PayPal Shopping Cart
PayPal is the world's most popular online payment system and we have a direct integration with their shopping cart. Using PayPal with your site is as simple as adding some elements and setting your prices.
Start by dragging a Product element to a page.
The system will prompt you to select either the Google Checkout or PayPal option. Select PayPal and enter your PayPal account email address. If you don't have an account already, use the provided sign-up link and come back to Sitezapp to start this process afterwards.
If you are not prompted to make a selection (which can occasionally happen) then you can go to Settings > Ecommerce later and select to use PayPal from there.
Once you've accepted this, you can start adding products to your site via the Product element. Though there is only one element, there are four different display styles that alter the way it looks. You can access these Display styles by clicking on the element.
The first display style is called Block. This is a small, square product element. This is suitable for creating a grid of products in conjunction with our Columns Element.
The other three styles are called Small, Regular and Large. As you might guess, these styles are much the same except the Title, Pricing and Add to Cart buttons are a different size for each. You can see the slight differences between them in the image below.
To edit a product element, just click the Title area to enter the name, the description area to enter a description, the price area to enter the price and the sample image to upload an image. This all works exactly like our other text and image elements.
When you Publish your changes, the Add to Cart button should start working immediately.
What if you need to change your account email address or change the currency used on your site? Go to the Settings tab and select the Ecommerce option. Here you can switch between PayPal and Google Checkout, change your e-commerce account email address (if you need to switch to a different PayPal or Google account) and switch your Currency to something else using the provided drop-down.
Start by dragging a Product element to a page.
The system will prompt you to select either the Google Checkout or PayPal option. Select PayPal and enter your PayPal account email address. If you don't have an account already, use the provided sign-up link and come back to Sitezapp to start this process afterwards.
If you are not prompted to make a selection (which can occasionally happen) then you can go to Settings > Ecommerce later and select to use PayPal from there.
Once you've accepted this, you can start adding products to your site via the Product element. Though there is only one element, there are four different display styles that alter the way it looks. You can access these Display styles by clicking on the element.
The first display style is called Block. This is a small, square product element. This is suitable for creating a grid of products in conjunction with our Columns Element.
The other three styles are called Small, Regular and Large. As you might guess, these styles are much the same except the Title, Pricing and Add to Cart buttons are a different size for each. You can see the slight differences between them in the image below.
To edit a product element, just click the Title area to enter the name, the description area to enter a description, the price area to enter the price and the sample image to upload an image. This all works exactly like our other text and image elements.
When you Publish your changes, the Add to Cart button should start working immediately.
What if you need to change your account email address or change the currency used on your site? Go to the Settings tab and select the Ecommerce option. Here you can switch between PayPal and Google Checkout, change your e-commerce account email address (if you need to switch to a different PayPal or Google account) and switch your Currency to something else using the provided drop-down.
How to use Custom PayPal Buttons for Sizes, Colors, Etc.
Our provided PayPal e-commerce elements enable you to create basic product listings for your online store. You can show a picture and description of an item, and provide visitors with a price and button to purchase that item. Very straight forward.
But what if you need to get a little fancier and include a drop-down menu for different sizes or colors (or anything else)? Then you should build your Add-to-Cart buttons using PayPal's simple button generator and add the buttons to your site via our Custom HTML Element.
PayPal will walk you through the process of creating payment buttons here:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_shoppingcart-intro-outside
Click the "Create Your Button Link" on the above page to do just that. Their create button tool gives you significantly more options than our built-in e-commerce elements.
Just fill out the one page form they provide and then click Create Button.
PayPal will provide you with HTML code that you'll then need to copy and paste to your Sitezapp site.
Paste this code to your site by using an Embed Code element.
Note that you do not need (and should not) use our own provided e-commerce elements in conjunction with PayPal generated buttons. Doing so would make it so nothing really works properly, which is likely the opposite of what you want.
You should instead create a description of each item using our Paragraph w/ Picture element and then line each description up with the appropriate Custom HTML Button.
If you use these in conjunction with the Columns element, you can put the Paragraph w/ Picture element side-by-side with the Embed Code element. This will make the elements appear to be a single product listing. This is how it would look in the editor:
But what if you need to get a little fancier and include a drop-down menu for different sizes or colors (or anything else)? Then you should build your Add-to-Cart buttons using PayPal's simple button generator and add the buttons to your site via our Custom HTML Element.
PayPal will walk you through the process of creating payment buttons here:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_shoppingcart-intro-outside
Click the "Create Your Button Link" on the above page to do just that. Their create button tool gives you significantly more options than our built-in e-commerce elements.
Just fill out the one page form they provide and then click Create Button.
PayPal will provide you with HTML code that you'll then need to copy and paste to your Sitezapp site.
Paste this code to your site by using an Embed Code element.
Note that you do not need (and should not) use our own provided e-commerce elements in conjunction with PayPal generated buttons. Doing so would make it so nothing really works properly, which is likely the opposite of what you want.
You should instead create a description of each item using our Paragraph w/ Picture element and then line each description up with the appropriate Custom HTML Button.
If you use these in conjunction with the Columns element, you can put the Paragraph w/ Picture element side-by-side with the Embed Code element. This will make the elements appear to be a single product listing. This is how it would look in the editor:
PayPal Donation Button
We don't offer a built in donation button, but you are more than welcome to create one via PayPal and then add it to your site via our Custom HTML Element.
PayPal shows how to create a donation button here:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/xcl/rec/donate-intro-outside
PayPal shows how to create a donation button here:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/xcl/rec/donate-intro-outside
Google Checkout
Google Checkout is Google's simplified take on e-commerce / shopping carts. Using Google Checkout with your site is as simple as making a few changes to your settings in Google Checkout and then dragging an e-commerce element to your page. Note that our Google Checkout integration can only be used with US Currency. If you are not in the US, you should either use our PayPal option or build your product listings directly in Google and then add them to your site using custom HTML elements.
Start by logging into your Google Checkout account (or opening an account if you don't have one).
Go to the Settings tab.
Under the "Integration" section, uncheck the "My company will only post digitally signed carts" box and Save.
Note: This checkbox must be unchecked in order to use the Google Checkout shopping cart. Since the information in your shopping carts will not be digitally signed, you should check orders to make sure they contain accurate information, including correct prices, before you ship items.
Copy or otherwise make note of your Merchant ID. You'll need it to connect your site to your Google Checkout account.
With this done in Google Checkout, you should drag the Product element to a page of your site.
The system will prompt you to select either the Google Checkout or PayPal option. Select Google Checkout and enter the Merchant ID number for your account.
If you are not prompted to make a selection (which can occasionally happen) then you can go to Settings > Ecommerce later and select to use PayPal from there.
Once you've done this, you can start adding products to your site via the Product element. Though there is only one element, there are four different display styles that alter the way it looks. You can access these Display styles by clicking on the element.
The first display style is called Block. This is a small, square product element. This is suitable for creating a grid of products in conjunction with our Columns Element.
The other three styles are called Small, Regular and Large. As you might guess, these styles are much the same except the Title, Pricing and Add to Cart buttons are a different size for each. You can see the slight differences between them in the image below.
To edit a product element, just click the Title area to enter the name, the description area to enter a description, the price area to enter the price and the sample image to upload an image. This all works exactly like our other text and image elements.
When you Publish your changes, the Add to Cart button should start working immediately.
What if you need to change your account email address or change the currency used on your site? Go to the Settings tab and select the Ecommerce option. Here you can switch between PayPal and Google Checkout, change your e-commerce account email address (if you need to switch to a different PayPal or Google account) and switch your Currency to something else using the provided drop-down.
Start by logging into your Google Checkout account (or opening an account if you don't have one).
Go to the Settings tab.
Under the "Integration" section, uncheck the "My company will only post digitally signed carts" box and Save.
Note: This checkbox must be unchecked in order to use the Google Checkout shopping cart. Since the information in your shopping carts will not be digitally signed, you should check orders to make sure they contain accurate information, including correct prices, before you ship items.
Copy or otherwise make note of your Merchant ID. You'll need it to connect your site to your Google Checkout account.
With this done in Google Checkout, you should drag the Product element to a page of your site.
The system will prompt you to select either the Google Checkout or PayPal option. Select Google Checkout and enter the Merchant ID number for your account.
If you are not prompted to make a selection (which can occasionally happen) then you can go to Settings > Ecommerce later and select to use PayPal from there.
Once you've done this, you can start adding products to your site via the Product element. Though there is only one element, there are four different display styles that alter the way it looks. You can access these Display styles by clicking on the element.
The first display style is called Block. This is a small, square product element. This is suitable for creating a grid of products in conjunction with our Columns Element.
The other three styles are called Small, Regular and Large. As you might guess, these styles are much the same except the Title, Pricing and Add to Cart buttons are a different size for each. You can see the slight differences between them in the image below.
To edit a product element, just click the Title area to enter the name, the description area to enter a description, the price area to enter the price and the sample image to upload an image. This all works exactly like our other text and image elements.
When you Publish your changes, the Add to Cart button should start working immediately.
What if you need to change your account email address or change the currency used on your site? Go to the Settings tab and select the Ecommerce option. Here you can switch between PayPal and Google Checkout, change your e-commerce account email address (if you need to switch to a different PayPal or Google account) and switch your Currency to something else using the provided drop-down.
How to Set Shipping & Handling Fees
E-commerce customizations such as taxes and shipping must be configured through either your Google Checkout or PayPal account.
For PayPal, you can read more about what you'll need to do to set up these features here:
https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/Marketing/shipping/EasyCalculateShipAndTax-outside
In Google Checkout, the settings are configured under Settings in your Google Checkout account by either clicking on Shipping Setup or Tax Setup.
https://checkout.google.com/sell/settings?section=Profile
Note that the above options show how to set up flat-rate shipping. If you want to vary shipping costs from item-to-item you'll need to create custom payment buttons through PayPal instead of using our built-in e-commerce elements.
For PayPal, you can read more about what you'll need to do to set up these features here:
https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/Marketing/shipping/EasyCalculateShipAndTax-outside
In Google Checkout, the settings are configured under Settings in your Google Checkout account by either clicking on Shipping Setup or Tax Setup.
https://checkout.google.com/sell/settings?section=Profile
Note that the above options show how to set up flat-rate shipping. If you want to vary shipping costs from item-to-item you'll need to create custom payment buttons through PayPal instead of using our built-in e-commerce elements.
How to Change Currencies
To choose other currencies, go to the E-commerce area found under the Settings tab in the editor. If you're using PayPal, you'll have the option to choose from a drop down list of currencies (sorry, but Google Checkout is currently limited to the US Dollar).
Save and then Publish the site after you make the change. If your currency is not represented in the list, you'll need to create your own custom add-to-cart buttons through PayPal.
Save and then Publish the site after you make the change. If your currency is not represented in the list, you'll need to create your own custom add-to-cart buttons through PayPal.
Other Shopping Carts
We have direct integrations with Google and PayPal, but that doesn't mean you can't use other shopping carts. Any cart will work so long as the vendor allows you to create embeddable product listings / add to cart buttons. Any such embeddable options can be added to you site via our custom html element.
Start by dragging a custom html element to a page of your site.
Then copy the embeddable code from your shopping cart vendor. And paste it into the custom html element.
When you click out of the element, you should see your product listing / add-to-cart button in its place. You can get creative with this and use our picture and paragraph elements to add extra info to your product listing.
If you don't have experience with other shopping carts then we recommend use either our Google Checkout or PayPal integrations. We're unable to assist you directly with other carts.
Start by dragging a custom html element to a page of your site.
Then copy the embeddable code from your shopping cart vendor. And paste it into the custom html element.
When you click out of the element, you should see your product listing / add-to-cart button in its place. You can get creative with this and use our picture and paragraph elements to add extra info to your product listing.
If you don't have experience with other shopping carts then we recommend use either our Google Checkout or PayPal integrations. We're unable to assist you directly with other carts.
Run Ads on Your Site with Google AdSense
Using the Google AdSense element, you can easily place advertising on your Sitezapp site and generate money from your site traffic. Here's what an example ad might look like:
The ads displayed are automatically targeted to your website's topic and audience. You get paid when a website visitor clicks on one of your ads. The amount can range from a few cents per click to more than a dollar per click, depending primarily on the topic of the ad.
Half of your website visitors will see ads that make you money and half the visitors will see ads that make us money. This way, we are able to split the revenue generated on your website 50/50. The money you earn from your ads is paid directly from Google. This helps us continue to develop and improve our service.
Start by dragging the Google AdSense element to a page.
This will bring up the option to either sign-up for an AdSense account if you don't have one...
Or to connect to an AdSense account that you already have. Be sure to enter the correct Zip Code and Phone Number if you have an account or Google will reject the connection. Also, be sure that you are connecting to an AdSense account and not an AdWords account. These are two entirely different things, despite their similar names.
Once you've connected the account you can start adding elements to your site. When you add an AdSense element, you have direct control over the size and layout of the Ads using the Ad toolbar. You can also alter the color palette and use the Advanced settings to manually alter colors and whether you want to see text or image ads on your site.
To maximize the revenue generated from your site, you'll need to place the ads in areas where your visitors are likely to click. However, at the same time, you do not want your site to appear spammy and prevent people from locating the quality content -- otherwise your visitors will just hit the back button. Google has created a "heatmap" which shows where people are most likely to click on advertising (the darker the shade of orange, the more clicks that area should receive):
Here is an example of Google AdSense elements in a Sitezapp page. Note that we're making use of the two-column element which provides more flexibility with layout options, allowing you to place the ads beside your content.
Publish your site soon after connecting to Google AdSense. Google will reject an application for a site that has not been Published. Note that Google may also reject an application for a site that appears to be unfinished or have very little non-ad content. We cannot help fix the issue if Google rejects you - you'll need to make changes and re-submit if that happens.
It can take Google up to four days to start showing ads on your live site. Until that point, your site will appear to have no ads on it at all.
The ads displayed are automatically targeted to your website's topic and audience. You get paid when a website visitor clicks on one of your ads. The amount can range from a few cents per click to more than a dollar per click, depending primarily on the topic of the ad.
Half of your website visitors will see ads that make you money and half the visitors will see ads that make us money. This way, we are able to split the revenue generated on your website 50/50. The money you earn from your ads is paid directly from Google. This helps us continue to develop and improve our service.
Start by dragging the Google AdSense element to a page.
This will bring up the option to either sign-up for an AdSense account if you don't have one...
Or to connect to an AdSense account that you already have. Be sure to enter the correct Zip Code and Phone Number if you have an account or Google will reject the connection. Also, be sure that you are connecting to an AdSense account and not an AdWords account. These are two entirely different things, despite their similar names.
Once you've connected the account you can start adding elements to your site. When you add an AdSense element, you have direct control over the size and layout of the Ads using the Ad toolbar. You can also alter the color palette and use the Advanced settings to manually alter colors and whether you want to see text or image ads on your site.
To maximize the revenue generated from your site, you'll need to place the ads in areas where your visitors are likely to click. However, at the same time, you do not want your site to appear spammy and prevent people from locating the quality content -- otherwise your visitors will just hit the back button. Google has created a "heatmap" which shows where people are most likely to click on advertising (the darker the shade of orange, the more clicks that area should receive):
- Advertising in the upper left area of your content or directly in-line with the content has the best results.
- Advertising placed below the content also works well, as people will finish reading and ask themselves, "What can I do next?".
- Experiment with different color palettes. It's thought that a color palette which matches your site design works best, but bold/contrasting color palettes may also work well.
Here is an example of Google AdSense elements in a Sitezapp page. Note that we're making use of the two-column element which provides more flexibility with layout options, allowing you to place the ads beside your content.
Publish your site soon after connecting to Google AdSense. Google will reject an application for a site that has not been Published. Note that Google may also reject an application for a site that appears to be unfinished or have very little non-ad content. We cannot help fix the issue if Google rejects you - you'll need to make changes and re-submit if that happens.
It can take Google up to four days to start showing ads on your live site. Until that point, your site will appear to have no ads on it at all.