Improved Navigation
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Improved Navigation
by Amasty
Ecommerce website success is virtually impossible without handy navigation. If it is hard for customers to find what they need - it will be hard for you to get orders. Now you can optimize the navigation with Improved Navigation extension - create nice landing pages, show filters with images/logos, allow search by multiple filter options, do other enhancements. Your website will become easier to navigate, more visually attractive and memorable - and thus stimulate your customers to place orders.
Live demo: http://improved-navigation.amasty.com
With the extension you are free to:
AJAX-based navigation NEW!
The page will not reload each time a customer makes a choice in the navigation block, the product selection will be updated seamlessly. At the same time the extension feeds SEO-friendly urls to web-spiders and bots even if you are using AJAX mode, which is very important for search engine ratings.Use SEO-Friendly URLs and other SEO enhancements
Now you can have nice-looking and search engine optimized urls like amd.html or computers/shopby/amd.html. You can choose canonical url structure, set 'noindex', 'nofollow' parameters for navigation pages and more.Improve SEO with custom meta tags for pages with selected attributes. NEW!
Let's say you have a page http://example.com/cell-phones/shopby/color-black/manufacturer-htc.html on which color 'black' and brand 'htc' are selected in the navigation. Now you can specify more relevant meta tags for such pages and improve your site SEO. On top of this you can display custom title and CMS blocks on such pages.Show layered navigation at home page for your customers to start browsing right from the moment they get to your site.
Also you can add the navigation to any cms page and to product pages, which will make browsing your store and finding products a lot easier for customers. See http://improved-navigation.amasty.comCreate manufacturer landing pages with logos, descriptions, layered navigation and meta tags.
Customers can select multiple values for the same attribute with checkboxes.
Landing pages are a well-known marketing tool. With the extension you can optimize the brand description and meta tags for SEO and create attractive and easy to use pages with brand logos and left side navigation. Of course, you can also use HTML in the attribute descriptions to beautifully format them. See shopby/amd.html
For example they can search by red or pink t-shirt of M or L sizes simultaneously instead of only small red or only large pink – cool checkboxes make it easy to indicate choices.If you need single select for some attributes - such option is also available.
This might be appropriate for attributes like 'Brands', when customers often want to see products of only one brand at a time.Create vivid and attractive layered navigation with images.
It's a de-facto standard to show colored icons or brand logos in the navigation. You can also show glasses shape, wine type, textures and much more.Attributes of type 'price' in layered navigation. NEW!
The extension enables you to use attributes of 'price' type in the layered navigation, e.g. special price or any other attributes of catalog input type 'price'. You can choose from several display modes for such attributes - slider, dropdown, from-to, default. It is possible to specify custom range step for 'price' attributes. For example, if you specify 50, the ranges will be 0-50, 51-100, 101-150, etc.Utilize sliders and other display options for numeric attributes like weight, memory size, megabytes, etc. NEW!
It is very convenient to use slider display mode for price. You can give your customers the same usability with other numeric attributes like weight, memory size, screen size and so on. In addition to being more user-friendly, the sliders take a lot less space in the navigation block, so the navigation will be a lot more compact. What's even better, your choice is not limited just to sliders, you can use all display modes of 'price' attributes - slider, dropdown, from-to, default.Full-featured attribute tool tips
To help customers with the navigation you can add a tool tip for each filter. Let's say you sell cameras and have 'Megapixel' filter. Some customers might be not aware of what it means. You can add a short explanation, let's say 'the higher the megapixel number - the better the quality of shots'. The tips are displayed only when customers hover mouse over the tool tip icon. You can use text, HTML or even images for tool tips to make them attractive and integrated with your store.Vertical and horizontal navigation blocks NEW!
In some stores there are very many attributes in the navigation and the navigation block is very long. This is not user-friendly. With the module you can place part of the filters at the top of the middle column to solve the problem. This way your site navigation will be a lot more compact and usable.Show attribute icons with links on category (product list) pages.
This will help customers to recognize the products they are looking for a lot faster.Get full control over the attributes positions, options sorting and folding.
- Sort attribute values by alphabet, position or products qty (for front end display)
- Provide customers with ability to fold and unfold attribute options. This feature is especially useful for websites with a lot of attributes and/or attributes with a lot of options. With it you can make your navigation more compact and easier to understand, because customers won't have to scroll a lot down the page and won't be confused by a very large number of options. However the most important will be available without additional clicks
- Choose which attributes to display at the home page. If you would like not to display some attributes in the home page navigation, just go to the extension settings page and list the ones that shouldn't be there.
- Exclude unnecessary attributes from category (product list) page navigation
- Make any of the filters folded (collapsed) by default, if needed. This feature enables you to attract customers' attention to the most important attributes and at the same time doesn't limit their choice. This makes your navigation more compact and usable.
Ability to hide or move category filter. NEW!
It is possible to choose a different position for categories filter in the layered navigation, for example show it under price filter or under all attribute filters. If you are really annoyed with the categories filter, you can remove it altogether :).Dependent Attributes NEW!
Have a lot of values in the left navigation (such as long models or years list)? Hide them untill a customer selects some values in the parent attribute. For example, you can choose 'Shoe size' filter to be displayed only when 'Versace' or 'Gucci' is selected in the 'Brands' filter.Define your own precise price ranges for better segmentation.
Now you can set custom ranges for attribute 'price', e.g. 1-50, 51-200, 201-450, etc. See http://improved-navigation.amasty.comLet customers filter products by their own price ranges with the help of 'From-To' widget
If a customer selects a predefined price range or specifies from-to conditions, the extension still shows the price filter for customers to be able to quickly modify their chioce. Also customers can specify top or bottom margin of the price range only. For example if a customer indicates only top price margin (e.g. 300), only products with price equal to or below 300 will be displayed. There's an option to hide price ranges and use only 'From-To' widget.Create cross-links and show attribute images at the product page
Along with icons for layered navigation, you will also have an option to upload an attribute icon for product pages. The icons will link to the list of all products sharing this attribute option (e.g. some product quality, let's say brand or color), this will create additional cross links, which will make it easier for customers to find similar or matching products and improve your site SEO. Moreover, easy to comprehend icons on product pages will help the customers to make a choice faster and better - http://improved-navigation.amasty.com/blackberry-8100-pearl.htmlFour display options for 'Categories' attribute:
- Default - as in standard magento navigation.
- In dropdown.
- Together with sub-categories, to simplify customer's choice.
- Static 2-level category tree with plus/minus controls, works great for stores with 1-2 level catalog.
Create list of all brands in nice alphabetically ordered blocks
You can use this feature also for any other attribute and create list of all models, all available colors, all authors, etc. Such lists are a good addition to the product catalog, as many customers are looking for products of a specific brand, model, color, etc. See http://improved-navigation.amasty.com/brandsChoose attributes display modes
You can choose from several attribute display modes (images only, labels and images, dropdowns, etc), this way you can set an appropriate look for each attribute. 'Images Only' mode works well for showing brand logos, 'Dropdowns' - for long options list. The 'Dropdowns' type is also available for Category and Price attributes.Create "featured" blocks (featured brands, featured collections, etc).
You can create a "featured" block for any filterable attribute (e.g. brands, models, etc) and place it at any CMS page (several 'featured' blocks can be used simultaneously). By clicking on a brand your visitors will see brand description with logo and the list of all the brand products. This feature is widely adopted by many e-commerce solutions. It is possible to limit the number of featured options (brands, models, etc) and show them in random order.Hide out of stock items from the navigation.
There is a bug with Magento configurable products. If you enable display of 'out of stock' items, in the navigation customers see, say Medium (1). But when they open the product, medium size is unavailable in the dropdown. With the extension only available options will be shown in the navigation block. The feature is disabled by default, if you need it, please ask via email, it's a freebie (available for Magento 1.3.x versions only).Ability to exclude categories from layered navigation.
If you would like not to display some categories in the layered navigation - feel free to do so by indicating their ids in the configuration section.You can use CMS blocks for attribute option description.
This feature is very handy if you need to use magento variables for attribute options description. To utilize a CMS block you will need to just indicate the block identifier when configuring an attribute option.Might be useful.
Improved Navigation is fully compatible with the popular Product Categories addon, which allows to show related categories right at the product page - great for cross-promotion.Other extensions that improve customer experience at your store:
- Improved Sorting extension - provides a large number of product sorting options, for example sorting by biggest saving, top rating, new products and many others. Let your customers list products in the comfortable way - get more orders.
- Product Parts Finder extension - you can make it easy for customers to find spare parts and components - by adding year-make-model or similar filters to your store.
- Previous-Next Navigation extension - considerably improves navigation between products from categories and search results pages.
- Custom Stock Status extension - Magento includes out-of-stock items in the quantity displayed in navigation, so when customers open some page they see a lot fewer products than shown in quantity or no products at all! With Custom Stock Status you can assign a custom message to out-of-stock products like 'will be back on May 15'. So customers will be informed and will come back to your site for purchases.
Also the extension:
- meets all Magento development practices
- Has built-in installation check
- comes with the user guide
- is easy to install (takes just a couple minutes)
- is 100% open source
Additional services:
- Professional 120-day free e-mail support, help and guidance
- Risk free purchase, 2-week money back guarantee
- Paid extension customization
Extension home page: http://amasty.com/improved-navigation.html
Please email your questions and suggestions via http://amasty.com or send us a PM at Magento site. Feedback absolutely welcome.
Change Log
Version 2.2.1 - February 8, 2013:
- Ability to select store views for 'Pages' feature. This allows to use different translations, static blocks and meta tags for each store view.
- Better compatibilty with Landing Pages extension
- Fix for search on modern versions (deprecated function removed)
- Fix for page configuration when multiple values of one attribute are selected
- URLs hash in ajax mode is disabled by default (clean urls, but back button does not work)
Version 2.2.0 - December 14, 2012:
- Nice short urls for brand pages, e.g. example.com/canon.html, example.com/nike.html.
- Great new category display mode - Advanced Categories. Allows to display either the whole category tree or any number of levels of category tree.
- New block, in which you can display the list of a category subcategories together with thumbnails.
- Another fantastic feature - ability to display images of configurable products based on the customer selections. E.g. if a customer selects red color on in the 'color' filter, red images (if available), will be diplayed for configurable products on category pages. This feature can be utilized for all attributes, which are used for creation of configurable products.
- Dependent attributes update. Now you can show an attribute filter when any value in a different filter is selected. E.g. show 'color' filter only after one of 'size' values is selected.
- Advanced SEO feature, requires deep SEO knowledge. When there are very many attributes and their values, there's a huge number of possible attibute value combinations and pages accordingly. This may cause google not to index part of pages. You can specify a parameter for urls with multiple attribute values, which also needs to be specified in google account settings. Please be careful with this one :)
- Update for ajax mode. Attribute descriptions and images now get updated, when a new attribute option is selected.
- Improved compatibility with 3-rd party modules, which add javascript to pages.
- Enhanced UI for 'Pages' functionality.
Version 2.1.0 - September 24, 2012:
- Ability to specify meta keywords.
- Ability to select categories for meta tags conditions.
- Bugfix.
Version 2.0.8 - June 22, 2012:
-Ability to specify custom meta tags for pages with selected attributes. For example you have a page http://example.com/cell-phones/shopby/color-black/manufacturer-htc.html on which color 'black' and brand 'htc' are selected in the navigation. Now you can specify more relevant meta tags for such pages and improve your site SEO.
- Ability to hide or move category filter - it is possible either to choose a different position for categories filter or to remove it from the navigation block.
- Ability to use attributes of 'price' type in the layered navigation, e.g. special price or any other attributes which utilize the type 'price'. The extension provides several display modes for such attributes - slider, dropdown, from-to, default.
- Custom range step for 'price' attributes. For example, if you specify 50, the ranges will be 0-50, 51-100, 101-150, etc
- Updated slider UI
- Bugfix: fix for pager and sorting blocks for home-page navigation, AJAX fix for IE7, fix for quantity sorting when quantity is hidden and more
Version 2.0.1 - March 28, 2012:
- New SEO feature - ability to specify meta tags and canonical url for any combination of filters.
- Japanese locale. Special thanks to Hirokazu Nishi for providing the translation.
Version 2.0.0 - March 1, 2012:
- AJAX filtering on catalog, search, or home pages.
- SEO friendly urls for web-spiders and bots even if you are using AJAX mode.
- Vertical and horizontal navigation blocks, you can use one of them or split attributes between both.
- Full featured tool tips for the attributes in the navigation: use text, HTML or even images.
- Dependent filters.
- Ability to exclude some categories from the layered navigation.
- No need to add CSS manually.
- 404 for undefined options in SEO mode.
Version 1.4.6 - December 2, 2011:
- New SEO options nofollow and noindex for filter pages.
- Flexible canonical urls for category pages.
- Optional rel="nofollow" parameter for navigation links.
Version 1.4.5 - September 21, 2011:
- Flexible canonical urls for shopby pages.
- Bugfix.
Version 1.4.1 - March 11, 2011:
New feature:
- Ability to use CMS blocks for attribute option description.
Version 1.4.0 - March 7, 2011:
New features:
- Seo URLs. Now you can have nice-looking and search engine optimized urls like shopby/ecco.html or apparel/shopby/womens.html.
- Single select for filters.
- Collapsible/Expandable filters. This feature enables you to attract customers' attention to the most important attributes and at the same time doesn't limit their choice. This makes your navigation more compact and usable.
- An option to hide price ranges and use only 'From-To' widget.
- Ability to show categories together with sub-categories, to simplify customer's choice.
- Ability to show static 2-level category tree with plus/minus controls, works great for stores with 1-2 level catalog.
- Now filter options can be folded and unfolded also with 'Images only' and 'Labels and Images' display types.
- Compatibility with the latest version of Improved Sorting extension.
Version 1.2.8 - February 18, 2011:
New features and enhancements:
- From-To price filter.
- If a customer selects a predefined price range or specifies from-to conditions, the extension still shows the price filter for customers to be able to quickly modify their choice.
- With the new From-To price filter customers can specify top or bottom margin of the price range only.
- Java Script functions have been moved from HTML to a separate file to provide clean HTML.
Fixes:
- Valid canonical url for the shopby/ page.
- Proper meta tags at the the shopby/ page.
http://improved-navigation.amasty.com/shopby/steve_madden.htmlMore detailed change log can be seen at the Improved Navigation home page.
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- Release Notes
Make your website easy for customers to navigate! Get more orders!
2010-01-05 01:35:39 Ecommerce website success is virtually impossible without handy navigation. If it is hard for customers to find what they need – it will be hard for you to get orders. Now you can optimize the navigation with Improved Navigation extension – upload images for attributes, display filter options in two columns, do other enhancements. Your website will become easier to navigate, more visually attractive and memorable – and thus stimulate your customers to place orders. Make your layered navigation vivid and self-explanatory with new display modes and images – images attract customer attention and make their choice easier. It’s a de-facto standard to show colored icons or brand logos in the navigation. With the extension you are free to: - Upload images for attributes - Show small attribute icons on product view page. The icons link to the lists of products, having the same attribute – this is a must-have feature for book stores (allow customers to see other books by the same author), apparel stores (see the clothes from the same collection or brand), furniture stores (see items made from the same material or of the same color) and many others. Moreover, easy to comprehend icons on the product pages will help the customers to make a choice faster and better - http://improved-navigation.amasty.com/index.php/catalog/product/view/id/103/s/steven-by-steve-madden-pryme-pump/category/3/ - Choose filter display modes (images only, labels and images, dropdowns, etc) see http://improved-navigation.amasty.com/ - Display filter options in two columns - Add layered navigation to the home page – it is very important to let customers see available options right from the start. - Create a "featured" block for any filterable attribute (e.g. featured brands or featured collections, etc) and place it at any CMS page (several “featured” blocks are allowed simultaneously). By clicking on a brand your visitors will see brand description with logo and the list of all the brand products. This feature is widely adopted by all e-commerce solutions (so far it’s not part of Magento though) - Add titles and descriptions for your attributes to make your site more SE-friendly. When customers select some option from the layered navigation block, the extension will show attribute description and add appropriate meta-tags. The more relevant texts are on your pages the better it is for your site SEO.- Reviews
About the Developer
This extension was developed by and is supported by Amasty
Improved Navigation 93 93Easy installation and very useful extension, fast response and experienced fix, many thanks! December 29, 2012It's a great plugin, but a bit complex for what I needed. It took a while even with documentation to figure out that the admin controls are spread out between menus. But with help from Alexander at Amasty, I was able to get everything running to full satisfaction. Response time can be a few days, but they did more than was expected and agreed to a full refund if I wasn't satisfied. Well, I don't want a refund and I may purchase it again for another site. December 28, 2012Easy to manage extension and a fast and eficient support!! Highly recommended. December 10, 2012Excellent extension, excellent service & support and what a pleasure to deal with Amasty. They even assisted with custom theme changes free of charge & without any hassle. First time using them - and definitely not our last. Would recommend this extension 100% for simplified & more efficient navigation. November 26, 2012Worked perfectly and seamlessly after install with minimal configuration. Excellent support - had an issue getting the sliders to deal with decimal values - they supplied some custom code to rectify a day later. Fairly easy to tweak the CSS to get the elements to visually match the site template. Highly recommended November 19, 2012I think this is an excellent extension with wonderful features and flexibility. It is backed up with really good support and I would recommend this extension and Amasty to other Magento web store owners. November 19, 2012This is a great extension with a great documentation, but the support from Amasty is even better. Our customer ask us to make a change in the filter behaviour. Although we suppossed the extension was not designed that way, we decided to ask Amasty, just in case it was a configuration value we couldn't see. They coded a customization and applied it for us in one day We highly recommend these guys. November 2, 2012Nice work guys. Really saved me a lot of time and mental sanity. October 17, 2012Excellent extension. If you want to target long tail traffic this extension is a must. It allows you to create 100s of long tail landing pages with full control of each individual page. Support is very quick and knowledgeable too. I had a conflict with one other extension and they fixed it in under 1 hour. Great value for money. Highly recommend. Mike. October 15, 2012Excellent support staff. Very helpful throughout. October 11, 2012- Q&A
- (1 Question : 0 Answers)
Product Q&A
Ask your questions. Share your answers.
Avatar Image Url:: http://www.magentocommerce.com/images/avatars/uploads/avatar_26982324Hi, this extension seems to do almost everything I need, but there is one thing that I'm not sure about.
In the demo, the categories and attributes seem to work independently of each other. For example, if you select an attribute e.g. color it no longer displays all the categories & sub-categories. Also, if you select an attribute first e.g. color and then select a category, it doesn't keep the color filter.
Also, the categories don't seem to work the same was as attributes. For example the selected category isn't listed under the "Currently shopping by" section, and you can only select one category whereas you can select multiple options for attributes.
I'd really like to use this extension because it does most of what I need and it works on the home page which is great! But I also need an extension that treats categories the same was as attributes because customers won't know the difference in my store.
Is it possible for categories to work the same way as attributes with this extension? Thanks.byJust Maj-1 week ago1 of 11 of 1 - Get Help
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