Custom Page Titles?

The current page title (title tag) for a product is 'product_name'. I would like to change this to have a fuller more menaingful page title in the browser and for SEO.

I thought of:
1. creating a custom field on the products page in the back-end and calling it say... 'custom_title'.
2. Hide it from the front-end
3. Alter the code in the custom view of show.php...but what?

Can I use here...

$document->setTitle( $custon_title );

This is working a treat! Google is now showing the custom made longer descriptive page titles for products rather than a short product name. This as a real testimony to the authors of Hikashop and the flexability of its architecture.

Just while I'm on a few tips for SEO that might help others.

1. Make your actual image file names descriptive with dashes (not underscores) between words e.g. a-really-good-description-with-keywords.jpg
2. Use the field labeled 'Name' ('file-name' in the hikashop_file table in the db) in the product images page to put a good description of the image. This is used to provide the text for ALT image tags in the code. Google loves these descriptive tags.
3. Use a sitemap. Xmap works and the guys here have witten a beta hikashop exentsion for it. Search the forum
   for Xmap.
4. Move your keyword rich product description to the top of the product page just under the product name and above the product image. The characteristic/variants should be below this. This means Google sees the important product info first. Do this in the Hikashop Display/views and choose the product view and the 'show' link. Search the forums, there are examples there of moving bits around on the products page.
5. Joomla SEF urls works OK. In my experience using thrid party extensions SEF url extensions make little difference to the quality of Google returned actual results and is a pain to maintain.
6. If you also have Joomla articles, use good descriptive article titles. Also descriptive alias with dashes between. These are used by Joomla SEF to build the URLs

Thanks for the info above, quite interesting.

Using similar code, can I make my page titles look something like...

Site name - Category name - Product Name

How would I accomplish that please?

Cheers

Hi,

I have the custom field created. But I cannot seem to get the custom title to show up in the browser.

Where exactly to I put the code in the show file of the product page? I placed this

<?php
  $doc =& JFactory::getDocument();
 $doc->setTitle($this->element->custom_title); ?>

Thanks for the fast response Nicolas!

I believe so. I selected Displays > Views > show file (under frontend procuct show).

Is this correct?

Hello Nicolas,

I asked this question and you directed me to this post.
Since then I have been trying to do what is explained here but it's nit working.
Either I don't understand it or I don't do it correct.

To get custom page titles and override the default from Hikashop,
What file do I have to edit?
Is it the file "listing" of the view 'product'/'category' or the show file of the view product
And does it matter where i put this code: $doc =& JFactory::getDocument();
$doc->setTitle($this->element->custom_title); ?

SO i tried editing the files but something happened.
When i edited the listing file of the view product and saved it I couldn't
see any of the views.
I end up getting the message that the product could not be found.
How can I change that or what do I have to do now?

See message below

I think I edited the file of the back-end because on the front-end everything works fine.
It was the file for the categories

Yes I do.
Can I give you the login details so you can check it?

ok