Your Online Store: Themes, Pages, Blog & Navigation

Overview

Beyond the catalog, StretchShop lets you design the whole storefront experience: themes and their sections, static pages, a blog, navigation menus, URL redirects, storefront settings/search, and custom data via metafields and metaobjects. This guide covers each so you can shape a branded store.

Themes and sections

A theme controls how your storefront looks.

1. Open Online Store > Themes. You'll see your themes; one is published (live).
2. Click New theme to add one, or Duplicate an existing theme to experiment safely on a copy.
3. Open a theme's Sections to add and edit the building blocks of your pages (hero, featured products, and so on).
4. When a theme is ready, click Publish to make it the live storefront. Duplicate-before-editing keeps your live theme safe while you work.

Pages

Static pages hold content like About, Contact, or Policies.

1. Open Online Store > Pages and click New page.
2. Add a title and body content; save.
3. Edit or remove pages as your store evolves. Link to them from your navigation menus.

Blog

The blog drives content marketing and SEO.

1. Open Online Store > Blogs and create a blog (for example "News").
2. Add posts to the blog, each with a title and body.
3. Manage reader comments on posts — review, edit, or remove them to keep discussion healthy.

Navigation menus

Menus are how buyers move around your store.

1. Open Online Store > Menus and create a menu (for example "Main menu").
2. Add menu items that link to collections, pages, blogs, or URLs.
3. Use Reorder to arrange items in the sequence buyers should see.

URL redirects

When you rename or retire a page, keep old links working.

1. Open URL redirects and create a redirect from the old path to the new one.
2. This preserves SEO and prevents dead links after restructuring your store.

Storefront settings and search

Use Storefront settings to configure store-wide storefront behavior and search configuration, so buyers can find products the way you intend. Adjust and save these as your catalog grows.

Metafields and metaobjects

For data the standard fields don't cover — care instructions, ingredients, spec sheets — use custom fields.

1. Create a metafield definition for an owner type (for example products) describing the custom field.
2. Set metafield values on individual products or other records.
3. Use metaobjects (and their definitions) for reusable structured content, like size charts or brand records, referenced across the store.

A realistic example

Before a big launch you duplicate your live theme, edit the copy's sections to feature "Summer 2026", and publish it. You add an About page and a Shipping Policy page, then build a Main menu linking Home, the Summer collection, About, and the blog — reordered so Summer sits second. You retire an old /sale-2025 page and add a redirect to /summer-2026. Finally you add a metafield "Burn time" to candles so the storefront can show it.

Tips

• Always duplicate a theme before major edits so your live store never breaks mid-change.
• Add redirects whenever you change a URL to protect SEO and bookmarks.
• Keep menus shallow and ordered deliberately — navigation is where buyers get lost or find their way.
• Use metafields/metaobjects for structured, repeatable data instead of stuffing everything into descriptions.

Troubleshooting

• Storefront didn't change — did you Publish the theme? Edits to an unpublished theme aren't live.
• Old links 404 — add a URL redirect from the old path to the new one.
• A page isn't in the menu — menu items are separate from pages; add and reorder the menu item that links to it.
• Comments look spammy — moderate them from the post's comments; edit or remove as needed.