How, you ask?

In looking over cart.php during testing, I saw that the shipping total displays the text “Enter Postal Code” by default before a zip code is entered in the zip code input field. Using jquery, I hid the proceed to checkout button if the default zip code text was being displayed. I then added a message telling the customer that a zip code was required to proceed to checkout. Once the customer enters a zip code, the site displays the checkout button. Problem solved!

If you’d like, feel free to use the code below on your shopp cart.php template.

<?php if (shopp('cart','hasitems')): ?>
<form id="cart" action="<?php shopp('cart','url'); ?>" method="post"  class="shopp validate">
<big>
	<a href="<?php shopp('cart','referrer'); ?>">&laquo; Continue Shopping</a>
	<a href="<?php shopp('checkout','url'); ?>" class="right checkout">Proceed to Checkout &raquo;</a>
</big>

<?php shopp('cart','function'); ?>
<table class="cart">
	<tr>
		<th scope="col" class="item">Cart Items</th>
		<th scope="col">Quantity</th>
		<th scope="col" class="money">Item Price</th>
		<th scope="col" class="money">Item Total</th>
	</tr>

	<?php while(shopp('cart','items')): ?>
		<tr>
			<td width="60%">
				<a href="<?php shopp('cartitem','url'); ?>"><?php shopp('cartitem','name'); ?></a>
				<?php shopp('cartitem','options'); ?>
				<?php shopp('cartitem','addons-list'); ?>
				<?php shopp('cartitem','inputs-list'); ?>
			</td>
			<td  width="40%"><?php shopp('cartitem','quantity','input=text'); ?>
				<?php shopp('cartitem','remove','input=button'); ?>
				<?php shopp('cart','update-button', array(
    						'value' => 'Update',
    						'class' => 'update-button2'
							)); ?></td>
			<td class="money"><?php shopp('cartitem','unitprice'); ?></td>
			<td class="money"><?php shopp('cartitem','total'); ?></td>
		</tr>
	<?php endwhile; ?>

	<?php while(shopp('cart','promos')): ?>
		<tr><td colspan="4" class="money"><?php shopp('cart','promo-name'); ?><strong><?php shopp('cart','promo-discount',array('before' => '&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;')); ?></strong></td></tr>
	<?php endwhile; ?>

	<tr class="totals">
		<td colspan="2" rowspan="5">
			<?php if (shopp('cart','needs-shipping-estimates')): ?>
			<label for="shipping-postcode">Required - Please enter a zip code to proceed to checkout.</label>
			<?php shopp('cart','shipping-estimates'); ?>
			<?php endif; ?>
			<?php shopp('cart','promo-code'); ?>
		</td>
		<th scope="row">Subtotal</th>
		<td class="money"><?php shopp('cart','subtotal'); ?></td>
	</tr>
	<?php if (shopp('cart','hasdiscount')): ?>
	<tr class="totals">
		<th scope="row">Discount</th>
		<td class="money">-<?php shopp('cart','discount'); ?></td>
	</tr>
	<?php endif; ?>
	<?php if (shopp('cart','needs-shipped')): ?>
	<tr class="totals">
		<th scope="row"><?php shopp('cart','shipping','label=Estimated Shipping'); ?></th>
		<td class="money shipping"><?php shopp('cart','shipping'); ?></td>
	</tr>
	<?php endif; ?>
	<tr class="totals">
		<th scope="row"><?php shopp('cart','tax','label=Tax'); ?></th>
		<td class="money"><?php shopp('cart','tax'); ?></td>
	</tr>
	<tr class="totals total">
		<th scope="row">Total</th>
		<td class="money"><?php shopp('cart','total'); ?></td>
	</tr>
</table>

<big>
	<a href="https://www.janostech.com/e-store.html">&laquo; Continue Shopping</a>
	<a href="<?php shopp('checkout','url'); ?>" class="right checkout">Proceed to Checkout &raquo;</a>
</big>

</form>

<?php else: ?>
	<p class="warning">There are currently no items in your shopping cart.</p>
	<p><a href="https://www.janostech.com/e-store.html">&laquo; Continue Shopping</a></p>
<?php endif; ?>

<script type="text/javascript">
jQuery(document).ready(function($) {
	$('input#shipping-postcode').addClass('required');
});
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
jQuery(document).ready(function($) {
if($('.shipping').html() == 'Enter Postal Code'){
    $(".checkout").hide();
}
});
</script>

Luckily, in my searching, I found a tutorial setup by Wes Bos which listed regular WordPress posts by category. I modified his code a bit and it now sorts custom post types by category as requested by my client. You can see my code in action here and feel free to use the code below on your projects!

<?php
            // get all the categories from the database
            $cats = get_categories('taxonomy=types');

                // loop through the categries
                foreach ($cats as $cat) {
                    // setup the cateogory ID
                    $cat_id= $cat->term_id;
                    // Make a header for the cateogry
                    echo "<h2>".$cat->name."</h2>";  
                    // create a custom wordpress query

                    $args = array(
						'tax_query' => array(
						array(
							'taxonomy' => 'types',
							'field' => 'slug',
							'terms' => ".$cat->name."
							)
							)
						);
					$query = query_posts( $args );
                    // start the wordpress loop!
                    if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

                    <?php
					$custom = get_post_custom($post->ID);
					$price = $custom["price"][0];
					$short_text = $custom["short_text"][0];
					?>

				<div id="gallery" class="one_column">

   				 <ul class="portfolio">

   				 <li class="clearfix">
           			 <div class="clearfix">
                	<span class="image-border"><a class="image-wrap" href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" title="<?php _e('Permanent Link to', 'theme1512');?> <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>" ><?php the_post_thumbnail( 'portfolio-post-thumbnail-xl' ); ?></a></span>
               			 <div class="folio-desc"> 
                        <?php // create our link now that the post is setup ?>
                        <a href="<?php the_permalink();?>"><?php the_title(); ?> | <?php echo $price; ?></a><br />
                        <p><?php echo $short_text; ?></p>
                        <p><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>">View Details</a></p>

                        </div>
            		</div>
        		</li>
        		</div>

                    <?php endwhile; endif; // done our wordpress loop. Will start again for each category ?>
                    <?php wp_reset_query(); ?>
                <?php } // done the foreach statement ?>

Anyhow, back to my story. After informing my client that I don’t offer any SEO services for my clients, I got to looking around the net to see what other companies / freelancers are up to. You should be able to do it as well, just search Google for SEO, search engine optimization, Affordable SEO, and so on. You’ll find a billion and one search results, and if you’re really serious you’ll contact a company from the top 10 results. If they can get themselves to the top of a highly competitive racket, with other companies who claim a specialization in SEO chances are they can help your business and it’s search rankings.

Ok, we’ve narrowed that down, what’s next. Oh yeah, be prepared to pay a couple grand a month as well.

But wait, you say, thats a lot of money?

That’s right, which is why I’d personally never go for a SEO company for any of my websites, because they do just fine for free. One of my favorite SEO practices that anyone can do, on their own for free is to populate your site with keyword rich content. The second tactic I use, at least in the past when I actually had time to actively promote my sites was finding “do follow” blogs relevant to my site content. The last strategy that I employ is clean website coding, which is fairly easy since I’m quite comfortable editing a WordPress CMS. Clean coding moves your content further up the page, making it more important in the eyes of search engines.

Utilizing those FREE SEO tactics probably won’t push you to the first page of any competitive search terms, but will put you on the right track and give your sites free traffic. Try it and see before you shell out thousands of dollars for an SEO company.

WordPress was primarily used as a blogging platform; it organized posts, allowed for easy uploading of images or video, provided interactivity for site visitors, had a million and one addons to customize your WordPress blog, and was (and still is) a good source of extra income from paid blog posts & sponsored links (Google Ads, Yahoo Ads, etc.). What pushes WordPress over the top, at least for me, is that no knowledge of web design languages or coding is necessary to maintain the site. The backend admin panel on a WordPress blog functions in a manner similar to a word processor. Sounds nice right?

Recently, a trend has been building using WordPress as a CMS. Now you can use a WordPress engine to power any site, with all the benefits available to blogs. It does take a little more to get a site started on a WordPress CMS due to the fact that you’ll want your website to be unique. Bloggers using WordPress can find many free themes online for their WordPress blog, but I can almost guarantee that you’ll find a dozen blogs using the same theme. Not very unique at all.

So, to sum things up: A WordPress CMS provides a powerful, user friendly website that does take a little knowledge to develop, but doesn’t tie you to a web developer to provide updates. Very Nice!