Best way to create a blog?

[Helen27]

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Back again…..

Thinking about integrating a blog into my website to talk about various party ideas etc related to my products, fun things to do with a particular theme, easy DIY to compliment a theme etc. I currently do that on Facebook but want to get it on my website too for a few reasons – one, to get people more excited about the products, by being able to really picture things that can be done, and two, for the SEO side of things.

There seems to be two options for me. One – to actually fully intergrate the blog using something like wordpress. This seems to be great for SEO etc but a lot more complicated (and pricey) for someone like me who needs the developers to do the more technical aspects. Two, I sign up with somewhere like sitebuilder or siteblog and simply link to my webpage. This is easy and I can handle that myself I would say. But do I completely loose the SEO advantage of having lots of often updated content? Does it make a big difference?

Can someone more knowledgeable let me know more pros and cons of both options and reasons for dong it either way…? Any other options I may not have considered?

Thanks

[Stuart B]

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An integrated blog is definitely a better option from all points of view. Isn’t your site an online store? That means it must be running on a CMS right?

So then your site will probably already have blogging functionality already in there, you just need to set it up.

What platform is your site running on?

[Helen27]

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Yes you’re right, it’s an online store. I am using opencart…. There are a few add on modules some have mixed reviews. If it is better to go integrated, which I thought it probably was but just wanted some feed back from someone more knowledgeable, then I guess I will just choose one of the higher rated modules and set it up that way. Just wasn’t sure of there were more considerations I hadn’t thought about, or if it may be better just to link.

[John Debrincat]

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Hi Helen be really careful about blog add-ons with open source software. Frankly you are better off with a blogging platform like Blogger or use WordPress. If the blog platform is built into the ecommerce system you use then generally OK. We have had reports of online stores being hacked due to blog add-ons. Be careful.

John

[Helen27]

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John Debrincat, post: 227797, member: 2969 wrote:

Hi Helen be really careful about blog add-ons with open source software. Frankly you are better off with a blogging platform like Blogger or use WordPress. If the blog platform is built into the ecommerce system you use then generally OK. We have had reports of online stores being hacked due to blog add-ons. Be careful.

John
I did not know that could happen. Thanks for the heads up. Is it actually common?

[Byron Trzeciak]

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Hi Helen,

You definitely want to make sure that your blog is integrated into your current website and hosted on the same domain name.

For example you want your blog to be listed at

https://www.thepartypackage.com.au/blog/

instead of something like

thepartypackageblog.wordpress.com

The pointing of blogging or content marketing is to attract visitors to your website. If your content is good enough you might also generate links organically, or by using outreach, which will improve your authority of thepartypackage.com.au.

Your aim is to pull visitors to you with goal of converting traffic into sales.

While you can integrate a third party blog into your website in a variety of ways you want to make sure that it’s all located under the one roof. If your current website platform doesn’t have a blog then I’d look at installing the open source versionof wordpress in the /blog/ folder on your server.

The biggest issue however being that it will still need to be styled to fit with the rest of your website.

[John Debrincat]

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Helen27, post: 227804, member: 28729 wrote:

I did not know that could happen. Thanks for the heads up. Is it actually common?
Open Source vulnerabilities are very common. The main thing is to make sure that you are always up to date with the latest software version and patches. If you use an add-on get some feedback from the user forums. So try to determine that the add-on is as safe as possible.

[Helen27]

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There are many blog add ons. I looked through them and had settled on one that was 5 star rated and seemed like the most common used. It would give me the partypackage.com.au/blog/ url. But I will look further into the vulnerability aspect of it. This isn’t something I realised could be a problem so thanks for that pointer!

[Warren Cottis]

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Best Way To Create A Blog?

be honest with Yourself

Will you have the time to commit to a Regular Publishing Schedule involving every day posts if you want to make Sales?

If not, chill out and do a SEO focused blog… but still serious work.

How committed are you is the question, not the technical stuff?

[JohnW]

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Hi Helen,
What Warren said above, plus…

From an SEO perspective always publish content on your own domain. You are most unlikely to see any SEO advantage to your own domain’s traffic from content published on a 3rd party blogging system.

In SEO terms, there is no advantage of a page published on a blog platform vs any other page publishing format.

All blogging platforms like WordPress are inherently search engine un-friendly and must be installed correctly to avoid these SE pitfalls.

You need to be careful about how you integrate a blog with the rest of your site. You will want this to be as seemless as possible.

A very common problem with blogs added to shopping carts is that the blog pulls people away from the cart.

The blog publisher forgets that the main purpose of the blog is to feed potential customers through to the cart and the site visitor leaves the blog page because there are no link to the relevant cart product ORDER pages or incentive to buy.
Regs,
JohnW

[Helen27]

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My main goal with the blog is to get people excited about the party supplies I sell. For them to actually be able to picture what they can do with their party. It is not a daily undated blog where I am diligently blogging away about the party industry, but rather a blog focused on the themes I sell. At the minute I do a basic version every couple of weeks through Facebook. These posts easily get the most hits and photo views of all my posts. My most recent, for example, was Minions Party Ideas. Its basically just a snap shot for people filled with various ways they can compliment their Minions Party – I focus on easy DIY stuff that we can all actually picture doing ourselves at home with our kids, rather than elaborate huge things that make you think, well that’s nice but I could never make that! So for example with the minions party ideas – I included things like, home made paper mache pinata’s that can be made with the kids, lolly jars made of blue and jelly lollies to mimic minions, minion themed jelly cups, decorated balloons to look like Minions etc. So the hope is they see all these ideas and think, ‘wow that looks fun, and effective, easy and cheap to make a well themed party in theme xyz, and then buy their tableware and a few decorations from me, and compliment it with these party ideas.
I want to capture their imagination about what their party could easily be.

[JohnW]

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Hi Helen,
Good idea to write these sorts of articles. Set your blog up:

1. On your thepartypackage.com.au domain.
2. Ensure the blog design is as seamlessly as possible with your shopping site.

Eg: Use the same colour scheme. Include a horizontal navigation that goes something like:

Order your Party supplies here: By Party Theme – By Party Occassion – About Us – Contact Us

Link these to:

https://www.thepartypackage.com.au/party-supplies-theme
https://www.thepartypackage.com.au/party-supplies-occasion
https://www.thepartypackage.com.au/about-us
https://www.thepartypackage.com.au/contact-us

When writing you blog articles, include a sub-head at the end of each one, like: “Featured Party Decorations“

Give a one sentence call to action and incentive to buy, if you can. Then for each product, list a product thumbnail and product name with both linked to the relevant product order page in your cart.

I just noticed a big problem with your product listings in your cart.

Your themed products are all buried way down your pages!

Eg: Your FIRST Thomas the Tank Engine products are 15 rows of products down the page.

Two major problems with this:

a. Visitor usability and cognition. Many will not wait for the page to load or they won’t be bothered scrolling so far down a page.

Uni Edu Dept studies have timed it as short as 0.2 secs for viewers to decide if a page is likely to contain the info they want before they are looking for the “Back” button. You can expect to lose most of the visitors that land on any themed page if they don’t see themed products at the top of your cart theme lists. The impact should be even more dramatic with links from Fb as so many of these are likely to be mobile phone visitors. OUCH!

b. You will be killing your themed product pages in the SE rankings. You list 60 non-Thomas products on your “Thomas the Tank Engine” theme page and only 15 “Thomas” products. All those other products are diluting the pages relevance to “Thomas” theme searches.

Your cart may enable work around solutions but you need to get the themed products at the top of the page and you need a way to capture your ancillary non-themed products as themed ones for the SE robots.
Regs,
JohnW

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