The sign at the top of your website

What the sign shows

This screen appears when your plan includes the Feed & Seed features, which the sample store's does. In the sample store's design the sign sits in the top right corner of the header on every page. It has a small drawing, a bold headline and a few words. A sign with a link opens that page when a customer presses it. A sign without a link calls the store. The Baby Chicks sign opens a small panel with more words first. Store owners and Managers can both put up and change signs.

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1. 1The sign: a drawing, a headline and a few words.

Only one sign shows at a time. Roadside goes down this list and shows the first one that applies.

The Showing now card at the top of the screen tells you what the website is showing and why. It says whether the sign is your temporary message, a closed day from Store info, the Baby Chicks sign or a seasonal sign, and it says when the sign comes down. When nothing applies, it says there is no sign and the website shows none.

Put up a temporary message

A temporary message is for news with a short life: fresh hay, closing early, a storm on the way. It goes to the top of the list and comes down by itself at the time you choose. There is room for one message at a time. Putting up a new one replaces the old one.

1. Type the headline. A few words, like Fresh hay just arrived.
2. Add a few more words if you want them, and choose a picture. A price or a hint is enough. Announcement is the default picture.
3. Add a link if the sign should take customers somewhere. Type an address on your website that starts with a slash, like /shop/feed. A full https:// address works too, and so does tel: followed by a phone number. Button words, up to 40 characters, change what the sign's button says.
4. Pick when it comes down. The form starts with tomorrow at 6:00 pm. Change the day and time to suit.
5. Press Put it up.

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1. 1Headline, up to 40 characters. Required.
2. 2A few more words, up to 60 characters.
3. 3Picture: Baby chick, Seedling, Hay, Deer, Feed bag, Clock, Calendar, Rain, Snowflake, Sun, Announcement or Truck.
4. 4Link, optional. Where the sign takes a customer. Leave it empty and the sign calls the store.
5. 5Take it down: the day and time it comes off, in store time, up to 31 days ahead.
6. 6Put it up.

Roadside tells you when the message comes down, and the website shows it within a minute. While a message is up, the form carries a green Up tag and the button reads Save message, so you can fix a typo. A second button, Take the message down now, removes it early.

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1. 1Your headline and words, and the time it comes down.

Seasonal signs

Some signs belong to a time of year. A seasonal sign shows between two dates every year, whenever nothing ranks above it. Every store starts with four. The table lists them as the sample store has them.

Two signs can be in season at once, as Food plot season and Deer season are in the picture below. Food plot season has order 60 and Deer season has 40, so the website shows Food plot season. The numbers run from 1 to 89. Closed days and your temporary message always come first, so 89 is the highest number you can give a sign.

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1. 1Each sign with its few words underneath.
2. 2A green In season tag. A grey Off tag means you have switched the sign off.
3. 3Order: when two signs are in season, the higher number shows.
4. 4Change opens the sign's own form.
5. 5Add a seasonal sign makes a new one.

Press Change on a row, or Add a seasonal sign, to open the form for one sign. It is the same form for both.

A seasonal sign cannot be deleted. To retire one, untick Show this sign in season and the list marks it Off. The Baby Chicks sign has the same form with fewer fields: its headline, link, button words, dates, order and switch. Its other words follow the chick status below.

Baby chicks

The status you choose here sets what the Baby Chicks sign says. The sign shows from January 15 through August 31 each year, so a status you set in October waits until chick season comes round.

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1. 1Choose one status.
2. 2Press Save.

Between deliveries is the status until you choose another. The same status is on Store info under Notices (The Baby chicks notice, in Chapter 3). If your plan includes the website assistant, it uses this status when a visitor asks about chicks.

How soon a change shows

The sign is the one part of your website that does not wait for an update. The website asks Roadside for the sign each time a page opens and remembers the answer for a minute, so a change shows within a minute of saving. If it has not appeared, wait a minute and reload the page.

A closed day you add on Store info makes a sign the same way. The closed day also appears on the contact page and in your hours lists, and those follow with the next update, a few minutes after you save (Chapter 8, How your changes reach the website).