Today’s economic climate stresses the importance of a cost effective marketing strategy in order to achieve the most gain with the least expense. Blogs fit this bill because they allow you to reach a vast global audience with very little monetary cost. Free blog software has made blogs accessible to even the smallest companies, and the movement away from structured formal writing to a more conversational dialogue has made the average person well equipped to maintain a blog. With the explosion of the “blogosphere” your business can fall behind quickly without a regularly updated quality blog. This is why it’s important to know how to incorporate a blog into your Volusion store.
Can Volusion Host My Blog?
While it is not possible to host blog software from within your Volusion store, it’s very easy to create a link to an external blog. The two most popular blog tools among Volusion users are WordPress and Blogger.
Many of our customers create a separate subdomain for their blog. For example: blog.MyVolusionStore.com
How Do I Create a Subdomain?
If Volusion is your domain name registrar (i.e. you bought the domain name from us or you bought it elsewhere and had it transferred over to us), go to my.volusion.com and submit a ticket for technical support requesting that we create the subdomain for you.
How Do I Add The Blog to my Volusion Site?
The easiest way to create a link to a blog is to create a new category that will appear on a navigation menu of your choice. While you are in the category record, under the Advanced section, you will see a field called Alternative URL. You can fill in the url of your blog page in this field.
The other option is to hyper link your blog page within a field that is compatible with HTML code (such as the product description field, or the category description field). Just place this code in the description field:
<a href=”http://www.DomainNameForBlogSite.com/PageName.html”>Type the text of the link here</a>
For example: <a href=”http://www.Blogger.com/TheBestBlogEver.html”>Read The Best Blog Ever … If You Dare</a>
CHECK IT
Now that your blog is set up and integrated with your Volusion store remember to “CHECK IT” with these blog basics:
- Connect with your audience on a personal level
- Help readers to understand your brand better
- Edit your posts to make sure they are clear, concise and spelled correctly
- Create value- let your blog supplement other areas of your business’ marketing efforts
- Know your readers and what will hold their interests
- Inform your audience- help readers to learn, don’t just sell to them
- Take risks- don’t try to be everything to every reader
Hopefully this article will clear up the most common questions regarding blogging and the Volusion software. If you need some more help with the technical aspects of integrating a blog with your Volusion store or you have any further questions feel free to contact support. If you have questions regarding blog best practices or need some blog advice ask our community of Volusion users on the forums.
More helpful articles:
Choosing a blogging platform
The business blogging checklist
Figure out what to write
-Kate Pierce eCommerce Specialist
Excellent site, keep up the good work
I want to embed a blog onto a category page that looks just like this page I am replying to. I want the newest blog on page 1 and older blogs would create new pages rolling back. I would also like the share feature and maybe a way to let people comment. Also a way to link my blogs to my facebook blog and other sites automatically. Does everyone just do this static html or is there another way?
Morgan-
I would suggest asking our forum users (http://forums.volusion.com). Many of them have thriving blogs and would love to share their insight with you.
Note: You will have to create a log-in and then you will have full access to the forums.
thanks for the great info. I wanting to leave my current blog company to make a shopping cart and blog combo.
Kate,
I really like that you all are highlighting the importance of having a blog on an e-commerce store. I’m selling a lot of products that my larger competitors are selling. I’ve spent a lot of time making my product descriptions unique but I’m not sure if it’s going to make a monumental difference.
Although hosting a blog externally has its benefits, I really REALLY hope Volusion starts developing a way for us to host a blog internally. I would pay extra and, I hate to say this, but will defninitely switch to another solution if I can find one that hosts blogs internally.
Keep the great info coming!
Peter
I agree with Peter.
We’re handicapped by the inability to embed a blog in your software, and this may be the deciding factor in my choosing another e-comm platform.
It would be ideal for Volusion to have a blog add-on, and I would definitely pay extra for it as well.
Joe
Is the blog image copyrighted or shall I use it on my site?
Thanks
http://www.webmasterymadesimple.com/blog/how-to-insert-social-bookmarking-buttons-into-a-squarespace.html
I absolutely feel crippled as well not having blog integration on my volusion store: Worker Safety Products. Creating a subdomain for your blog and crosslinking is horrible for SEO.
how to create a custom field for registration form in volusion shopping cart
There is now a Volusion plugin for the WordPress blogging platform, which makes WordPress an even better choice! Check out the Volusion plugin
You can also use tumblr to add a blog to your Volusion store.
Just use the following steps:
Create a Tumblr account. Go to the Goodies page and get the embed code. You can then paste that into an article and you’re set.
(You’ll need to add some CSS to remove the bullets as it posts your updates into a list on your store side)