers to pay via Google Checkout. You will need to have a Google Checkout account first of all to use this (you can sign-up here). This can be activated via "Variables" section (under Taking Payments).

29th November 2007

Integrated another shopping portal (wholesale-fashion.co.uk) - for those selling fashion items, this is another means to increase sales/traffic (free to use). For non-fashion sellers, meanshopper.com is available for you to sell your items on, and lbay.co.uk is coming soon. Added three new design templates :-

New Horizon (3 column / 2 column)

Market Place (3 column / 2 column)

Cool Water (2 column)

30th October 2007

Shopping Portal integration - meanshopper.com is the first of 4 planned shopping portals that will be compatible with your puresilva website. You will be able to export your products from this backoffice to any/all of the portals available for free.

24th October 2007

"More Info Sections" allows you to categorise your "More Info" pages which are normally situated in either the left or right hand columns of your site. You can add unlimited sections (categories). This is useful if you have quite a large list and want to break it down into meaningful categories. You can easily sort the order of the categories too. In the page editor, just add/edit a page, and you can easily assign a page to a particular section via the Page Type dropdown menu.

9th October 2007

Added two new design templates:-

NTechBlog

Jet30

5th October 2007

Updated 'Make an Offer'. You can now reply to the original person making the price offer, with an amended price/quantity. For example, if you sell a product for £10, and someone offers £8 for it, you can reply back to the person with a counter-offer for £9 for the product, or £18 for a quantity of 2 (for example). The counter-offer is sent by an automatic email, along with a convenient link to add to the product to the shopping basket at that new offer price/quantity.

4th October 2007

Added product reviews. You can switch this on via backoffice > variables. This allows your website visitors to review your products. You can manually review/approve reviews via backoffice > shop > manage product reviews

28th September 2007

Added digital downloads. You can now sell digital products (i.e. files) on your site. The shopper buys these digital products in the same way as physical products, and upon verified purchase, they can login and download their purchase.

26th September 2007

Added Google Sitemap Generator. You can now create a .xml Google sitemap here: backoffice > shop > edit products > Create Google Sitemap