Introduction

CMS stands for Content Management System and as the name suggests it is used for managing the content of the static pages of your Prestashop 1.7 Online Store. When we say static pages we are referring to any page that is displaying non-dynamic content such as “About Us”, “Terms and Conditions”, “Delivery” and so on. So in other words, using the CMS will allow every PrestaShop 1.7 website administrator to be able to create as many static pages as they need and furthermore, to manage their content in an efficient way. In the following lines of this tutorial, we will show you how to fully utilize the power of the CMS functionality offered by PrestaShop 1.7.

Step 1: Accessing the “Pages” page

In order to fully manage the CMS feature of your Online Store, you will have to log in to the Admin area of PrestaShop and from the left vertical navigation menu to look for the “Design” option. When you find it, please, click on it. A drop-down menu will appear with the following options:

• “Theme and Logo”
• “Theme Catalog”
• “Pages”
• “Positions”
• “Image Settings”
• “Link Widget”

Out of all these options that appear in the drop-down menu, please, click the “Pages” option.

Step 2: Creating new CMS Category

You will be redirected to a page called “Pages”. On that page, you will see two sections - one for the created CMS categories and one for the created and existing CMS pages.

Each one of the sections will have the existing categories/pages structured in a convenient table view. In order to create a new CMS category, please, click the “Add new page category” button at the top right of the page.

You will be redirected to a page called “Pages>Add New Category”.

Please, bear in mind, that the category you are about to create is actually a sub-category of the root category called “Home”. You can create as many categories as you need.

On the page “Pages>Add New Category” you will be presented with only one section called “CMS Category”.

The options that you have to fill out contain basic information. Let’s review them as they follow:

• “Name” - the name has to be a short and direct word. It will be later used by Prestashop to identify each CMS category.
• “Displayed” - the “Displayed” option indicates if the category and its pages are going to be public or will be hidden.
• “Parent category” - by default, the parent category is “Home”. The category you are creating now is under the parent one. There is no limitation on the number of categories you can create. Please, bear in mind, that if you want to create sub-categories you have to change the “Parent Category” from “Home” to the desired category.
• “Description” - that is the description of the category. Please, bear in mind, that some of the themes may display that information to the customer. In that case, it is important to fill the “Description” information correctly.
• “Meta title” - this is the name of the category as it will be displayed in the browser.
• “Meta description” - the “Meta Description” is used to describe the content of the category which the search engines use.
• “Meta keywords” - thanks to the “Meta Keywords” the search engines can understand the type of information for the specific category.
• “Friendly URL” - with the “Friendly URL” the visitors can understand what will be the content in the specific category. It also makes it easier for the Search Engines to index your content. Please, bear in mind, that the field will be automatically filled once you enter the category name, but you always have the option to edit it manually.

Once you are done filling out the fields for the creation of a new CMS category, please, click the “Save” button at the bottom of the section.

Once the category is saved you will be redirected back to the “Pages” page. The newly created category will be a sub-category to the parent one. If, on another hand, you want to be able to see more sub-categories you have to create some.

Now, let’s move on to creating a new CMS page.

Step 3: Creating a new CMS page

To be able to start the process of creating a new CMS page, please, click the “Add new page” button at the top right of the “Pages” page.

You will be redirected to a page called “Page>Add New Page”.

Just like with the “Add new category” page here you will have again only one section on that page.

The fields that you have to fill in here are as follow:

• “Page Category” - the default category is the home-page of your shop or any other category you have added as explained in the previous step of this tutorial. Please, bear in mind, that if you want to change the parent category from “Home” to some other category you first have to create a new category and set it as parent one.
• “Title” - the title of the page that the visitors will be presented with.
• “Meta title” - the “Meta title” is the name of the page as it will be displayed for the search engines.
• “Meta description” - the search engines use the description of the content for the page.
• “Meta keywords” - search engines use the meta keywords to understand the type of information for the given page.
• “Friendly URL” - just like with the category, the “Friendly URL” helps the visitors to understand what the content of the page will be about and also helps the search engines to index the content. Please, bear in mind, that the URL will be automatically filled out when you enter a name for the page, but you are able to change it anytime manually.
• “Page content” - this contains the main information about your page. Thanks to the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor you are able to enter as much text as necessary. You can also insert images or videos here.
• “Indexation by search engines” -  depending on your choice for that option the search engines either will or not going to register the page you are creating.
• “Displayed” - once you are done proofreading the page you can always choose to display it on public or no. Leaving it as a draft while working on the page is making it invisible for the public.

Please, bear in mind, that it is recommended to translate each page for each of your supported languages, as it is making it easier and more beneficial for you when the user can read it on their own language.

After you are done with all the fields in that section, please, click the “Save” button.

If you have decided to display the page, then after saving it, you can view the results directly on your online shop.

Step 4: Modify an existing CMS page

Editing and deleting a category or a page is pretty easy. Let’s start with editing a page. When you reach the “Pages” page you will see that right next to each page there will be an “Edit” button.

When you click the edit button you will be redirected to a page called “Pages>Edit page: and the name of the page”.

You will see that it has exactly the same options as you had when you were creating a page, but the only difference, now, here, will be that every field is already filled out.

Deleting an existing page is even easier. From the “Pages” page you will see an arrow for a drop-down menu next to the “Edit” button for each page.

Once you click it a drop-down menu with only one option will appear “Delete”. When you click it a dialog box will appear letting you know that you are about to delete the specific page.

Click “Ok” if you really want to delete the page or “Cancel” if you accidentally had pressed that.

The process of editing and deleting categories is the same as editing or deleting an existing page.

Congratulations! Today you learned how to create CMS categories and pages, how to make them the parent one and how to configure the existing ones.