Adding a blog to your store

[lonepine]

Any advice on adding a blog to a store would be appreciated. I am willing to pay for the software. I want customers to be able to add coments and photos.

[ShopSite Lauren]

What many merchants (and websites in general) will do is use a blog application. You can then link to your blog where customers can comment, etc. For setting up your website this way you would first contact your hosting provider and have them install blog software in your account (Word Press is free and many hosting companies can easily install this for you). Here you have a decision, whether you want your blog installed to a different domain, a sub directory or just a sub folder. For example, if your store was at mystore.com, you could have the following options (and more, but these are three common ones):

mystoreblog.com (you will need to purchase this domain, you can ask your host about pricing)
blog.mystore.com (this is a subdomain, not all hosts would allow this but many will)
mystore.com/blog (this is a subfolder)

Here are three current sites that use each of the above options:
New Domain: Microsoft Windows, microsoft.com has their blog at windowsteamblog.com
New Domain: McDonalds, mcdonalds.com has their blog at mcdonaldsblog.com
Subdomain: REI, rei.com has their blog at findout.rei.com
Subdomain: Twitter, twitter.com has their blog at blog.twitter.com
Subfolder: ShopSite, shopsite.com has their blog at shopsite.com/blog
Subfolder: Dilbert Comics, dilbert.com has their blog at dilbert.com/blog

Once your blog is setup, it is just a matter of linking to it from where you want. Some merchants/websites will have a link to their blog in the header and/or footer on all pages, or will just advertise their blog on their home page.

[lonepine]

Many thanks for a very clear answer. Onward I go.

[Paula]

I'm looking at adding WordPress via HostMonster's Simple Scripts. During installation it asks for the path of where I would like WordPress installed? So after the mystore.com / I would like it to read mystore.com/blog as in your example below. Do I need to create a special page in Shopsite called mystore.com/blog or do I just name the new page in HostMonster? Thanks.

mystore.com/blog (this is a subfolder)

[ShopSite Lauren]

You would setup WordPress for yourstore.com/blog. WordPress will be the only application publishing to that page/directory. In ShopSite, you will not add a blog page in ShopSite but you will want to link to your blog, for example, adding it as part of a navigation menu under Preferences > Navigation.

[Paula]

Just to be clear, I create a page called yourstore.com/blog, then when setting up WordPress I assign it to yourstore.com/blog.

Thanks.

You would setup WordPress for yourstore.com/blog. WordPress will be the only application publishing to that page/directory. In ShopSite, you will not add a blog page in ShopSite but you will want to link to your blog, for example, adding it as part of a navigation menu under Preferences > Navigation.

[ShopSite Lauren]

You DO NOT create any blog page in ShopSite.

I haven't setup a WordPress account through SimpleScripts before, but it is my understanding that when you go through the wizard, you would specify mystoreurl.com/blog, and WordPress/SimpleScripts Install will install all necessary elements to that subfolder.