Lost in the blog world
-
I want to start a blog, but honestly I have no idea where to start as I've got so many questions so I hope someone can help me out.
I have a Magento e-commerce website so I've got the possibility to integrate the WP extension. Would that be a good idea or is it better to have a separate blog and separate server?
Which blog platform is considered to be the best and what are the main differences between the big blog platforms?
Should I use my business (domain) name for my blog or have a separate (domain) name?
How often are you 'supposed' to blog per week/month to build a strong blog?
Many thanks in advance!
-
Better setup your blog on same domain.
Example
http://www.bridalhotspot.co.uk - Magento
http://www.bridalhotspot.co.uk/blog/ - Wordpress
Updates on blog - new post every 2-3 days. For your market it not hard because you can post news not only about your own clothing but about celebrity wedding etc.
-
Amazing insight, Kenyon!
I could visualise everything while reading your response and you have answered all my questions. Thanks for taking the time to reply, really appreciated! -
Thanks Paul, that is some great information, especially the test period
I'm in the bridal business so there is tons of stuff to blog about and I'm planning to get my Facebook followers (over 11.000) involved as well by asking them in what topics they would be interested as that might bring some ideas that I wouldn't have thought about.
I understand your reply about the best platform, I guess that I will just have to do some research to see which platform would suit me and my company best.
Many thanks for your reply!
-
-Wordpress is hands down the most powerful and easiest to use blogging platform. It's open source and the developers involved is immense and it's still easy to use. Almost as easy as setting up a social media profile, maintenance is simple with the plugins available too.
-Magento on the other hand is one of highest regarded E-commerce platform and it is not known for it's blogging capabilities. Hence the WP plugin.
So really it comes down to your main purpose and where you will spend the most time. If it's blogging go with wordpress and add a e-commerce plugin. If your main purpose and demand on time will be E-commerce (updating and adding products, changing inventory) Then stick with Magento and use the wp plugin.
For your name I would suggest using your business name and or any keywords you want to rank for. (do keyword research!) Bing is still big on EMD's (exact match domains) which means you will get a pretty good seo advantage by naming it what your main keyword will be. Google does also but has recently lowered EMD's ranking influence.
You can also just have the blog be an inline part of your site. It would be a page on your site and still be on your server and would appear like this www.syls.com/blog. That would be best if you want external and internal links pointing to certain products to help there rankings. You could also use a subdomain like blog.syls.com which would put you on different server. This would allow you to link to your products and they would be considered external. Google is smart and will figure out the relation pretty quick so having 100 links pointing to your main page isn't going to do the trick.
Most likely an inline blog on the same server would be best for you. If any of your blog content gets linked to that way your site will get some link juice. The more you blog the better off you will be. That being said it needs to be good content google will penalize your for publishing crap content (scraping, duplicate or keyword stuffed crap). That being said you can always use a platform like content.ly to outsource making good relevant content and then make what you can in addition when you have time. Start out small learn your niche make some content and get better, google will take notice eventually and if you do a good job and become more relevant your rankings will improve.
-
As long as the blog is directly related to the content of your ecommerce site, you absolutely want it to be part of the main site, Sylvana, (e.g. mywebsite.com/myblog) not on another server and not with a separate domain name.
There are plenty of different blog platforms. Asking which one is best is like asking "what's the best car?" It depends on many factors. Sorry that sounds like a cop-out, but it's true.
In general, for a straightforward blog, WordPress is terrific. It has the considerable advantage of being so widely used that there are a huge number of resources out there to help new users get up to speed.
For a strong blog, you should post when you have something worthwhile to say. Posting fluff just to keep to a schedule is pointless and will hurt your reputation in the long run. That said, if you don't have the resources to come up with and post something worthwhile at least twice a week, you'll struggle to get good value from your blog. That's a somewhat arbitrary number, but it points up the fact that posting once or twice a month doesn't create a blog of much use to visitors, and therefore not much value in the eyes of search engines.
Wonder if a blog's really for you? Designate a 4 or 5 week period and write 2 or 3 blog posts a week - even though you have no blog to post them on. If you can do that consistently for a month and enjoy it, you can probably sustain a blog. Plus you'll have a great stockpile of posts with which to get started, or to keep in reserve for one of those weeks when you're too busy to write something new.
Hope that gives ya some food for thought?
Paul
P.S Have no experience with the Magento WordPress integration, so hopefully someone with direct experience with that combo can weigh in here too.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can I use expired domain content on My Blog
Hello Expert, I wanted to know, can I use expired domain content on my blog channel. I have done many searches on google but couldn't find a satisfactory answer. Please help me to find out this.
Content Development | | vijay77960 -
Why did Moz remove thumbs down from blog posts?
You may have already noticed one of the decisions we made when we redesigned the Moz Blog:
Content Development | | Trevor-Klein
We removed thumbs down from the posts. And it was largely in the name of transparency. Wait, HUH? You took away a method of critique, and you're calling that transparent? Yes. Here's the scoop: Thumbs down are one of the most cryptic, uninformative, and often passive-aggressive forms of feedback on the Internet today. By removing the mud from the water, we make the entire picture clearer. It's so easy to see a handful of thumbs down on a post (we would almost always get 1-2), and begin hypothesizing what went wrong. We shouldn't have published that one. The topic was too tangentially relevant; it was too long or too hard to follow. There wasn't enough evidence to support the claims. We could dive into analytics, attempting to glean clues about what happened, but in reality, any one of the following are reasons someone might thumb a post down: The title is confusing The topic is one that I'd like to deny exists (algo update, e.g.) The milk I poured on my cereal this morning had gone bad, and I need to take out this frustration somehow I once had a falling-out with the author of this post I still have a bad taste in my mouth about yesterday's post, which is skewing my thoughts about this one I found one of the comments offensive My finger slipped on my phone while I was trying to thumb this post up (we've confirmed this happens) I didn't like the author's self-promotion in this post I saw the new Star Wars trailer, and am terrified that Disney might think including Jar Jar's long-lost brother in the new film is a good idea. I hate everything right now. Okay, the last one might be a stretch. But you get the idea. Sometimes a post would receive a disproportionate amount of thumbs down simply because the author was proposing an idea that wasn't popular, no matter its importance. One great example: Carson Ward wrote a fabulous post in 2012 titled "Guest Blogging – Enough is Enough," divining what Matt Cutts would write about nearly 17 months later. The response? 45 thumbs down – one of the most maligned posts in the history of the Moz Blog. Authors have emailed us in a tizzy, asking if their thumbs down meant they weren't quite right for the Moz audience, and in replying to them we came to this overarching realization: We didn't know why they got thumbs down, and we couldn't find out with any certainty, but more often than not it just didn't really matter. We were confident in their points and their presentation, and real criticism would nearly always show up in the comments. All that said, we love it when people offer up constructive criticism. We always take it to heart, and hearing directly from you all is the best way we can improve. For that reason among many others, we'll always have the comments below the post. If you feel like a post wasn't up to snuff, please take a moment and tell us why in those threads (please keep it TAGFEE). One last note: Thumbs down remain available on comments, though that's a temporary stop-gap while we work on a more informative system for flagging comments that are offensive, or facepalm-worthy attempts at links (they're nofollowed anyway!), or otherwise inappropriate for our community. We'd love your questions or comments on this change, and hope you're enjoying the new look of the Moz and YouMoz blogs!11 -
My Guest Blog: Still A Good Link Building Resource?
In an effort to build some links, we want to really work on improving our blog content and exposure. We want to write two quality posts per week, and submit 1 quality guest post every 1-2 weeks. However, we're not sure how to go about submitting guest posts or who to submit them to? I found an all article from SEOmoz http://moz.com/blog/4-valuable-link-building-services but it's from 2010. Is myguestblog still a good source? Are there better ways of doing it? Also, is ever advisable to pay to submit a post? Some of the legal blogs (we're a law firm) have this option, but that strikes me as spammy or low quality links. Just to reiterate, we are striving to write high-quality useful content audiences will find beneficial, not just junk or salesmanship. If it takes longer than a week to write posts like that, that's fine. We just really need some specific advise on who we should be submitting our guest posts to and who we should avoid. Thank you all so much for any advice or suggestions, Ruben
Content Development | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
BLOG, Sub-Domain or NEW Domain???
Hi, I have one online store using 2 differents domain: http://www.filtrationmontreal.com ( french language) http://www.furnacefilterscanada.com ( english language) A language switch at the top right of the store, give you access to a different language when shopping. I had to do this because, my shopping cart does not offert the possibilty to have a multyi-language store! Now I want to create a blog. What is my best option: 2 blogs with sub-domain. ex: http://www.BLOG.furnacefilterscanada.com and http://www.BLOG.filtrationmontreal.com one multil-language blog with a new domain linking to my online stores I would appreciate your advice on this. My goal is to increase traffic, rank better and increase sales by providing solid content on a blog. I will use Word-Press self host. I will buy a premium theme. I purchase themes from theme forest before. Do you have a favorite theme to suggest? Thank you for your help a support. BigBlaze
Content Development | | BigBlaze2050 -
Blog question
If i attempt to split the blog and main site, how can Google recognize they are both owned by the same person.
Content Development | | seoug_20050 -
Why does my lousy little blog Rank number 1 on Google?
Search "Google Places Changes." My Blog, www.salesjumpstart.net/blog is ranked first. Has been for a week. Why? Makes no sense. I have been getting many first page Google results for 3 and 4 word keyword searches. The site or Blog just isn't that strong. http://www.google.com/search?q=Google+places+hchanges&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#sclient=psy&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=uFR&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aofficial&source=hp&q=Google+places+changes&pbx=1&oq=Google+places+changes&aq=f&aqi=g2g-j1g-b1&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=4293l4293l0l4628l1l1l0l0l0l0l271l271l2-1l1l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=661c0b1152c259b4&biw=1024&bih=583
Content Development | | MBayes0 -
Blog as sub folder or subdomain
Is it better to set up a blog using a sub folder on the website's domain or by using a subdomain: http://www.domain.com/blog/ http://blog.domain.com
Content Development | | yourspares0 -
Tagging Your Blog Posts - Useful?
Has anyone demonstrated measurable value from routinely tagging your posts? I am of the mindset that what is good for a user/reader is good for SEO and therefore the posts should be tagged. I wanted to see if anyone else had specific experience to the positive or negative.
Content Development | | SWKurt0