Best practice to use a page builder or just lots of templates?

[Jj37]

Hello - one thing I did not realise about Shopify is that it has a terrible out-of-the-box page editor. In-fact, there is no editor at all and relies on knowledge of HTML code (unlike Woocommerce/Wordpress, which has a very in-depth and sophisticated page builder).

I have noticed that the template builder, would in theory allow me to create the 'About me', 'FAQ', 'My Story' type pages, but I am not sure how this would be correct practice, or SEO compliant?

I have also seen there are many page builders, but most come with a rather high monthly cost.

Any advice would be appreciated. 

[PaulMartin]

It sounds like you are aiming to have different content for different pages.

You can use templates, although in order for you to have different content in each page but just a few templates, you will need some Shopify knowledge in order to do so. As for it being correct practice or SEO compliant, I am sure that Shopify took that into consideration when making the templates feature for its users, then this is also controlled by the Theme.

As with page-builders, it's easier to make that possible but then again, that comes with cost.

[Jj37]

Thanks Paul. I am happy with using a template for the homepage, and then the standard catalogue page etc.

But if I want a separate page to tell 'My Story' or 'About My Brand' - I assume I can just create a template, but all the images/content, etc inside that - without editing anything further on the 'page' as such?

I find it a bit odd that Shopify has no native way (other than HTML coding) to create pages. 

[PaulMartin]

Yeah. Then, in order for you to edit those templates, you'll have to use
the Theme editor just like editing your homepage, product pages, etc.

[Jj37]

Thanks - how would I do this? 

[PaulMartin]

..........

[PaulMartin · Accepted solution]

@Jj37 
I'm not sure if this is what you meant. I made a video for you.
Video for using templates - Jj37 - YouTube

[Jj37]

Fantastic, thanks so much. So, I could actually merge template/page combinations for each different type of page.

For example, a different template and page combination for 'About my brand' , and 'FAQ', and 'Find my work' etc

[PaulMartin]

@Jj37 Awesome. If you got any more questions, just let me know by messaging me or commenting here.

[MichaelAtKitch]

So strange that Shopify makes you hop back and forth like this. I've been working on a Shopify website for half a year and still haven't come to a conclusion on the best way to create new pages. Should I create a new template for every page? Seems redundant to do so, but I guess it's the most straightforward way to go about it. The only reason I see a need for a template is for products and the use of metaobjects. Because if I create a template in the Shopify Editor that has a text and image block, I can't edit it directly from the page section of the Shopify dashboard. I have to go to the template in the editor, and edit the content in there. Which means I can only use that template for one page. So why in the world would I create both a template and a page? They could've just merged the SEO stuff into the templates on the editor, gotten rid of the pages section and called it a day. It's just all very confusing. Especially if you're not interested in learning about meta tags and fields and whatever meta stuff there is.

Additionally, no one makes videos about this issue on YouTube. If they do, it's certainly not easy to find.

[MichaelAtKitch]

Deleted Comment

[PaulMartin]

Yeah, it's quite the hassle especially when your store has a lot of pages with differing looks and differing information inside of it. But like you said, it's the most straightforward way to go about it.

It's still possible to minimize the number of templates, but only if multiple pages use the same layout and the content just changes per page. That would force you to use metaobjects or metafields, but it will benefit you a lot down the road when you need to change how a page should look.

Example. Say you are an ecommerce store that sells roofs online, but you also want to display your services. You'll need to use pages to further explain each service you do. You aim to achieve the same layout for each service, but they contain different content, so a single template that produces different pages. You can use metaobjects here or pages, whichever you prefer. How it would go would be like this: 
You first create and design your template, just like so

Then create your pages and use metafields for the service hero img and service details. Then fill those in:

Then those pages are going to use the same template, and it would produce: 

If you wish to remove the contact us section, you'll just remove that from the template and that would then reflect on both pages - saving you time. Metaobjects does the similar thing.

The template really is just a template that produces the pages based on what the page's information are. Product template produces the product pages base on what the product is about. A page template produces the pages base on what the page is about.

But again, it’s such a hassle to do both when, for example, the page you are working on doesn’t have any other pages with the same layout. 

If you got any questions, let me know and I'll do my best to answer it.