Capitalising on popular non-product pages

[Deefer]

I spend time writing articles on dogs and dog issues. They seem popular and well liked by Google too. It's a bit of a shame to have all these visitors reading my articles but leaving again, which is what I assume many do. Anyone got any good ideas please regarding how to capitalise on these visitors i.e. get them browsing and buying?

A while ago I considered a 3 column centre block that would show 3 random products on each non-product html page but don't think this is possible, is it? Any other ideas please?

[PartyGirl]

Images of products and links is what you could do. I think the optimum is 3 links per article.

[Deefer]

Hi and thanks. Do you mean BP has this facility or do them by hand?

With my old site I used to do them by hand but it was an awful pain.... each time something changed with regards a product I had to go looking to see if it was on any non-product pages.

[PartyGirl]

Possibly one of the blocks - selected products?

[Deefer]

Thanks again. I was sort of wondering that but then am I right in thinking that all say 100 html pages would have the same 3 products on them and also I would have to manually change them each week or something.

[ThomasMurray]

Thanks again. I was sort of wondering that but then am I right in thinking that all say 100 html pages would have the same 3 products on them and also I would have to manually change them each week or something.

You could make a copy of the Selected Products block & rename it "Dog Grooming Article Products" (for example). Just keep making copies for every different article. It will use a lot of blocks but it's probably the quickest & easiest way to do it.
As you're making copies it will also keep any options the same as you used previously.

You'll also have to copy a template for each individual page, it sounds like a lot of work but it will only take 2 minutes once you get in the hang of it. I'm not sure there's any other way really.

The other option is to just add custom HTML at the end of every article with 3 products, you can use the same HTML every time & just change the product URL & image URL.
You shouldn't really be changing product URLs without doing 301 redirects anyway.

[Deefer]

Thanks again for the help.

Yes, not so much changing urls... just products being removed etc... I don't want to have to go through hundreds of pages of html to see if that removed product was put on a page etc... Also hundreds of pages will one day be thousands so I need to think long term... which I didn't do with my old site.

[greggrant]

Don't copy a template for each page - just a layout. You could give it the same name as the page and then associate a block with it. Then on the page just click the layout name at the bottom on the right. If you don't want to do one for every page you could create, say, 5 selected product blocks with appropriate products and 5 layouts. Then just associate the layout with a page picking the one with the most appropriate products.

[Deefer]

OK, thanks. I understand. That does make things quicker but it is still essentially manual.

At one point I did have my slideshow block on each html page but I think that was using a lot of bandwidth or making pages slower or so I imagined anyway, so I removed it again.

[Deefer]

Oh, I had a thought... can the slideshow be made to use product images and show them randomly?

[greggrant]

Oh, I had a thought... can the slideshow be made to use product images and show them randomly?

Not that I'm aware of - but if you want to increase sales you would be better having blocks with products so that customers can click through to the product page. Start of with just one block and one layout - it really is easy. Add a new one every day! After a week you've got 7 fairly flexible blocks and layouts for your non-product pages.

[sillybilly]

A latest products block would continually change and would be automatic?

They would be the same products on each article page but do many visitors read more than one article?

[Deefer]

Thanks for more replies and help. I'll have a think and a play.

Out of interest, would you do a bottom centre block?

PS Do you mean the Recently Added block?

[Deefer]

Oh no... couse not.... um... I think it is one a must have renamed. I can't seem to see a 'latest products' block.

[Deefer]

I'll get my brain in gear in a mo, lol. New Products?