Part of what makes Cameo EZ sites so cost effective and easy to update is that most of the system is automated, which means that computer systems and programs create and revise pages based on the information you provide, primarily through your product spreadsheet.

But, while computers can do some amazing things, they really aren’t all that bright because, as of this writing, anyway, they are not truly intuitive and cannot make assumptions like the human mind. They can make things simpler if you follow the “rules”—-their rules. Because these rules may not be obvious at first, because we don’t think like computers, and can vary between systems (on your PC, “HAT.jpg” and “hat.jpg” are considered the same, but not on a Linux Web server), we have tried to make a list of “DOs and DON’Ts” to assist you.

DO…

• Make sure that all Category names, Keywords, etc., that are supposed to be the same are the same–EXACTLY the same: same capital and lower case letters, same spacing, same number, etc.

  NO: Hat and Hats
  HATS and Hats
  22 1/4” Hats and 22 1/4 in. Hats or 22 1/4in. Hats or 22 1/4in Hats or 22.25” Hats

  (Don’t see the differences in all of these? Look closer—computers will see the differences and will consider these different entries. “Hat”, “Hats”, and “HATS” will be created as separate categories. The keyword search “22 1/4” Hats” will not find items with the keywords “22 1/4in Hats”.)

• Make sure to replace special characters automatically inserted by some programs, like Excel and Word, with standard characters (like an é in “Décor”—change to “Decor”). You may have to keep changing it back because many programs can be quite insistent about “helping” (an example of why trying to program in “assumptions” doesn’t necessarily work for the best).
• Try to name your images after your SKUs. If your images are named exactly like the SKU, you can leave the Image column of the Item Spreadsheet blank. If the SKU is ABC-123, then name the image…

  YES: ABC-123.jpg (CAMEO EZ only accepts the .jpg format and no spaces in the image name).
  NO: ABC123.jpg or abc-123.jpg or ABC_123.jpg or ABC-123-black_hat.jpg and especially not ABC 123.jpg (with a space).

• Enter the name of an image in the Image column if it is not named according to the SKU or if it is a “group shot” (multiple items refer to the same image). It may sound like we’re beating this to death, but make sure to enter the identical name: same case, spelling, spacing (none), extension.jpg.
• Make sure your images are in RGB, a “web-safe” color format, not CMYK, a printing format that will not show up on the web—CMYK images will display as red Xs on a web page. (Don’t know how to tell or need to convert them? It’s too long to post here, but we can tell you how.)
• If you use options, make sure that the number of “price changes” equals the number of options, in their relative columns, even if there is no price change (put “0”).
• Be selective with your keywords. These are keywords for an item, not your entire website. Use words that as specific or as general as necessary for your customer to find what they’re looking for, from types of products (like “hat”), patterns (“polka-dot”), materials (“leather”), manufacturers (“Stetson”), etc. But don’t so general that you overuse the same keywords—a keyword that pulls up half your product line is essentially worthless. And if all you sell are hats, then “hat” should not even be a keyword, but “cap”, “derby”, and “cowboy hat” might be appropriate choices. At the same time, don’t use too many variations of keywords so that a customer looking for, say, a cowboy hat has to check “ten-gallon cowboy hats” then “leather cowboy hats” then “straw cowboy hats” then “felt cowboy hats”… you can see how that could get tiresome.

DON’T…

• Don’t add or remove columns to any of the spreadsheets.
• Don’t upload a spreadsheet in “.xls” format. Save it as “.csv” (MS-DOS) if you are using a PC. If you are using a Mac save the CSV as an MS-Dos or Windows CSV instead of a Mac CSV. It will alert you that it won’t save multiple sheets—OK—and that some features won’t be supported—OK again. You do, however, choose “no” when you close the file and it asks if you want to save it.
• Don’t use commas in any spreadsheet column except the Keywords, Item Description, Enter Options, and Price Change columns. For more on the reasons why, see the next “Don’t”.
• Don’t end any entry with a comma. If you delete a keyword, make sure to delete the preceding comma. Without getting too technical, since the spreadsheet is saved as “csv”, or “comma delimited”, if an entry ends with a comma, an extra column will be created, throwing off the following columns, which can create a tremendous mess to clean up.
• Don’t include spaces in any file name, especially image names.

  NO: black hat.jpg or blackhat .jpg
  YES: blackhat.jpg or BlackHat.jpg or black_hat.jpg or black-hat.jpg

• Don’t delete Categories or Subcategories before uploading a new product spreadsheet unless the Category will no longer have any items in it. Deleting and then reestablishing Categories by uploading a new spreadsheet will cause the Category to be assigned a new system ID number and your products may not display properly.
• Don’t delete Categories if you only need to make a small change in the Category name. You can change the name in the Product Categories, View All in the Admin Console.