blog

[Donna]

Is there any benefit to have a blog in wordpress etc rather than just making a page in your Miva store and calling it blog.

[lesliekirk]

Re: blog

A blog in WordPress, in my opinion, is just easier to keep up with, it has so many built in features for archiving, posting categorizing, image uploading and on and on. Plus with a "little" tweaking it can match the look and feel of your store

Leslie

[Donna]

Re: blog

Would the benefits be the same regarding the search engines? Thanks

[papi34]

Re: blog

OMG, love love love WordPress. Previously toyed around with Google Blogger and find WP to be so much easier to use. As Leslie said, so many built-in features for archiving, posting categorizing, image uploading and on and on. Widgets/Plugins for anything you can imagine. Plus the online community / knowledge base to answer FAQs in incredible. Search engines are indexing our posts in a matter a few days. Go with WordPress, you won't be sorry!

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: blog

There would be no difference from an SEO perspective if you emulated the same interconnections as a blog would. Namely, you had links to the different articles and each article had links back to the main page and other articles.

However, the other important thing you might miss is getting additional content from customer comments.

[Rick Wilson]

Re: blog

The main benefit of using WordPress is all of it's great functionality.

The main drawback of using WordPress is it's arguable the greatest security risk online for website owners today, especially ecommerce site owners (anyone who collects sensitive data).

I really like WordPress from a functionality perspective but it's a nightmare for security and the primary cause for most Miva Merchant store owners when they get either hacked or fail on PCI.

[lesliekirk]

Re: blog

Rick has a very good point, one thing that also can be done, is to host the WordPress blog on a different server/host using a subdomain such as blog.yourdomain.com - it still keeps your brand in tack and your security - secure.

[Donna]

Re: blog

Is there a way to have a comment section on a Miva page? A module?

[InvincibleRecordings]

Re: blog

Thats interesting Leslie. We have 2 servers and the main server uses invinciblemusic.com. Presently the other server only hosts the name invinciblemedia.com but we can add as many as we want as its a dedicated server.

So what would be a good name for the subdomain? Does this take away from SEO to do things this way?

[Krsullivan]

Re: blog

Rick, this MIVA blog package you are offering for 1K, does this use word press? Does this service also have the same security concerns your mentioned? If it does, if we used different domain all together with blog linking items back to the ecommerce site, what would the affect be for SEO and Security?

www.yourdomain.com for ecomerce
www.yourdomain.net for the blog (for example)

thanks

Kevin

www.automotiveworkwear.com
www.sullivanuniforms.com

[Rick Wilson]

Re: blog

Kevin,

Yes we use WordPress.

Depending on the decisions the customer makes, it can have the same security concerns.

By default we'll set it up as a sub-domain (blog.yourdomain.com) which is really a separate website and generally solves most if not all of the security concerns with running MM and WP side by side in the same site.

However we will ultimately install it and configure it however the customer wants, the real purpose of the configuration is to provide a seamless look and feel and make it so that updating the Global Header/Footer within Miva Merchant automatically updates the look and feel of the associated WordPress blog.

Just to be clear, it's possible to run WordPress side by side (within the same webroot) with a Miva store and pass your PCI scans and be "secure" but we don't recommend it.

[Krsullivan]

Re: blog

Hey Rick, I'm a little confused by your response, Are you saying the recommended installation would be a sub domain? (example blog.domain.com) I believe you are saying the subdomain will take care of the security issues? If this is true, what are the disavantages advantages os setting up a blog in a subdomain? Will it be more difficult to use the shared look and feel between merchant and wordpress in a subdomain?

Thanks

Kevin
www.automotiveworkwear.com
www.sullivanuniforms.com

[Rick Wilson]

Re: blog

Kevin,

Essentially. If you set it up as a subdomain (which is essentially a different website) then even if someone hacks your WordPress they can't actually get into your Miva section.

Now it's also important you don't use the same username and password for both sites and don't have WordPress set to automatically log you in for FTP, because that also can make it easier to compromise your system.

[Krsullivan]

Re: blog

Hey Rick,

If the subdomain is great for security, but what about SEO? Won't google treat the subdomain like a new website? When I look at MIVAMERCHANT.com, your blog looks like its in the root domain (a folder inside your website). So, you guys don't seem too concerned about the possible security issue, if any.

I'm really having a hard time with this one, Yes, I just purchased the MIVA blog package, now I not sure how to have it installed,

subdomain, in the domain (folder), or an total different website. The reason I want to start the Blog is for SEO.

Any personal opinions on the matter, if you were me

Thanks

Kevin
www.automotiveworkwear.com
www.sullivanuniforms.com

[Rick Wilson]

Re: blog

Kevin,

We don't use WordPress ourselves, we use a paid CMS called Expression Engine alongside Miva Merchant.

I can't speak to the SEO issues with full certainty but I don't think there are any. Google should only care about the root domain which will stay the same.