How To: Easily Create Landing Pages for Promos

For articles specific to version 6.x
Post Reply
MegaFemaTron2
Confirmed
Confirmed
Posts: 84
Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2011 8:37 pm

How To: Easily Create Landing Pages for Promos

Post by MegaFemaTron2 »

This is pretty simple but I found myself over-thinking the situation and thought I'd add a "How-To" for newbies and over-thinkers. :)

I can't help you with designing a landing page however. I currently buy one or two I can alter from ThemeForest. I pretty much buy them for a ready made layout and then manhandle them as I see fit. Anyway, the part I was over-thinking was how to allow the customer to put the item I'm selling directly into the cart from the landing page IF I were to use the "web pages" feature of ISC and not a product page. It got to the point where I'd created a custom product page but a custom product page is not a true custom product page unless you create an entirely new display file in /includes/display/ and new panels and snippets. I came to my senses about half way through that process. I was essentially making a landing page out of a product page when that was really more than I needed.

Buy using the "create web page" feature of ISC, it's pretty easy to create a completely custom template for your landing page without having to alter or add any class or display files or add any new panels or snippets.

1. Create a new page template. I created a blank file called _pageMagazine.html

2. Add the entire html code for your landing page template into your new page template.

3. Login to the admin area of ISC and create a new web page. In the drop down menu at the bottom, select your new page template click "Save & Exit".

4. Visit your new web page and make sure all of the images work and that the landing page looks exactly like your template. If it doesn't make sure all of your image paths and what not are correct.

5. Edit your new page template. In my case it was _pageMagazine.html. Decide what part of your template you want to be able to alter from the "web pages" section of the admin panel. In my case it was the middle section of the template. So I removed the middle section code and left the header code and the footer code. In place of the removed middle code, I added %%Panel.PageContent%% and saved the file.

6. Go back to the ISC admin and open the web page you created and paste the code you removed from the template file into the "page content" box. Save the web page and check the page once again to make sure nothing is broken. Your page should still look exactly like your landing page template. The only difference is now you can easily control part (or most of it) from within the admin of ISC. (NOTE: you could have pasted most of the template code in the "page content" box but I think only pasting what you really need to easily have access to is better, IMHO).

7. Include a way to add the product(s) you are promoting directly into the cart from the landing page. This was the part that lead me deeper down the rabbit hole for no good reason. I was over-thinking it. But all you have to do is add a link like this to your call to action button:

Code: Select all

http://www.yourshop.com/cart.php?action=add&product_id=ProductidOfItem (example: http://www.yourshop.com/cart.php?action=add&product_id=29)
That's pretty much the basics on adding a custom landing page for your promos with a working call to action button that doesn't add steps that will make you lose sales. They go straight to the promo page then straight to the cart.
ISC 6.1.1 Ultimate Edition
Post Reply