Wordpress Blog for Magento Store?
-
Magento is fantastic for e-commerce although the blog capabilities are limited and our web development fees are just ongoing. I have great experience with wordpress sites and I don't have a bad word to say about the CMS, there are plugins available for everything you possibly need to develop the blog. Would it be a good idea to integrate a wordpress blog for our e-commerce store? To keep both the transactional website and the blog on the same domain, but have a different style for the blog so we're not trying to 'sell' to people looking for home improvement advice and DIY guides, our main priority with the blog is to grow the website authority.
-
I'm sorry to reply to you so late and I have used both WordPress and HubSpot beginning in 2006.
Everett I respect your opinion this is how I feel about it.
HubSpot is a excellent blog however is had some recent restrictions on the amount of traffic you can receive without having to go up to a higher plan.
With that said their blog is spectacular. There CMS designed for people that would use WordPress however it cooperates a lot of search tools and marketing Information e.g. landing pages, social media, spectacular analytics, keyword research, you will know if you're doing something wrong on HubSpot it will tell you.
I would not say WordPress and HubSpot are apples and oranges but I can see how someone would feel that way.
HubSpot and WordPress far much more than your average blog. I would have to say that WordPress has more in common with HubSpot than it does with Ghost ( a pure blogging only system)
I think hub spot offers a lot of value and who rule their ROI-you will agree. They coined "inbound marketing" and make fantastic additions to websites as well as great websites themselves.
The best way to learn about it is to do a 30 day free trial NO credit card needed http://offers.hubspot.com/free-trial-blogging-tool
http://www.hubspot.com will show you what is possible in their CMS.
Sorry for the delayed response I hope this helps,
Tom
-
Hello Kevin,
Wordpress is a blogging platform and I'd define Hubspot as more of a marketing automation platform. It does provide the ability to blog, but sometimes people using Hubspot still choose to blog from Wordpress and run their content offer campaigns on Hubspot. Comparing the two would be comparing apples to oranges.
But to answer your question, yes Hubspot allows you to do lots of things that increase conversions, especially if your site is geared toward lead generation (i.e. filling out a contact form, as opposed to adding products to a cart).
-
Hi Thomas,
While just a bit off-topic, I was curious about your Hubspot experience. While I'm seeing great performance from my current application set up, I've been eyeing Hubspot for some time now, but I just can't justify the cost. Does Hubspot allow you to do anything to increase conversions that couldn't be done with Wordpress? Any thoughts, please do share.
Thanks!
-
Hi Joshua,
Glad I could be of some help. Sorry to hear your dev team dismissed the idea of Fishpig's integration. Using this integration method, you wouldnt have to pay for a custom theme development to match your Magento site--in fact your Wordpress content would appear inside Magento resulting in a big performance boost. Imagine visitors navigating from your store to your blog and back loading all those resources. That's a few second delay at least depending on your set up. If your dev isn't in-house, consider the motivation not to use Fishpig integration, like profits on a custom Wordpress theme and maintenance of two sites Instead of just one.
If you have any othe questions about Magento performance, feel free to ping me. FYI, just finished New Relic integration and seeing sub-second page loads on my Magento/WP BBQ site. If you like how this site performs on both mobile and desktop, I can point you in this direction.
Cheers!
-
Hi Kevin,
Great response, I will check out the Fishpig wordpress integration. I discussed the idea with our web development team and they dismissed the idea, although I do have a lot of experience with Wordpress and I feel that it has much more to offer than Magento from a blogging perspective. We already have a blog by the way but it's a Magento extension which doesn't really have much to offer. We will be keeping the blog and e-commerce site on the same domain to increase the domain authority although we was unsure whether to keep the same theme throughout.
We could either have a different theme for our blog and keep it 'information based' rather than keeping our product category navigation, although if someone adds an item to cart then decides to visit the blog, they cannot continue to checkout until they return back to the transactional website. It's a tricky one and an expensive mistake if we make the wrong decision.
-
Of course the speed of your site really makes the huge difference. But integrating
WordPress with Magento if powered by the same server or by different servers is extremely easy
AuthorityDev.com has experience if you need a Dev
Keep in mind HubSpot is an amazing Blog/CMS tool for this as well
http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/wordpress-integration-3795.html
https://wordpress.org/support/view/plugin-reviews/magento-wordpress-integration
All the best,
Thomas
-
Magento Wordpress installs are my specialty. From a marketing perspective, a blog will definitely be helpful for your visitors seeking relevant info. Most clients I set up tend to neglect their blog, so make sure to approach this with a plan. From the feedback I've collected from customers and clients, a consistent brand image tends to build more trust.
From a technical perspective, there are several ways to integrate Wordpress and Magetno. Fishpig http://fishpig.co.uk/magento/wordpress-integration/ will take a lot of work out of the project if you select to run Wordpress "inside" Magento. This extension basically uses your Magento template and puts Wordpress content into Magento, but you administer Wordpress through the traditional back end. If you have multiple languages/blogs, this gets a bit tricky. You can visit www.88k.com.tw for my site example running a Wordpress multi-site inside a multi-store Magento instance on a custom LEMP stack.
Anyway, to answer your question, a blog would be good if done right. Be careful not to cannibalize other site pages by adding the same keywords, and also make sure to link related blog posts to products. I personally agree with you--the purpose of your blog should be to inform visitors, not to sell. However, consistency is good, too. If you want to sell on your blog, there's nothing wrong with that, as long as you have a good plan.
-
I would say it is one of the best things you can do for your site.
By adding a blog you can become an authority on your company's product or industry.
It's easy to update and Google loves fresh content. Without a decent amount of content you cannot become a true authority on anything
a WordPress blog would easily allow you to update your content whenever you like.
I recommend them over ghost and other platforms because WordPress makes up over 20% of the web is capable of
so much it would be a perfect addition.
companies like authoritydev.com Gregreindel.com, Pagely have helped larger sites integrate WordPress blogs same thing goes for companies like flywheel and Pantheon.
I hope this is of help,
Tom
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
-
Second Store URL
Our store has been up and running for about 18 months and has been more successful than expected. Unfortunately we have run into a few minor issues with customers wanting to pick up in store but much of the online parts we sell are drop ship. We have made the decision to open a second store. One will support our brand (using current URL)and reflect products and pricing we offer at our B&M locations. The second will continue down the path we have been going but under a completely different brand (and URL) in no way tied to our B&M stores. My question is this: Would it be smarter to re brand the store we have now and change the URL.?We would then create the second site as our corporate branded site. Or do we adjust the currently site and then create a second site with the new brand. The only real hold up is that the re branded store will generate far more revenue and the current site is optimized very well. However if i change the URL the optimization will go out the window .
Web Design | | Rillik0 -
Moving to new site. Should I take old blog posts with me?
Our company website has needed a complete overhaul for some time now and the new one is almost ready to go live. We also have a separate "news" site that is houses around 800 blog posts and news items. (That news site will be thrown away because it's on a completely different domain and causes confusion.) So we have a main site with about 100 decent blog posts and a separate news site with 800 poor posts. I plan on bringing all the main site blog posts over to the new site (both WordPress), but my question is whether or not to bring over the news site posts? All, handful, none? Another issue is the news site doesn't have Google Analytics, so I'm not sure if any posts actually generate traffic, but I can from the main site we do get some referrals from it. As far as quality of content goes, it's poor. Not sure who wrote it all, but it's mainly text press releases that aren't very interesting. Is it worth bringing over for SEO purposes or simply delete the site and create a mass redirect so all of those pages will direct to the new website's blog page? Any help is greatly appreciated.
Web Design | | codyfrew0 -
Yoast focus keywords for portfolio post types in WordPress
This one is for the WordPress optimization crowd! Portfolios are used to display work. I have a question about best seo optimization techniques. 1. Portfolios can be used to display many different types of work, for me it either original web designs from scratch, WordPress redesigns, or importing a current website into WordPress. What is the best practice for keywords for multiple portfolios that are in one category. for instance WordPress Redesign. If I have 5 WordPress redesign portfolio posts is it good practice to use WordPress redesign for all 5 portfolios or should they use variations? Yoast gets angry when the same focus keyword is used multiple times. 2. Should portfolios even be indexed? Since this is how I attract new customers I would think yes but am I giving too much exposure to my client and not enough to my business. I guess this will depend on titles and meta descriptions. A discussion on best practices here is what I am really looking for. What is your advice and opinion on the matter.
Web Design | | donsilvernail1 -
Wordpress shortcode or plugin for current time
In the footer of my WP site at http://www.strikemodels.com/, I have "Questions? Call us at xxx-xxx-xxxx 10:00 am to 8:00 pm Pacific time or email [address]" I've searched, but haven't easily found a shortcode where I can insert the current time for my time zone in this footer statement. Does anyone know if such a thing exists? The Do Not Disturb function on the iPhone has been a big help, but we've still had calls at three in the morning from someone in Australia on New Year's Day who didn't know how to look up time differences online.
Web Design | | KeriMorgret0 -
Does anyone know how much a wordpress site can store (in terms of data) I want to put all my movies on it and use it as a personal global external hard drive! Thanks!!
So basically, I have about 500 GB of movies on my computer and I don't want to buy an external hardrive. I don't want to spend the money A website I could access anytime, and anywhere, without having to carry my external with me everywhere I go. Thanks in advance for any help/ references.
Web Design | | TylerAbernethy0 -
Google Analtyics Conversion Tracking for Wordpress Life Coaching Site
Hello, How do I do conversion tracking for Google Analytics for this site: debidonner(dot)com She has a 'Thank You' page after you return from Paypal Thanks!
Web Design | | BobGW0 -
Is it OK to 301 Redirect http://homepage.com to http://blog.homepage.com?
I don't have a homepage built yet, and I suspect that my blog will be my primary SEO draw in the long term, so I'd like to do a 301 redirect (for the techies, I'm doing it in Django with http.HttpResponsePermanentRedirect ) I just wanted to confirm that this wouldn't cause any problems as Google gets used to my page (it's only been up for a few days) Thanks! -matt
Web Design | | 49wetnoodles0 -
How to set up Wordpress on our Germany Host?
Correct me if I am wrong, but for SEO purposes, it is best to host your website in the correct country? I set up hosting in Germany for our new website, but now I am concerned on how to set up our wordpress website through our german host and setting up the database. Or would I be safe to host it in the US? Can I set it all up in English and then translate it to German and then upload it that way?
Web Design | | hfranz0