FAQ's

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General Questions

What’s the key difference in EYStudios versus other developers?

Our core specialty is in creating higher conversion rates through better design. We believe that our stores quickly earn customer confidence, which is key in selling your products. The graphics that we create are centered around promoting products much more effectively than merely listing row after row of product thumbnails.

How long does the process usually take?

Our typical turn-around averages around 4-6 weeks. The two things that affect delivery are the size of the project and the amount of revision requests. Needless to say, if you love what we send you and reply promptly, the process goes very quickly.

Do I retain exclusive rights to the graphics?

Absolutely. The logo, all illustrations, and any other graphics are owned by the client, and we make no claims otherwise.

What is the process from start to finish?

Our process is based on what we call “Building upon Success.” Before we go on to another development phase, we make sure you’re completely happy with the one before it. For example, we make sure that you love your logo design before we start developing your header design.

Logo design/core branding
Header/Left-Navigation Design
Homepage Design
Section Page Design (for larger stores)
Product Page
Checkout Page (if requested)
We then send the graphic files to the programmers for implementation

How often do I get proofs?

With prompt responses on your part, you can expect to receive proofs every 24-48 hours depending on your projected completion date.

What can EYStudios do to help me get higher conversion rates?

Conversion rates are fueled by many things, but chief among them is TRUST in your store. Anything the store can do to earn customer confidence is going to help drive conversions. A professional-looking site design is going to really help earn that trust. If your store looks like it was built by an amateur, the customers aren’t going to trust you to fulfill their order.

What if I don't know what I want?

We always recommend checking out our portfolio for different approaches to logos and websites. It's also a good idea to consider popular logos on TV or magazines. In initial phone conversations, we will recommend approaches that we think would work best for your logo. If you're still not sure, we would recommend calling us back after you have a general idea. Otherwise, it's typically harder for me to satisfy a client.

Will you put in descriptions and text for my site?

We do not write product descriptions. We do offer ad copy for the product advertisements we create for you.

How much do your websites go for?

Because all of our work is created using custom designs and not template designs, we tailor a quote that is specific to your needs. To receive a quote, call us and let us know what you need. If you don't know what you need, we are more than happy to give our professional advice.

What is the payment process?

In order to begin production on the project, we must receive a percentage of your product total. Payments after this can be split up depending on the project total. In order for the completed design to be launched, we must receive your final payment.

Design Questions

What if I need to make a change to final art?

It's a lot harder, but not impossible. It depends on how big a change you want to make. When you approve a sketch we did of a car, we'll ink and color it. If you then say, "Wait, I want a truck!" we have to charge you more for that. If we colored the car blue, and you now want it red, that's easy to do. Certain cosmetic changes to the art are also fine. It's just important to love the sketch before you approve it.

Can you design T-Shirts or any other type of design?

Absolutely! We can handle pretty much all of your print marketing needs.

What if I love the graphics you do, but my significant other hates it?

We don't want to cause any problems in a relationship, but we would say go with the graphics. ;-)

Can you fix my pre-existing logo? Something about it doesn't look right.

It depends on what you want. If you have a poorly drawn illustration within your logo, we can always make that look better. Some logos need to be put out of their misery, while others can be polished up. E-mail me the logo so we can take a look.

How do I receive my logo?

We will e-mail you a hi-res (600 dpi) version of your logo, as well as a vectorized version if you need it. We can also mail you a CD with your logo upon request. This also applies to any other hi-res images you have us create.

What do you need from me to get started?

There are a few things that would help us put together a proposal for you. First, we need a list of your Top Level Categories (TLC’s). We recommend a maximum of 10 to 12, but each store is unique and this number can vary. You can have several sub-categories listed within each top level category, so nothing will be left out. This helps consolidate everything for an easy-to-use shopping experience.
If you don’t know how to consolidate your top level categories, it's ok. We can go through your entire site and create an Excel file that details which top level categories you need as well as the sub-sections that would belong in each category.

Programming Questions

How will we move from the design phase to the programming phase?

Once the graphics are finished and approved, all we have to do is send notice to the programming department that the design has been completed. The programmers then retrieve the necessary design files from our in house servers begin their pixel perfect implementation.

Who manages my site after completion of the design?

We make sure that after we’re finished with the design and implementation, you’re fully in control of your store. The only thing you might need us for in the future is graphic updates or any added features you’d like to implement. If you are unsure about any aspect of the Yahoo! platform or your store feel free to contact us. We are always here to help, even months after we have finished implementation of your new design.

Why is it important for utility links to be in the header and footer?

It’s all about creating a user-friendly experience for your customers. Placing utility links in the header and footer is commonplace on e-commerce stores. It allows shoppers to easily locate information about the company or other important site-wide functionality links such as “view cart.”

Do I need a merchant account setup to accept credit cards?

EYStudios does not provide this service directly. We partner with a company that can get you an excellent credit card rate set up.

Will I be able to keep my store's current functionality?

Absolutely! Any functionality feature that you currently have installed on your store will not go away. This also applies to any SEO-related features that are currently on the site. The main thing is that you tell us what’s critical to keep.

I need an SEO friendly site. Can you help me?

We program using the most recent SEO compliant methods. All of our stores are search-engine friendly.

What are some of the steps you take to ensure an SEO friendly site?

Place all css in an external .css file
Place all JavaScript in external .js file
Use H1 tags for all titles on pages
Text based left navigation, links are included in tags
Automatic meta tags that can be over-ridden by store owner
Automatic title tags that can be over-ridden by store owner
Alt tags for all product images
Easily updatable alt tags for all other images
No links leading to /index.html
Limited use of image maps in header, links broken up into plain text or separate images with alt tags

Do you offer any training or training materials?

We offer several types of training. The most popular training topic revolves around new product uploads via CSV or via the store editor for new store owners. Other popular topics include Yahoo! Web Analytics, store editor navigation and product categorization. We can consult you on any part of your Yahoo! store. With any new design we provide a data dictionary of all the new variables and properties that will be available for you to use. One example would be the new properties for your landing pages. We create an image, a link, and an alt property for each image. With these properties you will be able to update your landing pages quickly and easily.

Yahoo! Questions

What are the benefits of the Yahoo! Platform?

Yahoo! Stores have a very easy-to-use, intuitive backend that makes it easy to make updates to your store. Many other platforms are just plain hard to figure out. From a design perspective, one of the best things about Yahoo! Store is that you can customize it to do whatever you need it to and look however you want. Yahoo! also offers terrific customer support, which is important.

Do I need a Yahoo! Merchant account to start production?

You need to activate your store before we start the implementation process, but it does not need to be activated before we start the design.

In my Yahoo! Store, can the email notifications from a new order be sent to multiple addresses?

Yes, there is a place in the back-end of your store that allows you to determine what email addresses to send those messages to.

Can my shipping labels be printed from my Yahoo! stores back-end?

If you use UPS as your shipper, yes. UPS has online tools that work with your Yahoo! store’s back-end that will print labels, calculate cost, etc.

When generating new product pages in my Yahoo! store via CSV upload, is there any way to create my own product id/URL instead of going with the one that Yahoo assigns the product?

You can assign the id of your choice at the time of creation. Simply add an id field to your CSV file.

How does the Yahoo! store search work, and is there a more advanced option for this?

Yahoo's search only searches the code, name, and caption fields. Those are the only fields that are indexed by the search. There are third party searches that we can implement such as Celebros. Clients have had success with these services but you must weigh the costs and benefits. How many people are going to search for 200X50? If you feel like you are missing sales we can give you more information on these third party searches.

Add-to-Cart Button

A prominent button designed to increase conversions.

Alt Tag

Specifies the text that will be displayed if an image can not be rendered. These are useful for users who use assistive technologies and for indexing by search engines.

Banner

A rectangular graphic ad designed to promote sales, shipping offers, grand openings and/or category titles.

Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs can be found across the top of a page. Breadcrumbs provide a trail of links that will take a customer back to each page they used to get to the current page.

Cart Abandonment

The number of customers that leave your website after making it to your shopping cart divided by the total number of customers that make it to your shopping cart.

Categorization

This refers to how product pages fall under section pages.

Category Page

A section specific landing page.

Conversion Rate

The number of visitors to a website divided by the number of visitors who made a purchase.

Cookies

Cookies are sets of data that are sent between web pages and your browser. Cookies are very important because they give us the ability to maintain sessions or state maintenance. We use cookies in our floating cart feature, recently viewed items, and many others.

(CSS) Cascading Style Sheets

CSS is a style sheet language used to edit the style of HTML page elements. For every site we do we use CSS. We save all CSS in one external file so that search engines can index the pages easier.

(CSV) Comma Separated Values

A CSV file is a computer data file used for storage of data structured in a table form. These files are used to manage your products and all of their details. You can upload these files into your Catalog Manager.

(DNS) Domain Name System

The internet is setup using IP addresses to find sites on the web. The DNS turns these IP addresses into user friendly URL’s . So instead of typing in twelve numbers you can type in eystudios.com in your address bar.

Flash

Flash is commonly used to create animation, advertisements, and various web page components, to integrate motion into web pages.

Footer

The footer is found at the bottom of each page on the site. It contains links to other parts of the site.

Header

The area at the top of your website that houses your logo, toll free #, shipping offer, slogan and utility links. Completely customized for branding purposes. Remains constant throughout an entire site to reassure customers that they are still in your store.

High Res Images

Very large images files that allow designers to easily remove products from backgrounds and design customized graphics without limits.

Hi-Res Logo

Hi-Res means that the image is a very large version of your logo. Any size smaller than this file will print smoothly and without error. Any size needed that’s larger than your hi-res logo will probably need a vector scalable version.

Icon

A graphic image that accompanies the text portion of your logo

Item/Product Page

Area of site where the item and its respective information are found. The product is added to the cart from this page. Important elements such as item #, price, availability, customer reviews, image enlarger, alternate views, cross sell and item description are found on this page.

Kicker

A mini 800 pound gorilla placed to the right or just below the 800 pound gorilla. Designed to promote secondary hot selling categories, items or special promotions.

Landing page

What you see when you click to one of your Top Level Categories (TLC). It’s basically a mini homepage that greets a customer when they want to check out one of the TLC's. The graphics we create for these landing pages are designed to advertise your top product lines and are very useful in increasing conversion rates.

Left-Navigation

This is the area on the left of your website that is used for navigation. It lists a store’s TLC’s and sub categories which can be utilized for SEO. You can place credit card logos, secure shopping logos as well as newsletter signups in a left-navigation.

Logo

A logo is a graphical element that forms your brand. Typically, a logo is designed for immediate recognition. Logos are created with the use shapes, colors, and fonts to differentiate the brand from others in a similar market.

Meta-Tag

Meta-tags are a series of tags used to provide information about the data on any page. Types of meta-tags are meta-description and meta-keywords. Meta data is very useful because it helps search engines index your site using the correct data.

Natural Text

SEO friendly text that can be updated in the store editor

Page Properties

Every page that is created on your Yahoo! Store has a unique set of properties. These properties include: name, caption, price, sale-price, image, contents and others.

(PPC) Pay Per Click

Is Internet advertising used on search engines, advertising networks, and content sites, such as blogs, in which advertisers pay their host only when their ad is clicked.

(POS) Point of Sale

The location where a transaction occurs. For example, at a grocery store, this would be at the checkout counter.

(RSS) Really Simple Syndication

RSS is a feed format that users use to publish information that they update on a regular basis.

RTML

The proprietary programming language for Yahoo! Stores.

(SEO) Search Engine Optimization

A method of developing more traffic from search engines to a website.

(SEM) Search Engine Marketing

A division of marketing that helps websites appear in the results of a keyword search on search engines like Yahoo! and Google.

Section Page

See Landing Page

Site Frame

Header, Left-Navigation, and Footer

(TLC) Top Level Category

TLC's are your main product categories. We recommend a maximum of 10 to 12 TLC. You can have several sub-categories listed within each TLC so nothing will be left out. This just helps consolidate everything for an user-friendly shopping experience.

Traffic

The amount of visitors a site receives.

Utility Pages

Pages such as about us, contact us, and privacy policy -- pages that don't feature products, but are nevertheless useful to customers.

Vector Logo

(AI, EPS) Vector files are scalable image files. No matter how big you need your logo to be, the vector can scale to fit it without losing image quality.

YWA

Yahoo! Web Analytics is an enterprise site analytical tool to track real-time figures about visitor behavior on your website.

800 pound gorilla

The largest graphic ad designed on your homepage that promotes a hot selling category or item. It’s used to immediately grasp the interest of customers and increase conversions much more effectively than rows of thumbnails.