Today I’m working on a new Build A Niche Store site and am making the same mistakes that I’ve made on just about every store I’ve created. So, I thought I’d share these mistakes so you don’t make them, too.

Whenever you create a new store page make sure you review it before going on to the next page. This way you can catch the following mistakes:

• Spaces left between words in the page URL. This mistake will be obvious if you see strange symbols between the words of your page’s URL. For example, instead of a URL looking like mydomain.com/new-page it will look like mydomain.com/new%20page.
  • Correct this by removing the space in the ‘Page URL‘ section of your store page.
• No search terms entered. This mistake is most obvious if you use category ‘0‘ for your page because nothing will show, not even the ‘There are now results’ message that will show (this message will always show in v3 stores when there are no results, but is sporadic in earlier BANS versions). If you used a category number other than ‘0′ and intended to hone the results by adding a search phrase then checking the page will verify you did this. If there are far more results then you intended then you probably made this mistake.
  • Correct this by adding the search terms needed for the store page in the ‘Search Query‘ section of your store page.
• The wrong results are showing. This happens for many reasons, including when sellers put listings in the wrong category.
  • Correct this by using negative keywords in the ‘Search Query‘ section of your store page. You can add negative keywords by adding a - in front of the term(s) you want to eliminate. Here is an example of negative keywords:
    • -apple
    • -apple*
    • -(apple*,red apple*,green apple*)
• The store page is in the wrong category. This is obvious when you page you created isn’t where you meant it to be. For example, you created a ‘Red Apple’ page and meant to put it in the ‘Apple’ category. Instead you find it in the main ‘Store’ category.
  • Correct this in the ‘Page Location‘ section of your store page.
• Nothing shows up in the store’s content area. This happens when a strange character is used in the ‘Link Name,’ ‘Page URL,’ or ‘Search Query.’
  • Correct this by removing any unusual characters, one at a time, until you find the culprit. This can be tricky to diagnose because some characters are ok in one area (such as ‘Link Name’) but not in another (such as ‘Page URL’). I would start by removing characters from the ‘Page URL’ first, next from ‘Search Query,’ and last from ‘Link Name.’

Those are the most common mistakes that I make. By checking each page as I make it I can correct these errors before visitors see the page. Plus, if you never check your pages you will never see these mistakes. That can be costly!

If you have any common mistakes that I didn’t mention then please.

Rochelle