Here’s how to get started:

- First, login your Facebook account, and then access your company fan page and click on the Edit Page button (see example below).

Next, click on the Resources menu, and then on the Use social plugins link (see example below)

From here you can select the Facebook plugin that you’d like to use on your site (see example below)

You can then fill in any variable to get a desired appearance and then click on the Get Code button (see example below)

Once the code displays, you’ll want to copy both sections (see example below)…

…then you’ll want to paste the code into a Written Content area on your DC site where you want to the plugin to display, make sure that the Web Editor Preference for the Written Content area is set to Basic HTML (see example below)

There you have it…your Facebook plugin should be displaying on your DC website, make sure to Publish your changes to have the plugin display on your live site. Click here for more Facebook tips for your DC website.

We have added a quick compare page for products that you have added into your Fulfillment Account using the “Add Similar From Supplier Product”  link. This will make it easy for you to compare the pricing of your Fulfillment products to the Supplier’s current pricing in DistributorCentral, where you can then update the price if necessary.

To access this tool, login to your Fulfillment Account, and then go to the Products menu >> Advanced Features >> Compare pricing On Products Copied From Suppliers. See image below. Click here to learn more about our Fulfillment Account feature.

Website Title – This is located in the Sidewide Settings area of the web editor. It’s somewhat of a mystery regarding how many characters Google and other search engines actually index, but it’s probably around 70 – 150 characters. The website title is one of the first things that the search engines will index for your site. It also displays as the link in the search engine results (see example image below).

Page Names – This is located in the Page Editor area for each of your pages on your site. The Page Names would be considered as an extension to your Website Title. What this means is that if you use a long Website Title, your Page Names might only partially get indexed by the search engines. To compensate, you may want to have a shorter Website Title, maybe something that you feel is relevant to be on every page, and then put the bulk of the information in the individual Page Names on your site. You can also opt to leave the Website Title completely blank, and just add information into each of the Page Names on your site. Each of your pages should have unique Page Names, and they should not be exactly the same on multiple pages (see example image below).

Image Descriptions (ALT Tags) – Whenever you upload images to your website, you can give them descriptions. This is also known as an ALT Tag, which generally means the alternative tag. ALT Tags are the HTML tag that tells search engines about the images since search engines cannot read text in actual images. To add Image Descriptions to your current images on your site, go the Content Manger, and then click on the Edit link for an image, and then add the text in the Image Description field.

Meta Tags – Meta Tags help search engines find out important information about your website. For example, related keywords or a description of a specific website page. You should add unique Meta Tags to each of your individual website pages. This is contrary to our previous advice to add Meta Tags to the Footer of your site so that the same Meta Tag information would display on all the pages of your site, which has been found out that Search Engines actually do not like repetitive Meta Tag information on multiple pages of the same site.

- Description Meta Tag – This should be an actual description of what is on your particular website page. It’s a short pitch where you can put strong keywords to entice viewers to click on your site in the search results. Again, it is a mystery here as to how many characters that the search engines will index for your Description Meta Tag, but it should be fairly short (around two sentences) and should be somewhat readable like a sentence, as opposed to just random keywords (see example image below).

- Keyword Meta Tag – This can be random keywords that can help the search engines determine what’s on your site. It’s a rumor that Google’s crawlers may totally bypass the Keyword Mata Tags, since oftentimes, website owners would just load this area up with 100’s or even 1000’s of keywords. Whether that’s true or not, the idea for keywords would be relativity versus quantity. They can just be random keywords that are separated by a comma (i.e. custom apparel, imprinted apparel, screen printed shirts)

Here’s how to add Meta Tags to your site:

- Go to the Websites menu and select Add/Edit Websites
- Click on the Edit link for your website
- Click the Add/Edit Web Pages tab
- Edit a page for your site (i.e. the Home page)
- Add a Block to your page
- For the content type for the block, select Meta Tags
- Follow the on-screen instructions to set up your meta tag block

Additional Tips

- Heading Tags - The <h1> to <h6> Heading tags are used to define HTML headings. <h1> defines the most important heading, and <h6> would define the least important heading. Heading Tags are important for on-page SEO purposes. Furthermore, H1 tags should be used only once per page. The opening heading should be an H1 tag that describes the whole theme of the page. Any sub information or more specific topics should go under separate headings in the form of H2 Tags, filtering down appropriately.

Here’s how to add Heading Tags to your site:

- Go to the Websites menu and select Add/Edit Websites
- Click on the Edit link for your website
- Click the Add/Edit Web Pages tab
- Edit a page for your site (i.e. the Home page)
- When adding text to your site in the Written Content area, you can highlight the text that you want to make a heading, and then select a heading from the Format drop-down menu (see example image below)

- Add actual text to your site – Search engines will index the text on your site, so be sure to add descriptive text along with strong keywords to the individual pages of your site.

- Create a WordPress blog – And then blog like crazy about particular promotional products, and all the different ways about how they can be used. You can then feed that blog into your website using our RSS News Feed tool (see example image below).

Here’s how to feed you blog into to your site:

- Go to the Websites menu and select Add/Edit Websites
- Click on the Edit link for your website
- Click the Add/Edit Webpages tab
- Edit a page for your site that you’d like to have the blog display (i.e. the Home page)
- Add a Block to that page, and then select RSS News Feed from the content drop-down menu.
- Next, enter in the blog feed URL (you can also adjust how many records to display and length of the descriptions)

- Create Product Specific Websites – It’s been proven that if you create a website in your DistributorCentral account that caters to a narrow niche in the Promotional Product Industry, that those sites get organically indexed far better than sites with 1000’s of products or our standard All Products Catalog. When you think about it, this makes perfect sense. For example, if you create a site that just has Eco Friendly Tote Bags, when someone searches in Google for those particular products (which they will), your site (if you follow the techniques above), will have a more likely probability of displaying higher in the search engine results. Your DistributorCentral account makes it easy for you to create custom catalogs with specific products that you can add to a site that you’ve created. Click here for information on how to create a catalog with specific products for a site. You can even customize the website to have your own products using our Fulfillment Account feature. Click here for more information on Fulfillment Accounts.

 - Have your domain name include keywords – When you purchase a domain name for your site, it’s good idea to have keywords related to your site in the actual domain. For example, if you are going to create a site in your DistributorCentral account that focuses on Eco Friendly Tote Bags, it’d be logical for you to purchase a domain name such as EcoFriendlyToteBags.com, or Eco-Friendly-Tote-Bags.com, or EcoFriendlyTotes.com, etc.

DistributorCentral does not provide assistance with Search Engine Optimization, but following the steps above to apply unique and relevant content to your site will most definitely improve your organic search results in Google and the other major search engines. If you don’t have time to do the research for unique content to add on your site, you can hire a SEO specialist, but be prepared to spend a considerable amount of money. Also, be cautious of hiring a SEO specialist since there are literally 1000’s of sites that claim to know how to get your site organically ranked in the search engines, but they may not provide you with the results that you want, since variables that affect SEO can be relative to different Search Engines (i.e. techniques that might help you in Google, may not help in Yahoo or Bing). Furthermore, the rules (by the search engines) are constantly changing and virtually impossible to keep up with…so what gets you organic results today, may not tomorrow. If you feel that you’ve developed a great site, don’t be afraid to try Google AdWords.

To take advantage of this feature:
- You can set a reminder date from summary page of each order

- Or, you can set a reminder date for all of your orders at once, by clicking on the number link in the Customer Reorder Reminders area on the home page in your account

- Next, you can customize a message that will be emailed to your customers regarding the reorder reminder, and send it to your customer(s)

- The email that you customer will receive will look similar to the image below. They’ll be able to click on the Place Your Order Today! link which will send then directly the the order confirmation page for that product. Note, if you test this feature, you’ll want to log out of your DistributorCentral account prior to clicking on the Place Your Order Today! link.

You can also setup preferences in your account for your reorder reminders. To do this, go to the Account Menu >> Preferences >> Account Preferences, then click on the Orders tab.

You can put in the amount of days to control how often orders display on your reorder reminder list. For example, if you would like orders reminders to show up once a year for each order, put 365 in the reorder reminder date field (see image below).

You can also create a default message that will automatically display for your reorder reminder emails (see image below).

The website that you have created in DistributorCentral account, or the link that you use for the product catalog on your outside website; both have a built-in shopping cart that allows your website visitors to place orders to you. You also have the ability to create your own Customer Orders and Supplier Purchase Orders from within your account as well. Below is one recommendation on how to use DistributorCentral and your PayPal account together to invoice your Customers, and even pay Suppliers.

First, for the shopping cart on your DistributorCentral website, you can indicate the payment method(s) that you would like to have available for your customers.
To do this:
- Go to the Account menu
- Select Payment and then Payment Setup
- Next, you can select PayPal – Collect info only and any other payment types that you would like to have available and then click on Save (see example below)

This is what your customer will see on the payment page on your website when placing an order (see example below).

Now that you’ve indicated how you would like to receive payment from your customers, next you can setup the invoice feature in your account so that payments will link with your PayPal account.
To do this:
- Go to the Account menu
- Select Preferences and then Account Preferences
- Click on the Invoices menu on the left side of the page
- From here, select Yes – PayPal Payment Page for the Display Pay Online link on invoices preference and then click on Save (see example below)

Now you need to make sure that your Billing contact email address in your DistributorCentral account is the same as the email address you have setup for your PayPal account.
To do this:
- Go to the Account menu
- Then select Account Maintenance
- Click on the Contacts tab
- Next, if you don’t have a Billing contact setup, click on Add Similar or on the Add New Contact button and setup a Billing contact making sure the use the same email address that you have setup with your PayPal account.

Testing your payment process
Once you have this setup up, you can try placing a test order to yourself from your website, or enter in a test order for a fake customer from within your DistributorCentral account. Note: When placing test orders, make sure you are on your “live” website (not in preview mode) while signed out of your DistributorCentral account.

After an order is placed from your website, you should receive an email confirmation, and the order should be saved in your DistributorCentral account. From this point, locate the order, and access the Summary page, where you can then review the order. You can make any changes to the Customer Order at this point, such as adding/removing charges, adding tax and freight, etc. Once you are ready, you can click on the Create Customer Invoice button (A) to create an invoice for your Customer. Then you can send the invoice to your Customer, by clicking on the Send button. This will allow you to email the invoice to your customer, where they can click on the Pay online now link (B) in the email, which will then prompt them to either login to their PayPal account or pay as a guest if you have a Business PayPal account (C), where they can pay the amount that is due on the invoice (see examples below). Once paid, the funds will be transferred to your PayPal account.

If you really want to streamline this process, you can get a PayPal MasterCard, and use that to pay your Suppliers. Then in your PayPal account, you can just move some of the funds that you received from your customer, and use it to pay the balance on your MasterCard all from within your PayPal account.

You can use our discount feature to setup and offer discounts in a variety of ways, here are just a few:
- Offer percentage discounts if the product or order total is more than a set amount
- Offer flat rate discounts if the product or order total is more than a set amount
- Offer discounts on freight by percentage or a flat rate
- Offer a coupon code that can be entered to receive a percentage or flat rate discount

This feature is incredibly easy to use, just watch the short video below to learn all about this feature and how to apply it to your website.

See below for a reference, or click here to see it on an actual website.

To add the “AddThis” tool to your website:
- Go to www.AddThis.com
- Select your style or any other preferences and then click on “Get Your Button”
- Copy the coding that they provide
- Edit your website in your DistributorCentral account, and paste the coding into a Written Content area…You must set the Written Content area to be “Basic HTML/Text” (see image below)
- Preview your site to see the changes, and then Publish your site to make the changes live

That’s it…now when customers are on that page of your site, they can for example, click on the Facebook icon, and easily post your website in their status.

Note: The product detail pages on your website will automatically have a sharing application built in, see image below for reference.

To add tags to products:
- Preview your website and go to the details page for a specific product
- Next, towards the bottom of the page, enter in the tags that you would like to assign to the product (see image below)
- Repeat this process for any other products that you would like to add tags to on your website
- Then Publish Your Website

Once you have added tags to products, and published your website, a list of those tags will display under the corresponding product images on the product details page, so that your customers can easily find other similar products that you have tagged (see image below).

Furthermore, you can add a Product Tag List to any page on your website, which will display the various product tags that you have created.

To add a product tag list to your website:
- Edit your website, and then go to the Add/Edit Web Pages area
- Edit the page that you would like to add the list to
- Add a Block to the page and then select Product Tag List from the Content dropdown menu
- Next, name your tag list and assign any other attributes, and then click on Save (see image below)
- Publish your website

When the Product Tag List displays on your website, customers will be able to click on the tags you have created, and it will take them to the related products that you have added tags to (see image below).

We recently added more features to make it even easier for you to customize products for your website.

There are many advantages in creating a site that is featuring only one or only a few customized products:

• Search Engine Optimization is easier
• No searching required for your customers
• No confusion over the order process
• Marketing is easier
• and more!

So here it is:

1. Pick out a product or type of product to feature on your site.

a. To get started, decide the who, what, where, and how of your future site. This could also be considered the logistics of the site. This is usually the boring part where you lay out your plans.

2. Now you will need to create a fulfillment account in your main DC account:

a. Log in to your DC account at www.distributorcentral.com

b. Go to Products Menu > My Products (Fulfillment Account)

c. Once in the account Fulfillment Account, go to Products Menu > Add / Edit Products

d. Click on “Add Similar from Supplier Product” link on the bottom right

e. Pick the Supplier and the product that you are going to feature on your website

f. Now change the Product name and number and Save the product at the bottom.

g. You can now customize this product by changing the pricing, the description, the image and so on to match your needs.

Click here to view detailed information regarding  how Fulfillment Accounts work, and how to setup up your own products. 

3. Create your website

a. Log into your MAIN DC account and go to Websites Menu> Add/Edit Websites

b. Scroll down to the Pre-Made Templates and select the template titled “Customized Featured Product” Template by selecting “Use” to the right

c. Name the template and Create the website

d. Now Click on Product Catalogs and Click “Add/Remove Catalog” at the top right. Find your Fulfillment account catalog from the box on the left and move it to the right and Save. Now hit “Save Changes” again at the bottom of the next page.

 e. Now continue customizing the website by uploading your logo and switching out the product on the home page with your product.

1. Go to  Add/Edit Pages and click on “Edit” next to the Home page. Change the Supplier field to the default selection with no Supplier name selected and enter in your exact item number in the Product field. Then hit “Search” and “Save” at the bottom.

Learn more about editing your website here:

http://www.distributorcentral.com/resources/education/dc_tips.cfm

f. Now Publish your Changes under the Publisher section

g. Now you can purchase a domain name and map it to your new site to market to your customers. See this guide to learn about adding a domain name:

http://www.distributorcentral.com/resources/education/guides/domainname.pdf

You can repeat these steps to create other websites as well or you can add more “Featured Product” blocks to the website to feature more products too.

Good Luck!

DC Team

Here’s how:

1 – Create a Fan Page for your Company in FaceBook
- Skip these steps below if you have already created a Fan Page in FaceBook
- Login to your FaceBook account, and then click on the Ads and Pages tab
- Next, select the Create Page link
- From this point, setup and customize your FaceBook fan page to your liking
- Click here for further information on creating FaceBook fan pages

2 – Add the Application to your FaceBook Fan Page
- Next, while logged in to both your FaceBook account and your DistributorCentral account, click or go to the URL below
http://apps.facebook.com/distributorcentral
- Then click on the Click here to add this to your Facebook page link
- On the next page, click on the Add to my Page tab (see image below)
- Then click on the Add to Page button in the pop-up window

3 – Add the Application to your FaceBook Fan Page.
- While still logged in to both your DistributorCentral and FaceBook Account, go your fan page for your business, and click on the Edit Page button in the upper right portion of the page (see image below)

- Click on the Apps tab on  the left side of the page
- Scroll down the page until you see the DistributorCentral application, and then click on the Go to App link (see image below)

- Next, click on the dropdown menu on the following page which will show all of the available website pages that you have created in you DistributorCentral account (If it does not show this, then make sure you are logged in to our DistributorCentral account while in this are in your FB account)
- Select the page that you would like to display, and then click on Save (We suggest that you select a website page that you are featuring products on, see image below)

You will now have a Products tab on your FaceBook Fan Page that will display the content on the website page that you have chosen to advertise (see example below).

Here’s instructions on how we suggest to setup a page on your DistributorCentral website to use the FaceBook application:
- Go to your Websites menu and select Add/Edit Websites
- Edit your website, and go the Add/Edit Pages area
- Select to add a Custom Page to your website
- Name the page, and select to not have the page link display on the website (see image below)

- Next, setup blocks to use the Feature Products tool
- We suggest using the 4 across block layout and using the featured product tool in the first three sections, leaving the fourth section blank (see image below)

- When using the Featured Product tool, select “Small” for the image size and indicate to have the Width set to 20% (see image below)
- Repeat this process to add as many featured products as you like

- Finally, publish your website, and then follow the steps at the beginning of this blog entry to add this page to your FaceBook Fan Page. The products page on your FaceBook Fan page should then look similar to the example below.