Some Useful WordPress Configuration Tips for New E-Commerce Blogs

Over the past few months we have installed and integrated quite a few WordPress blogs with e-commerce stores, obviously online traders are realising the S.E.O. benefits that adding a blog to their site will bring.

We realise that whilst e-commerce store owners are quite clued up when it comes to administrating their shopping cart software and possibly already blogging using one of the many social media type facilities available on the web, when confronted with the WordPress administration panel for the first time it may be a little daunting.

We have realised that we seem to be sending out similar e-mails to clients explaining what each plug-in (module) is that has been installed to their new e-commerce blog and how to go about utilising it. Whenever E-Shops For Sale install and integrate a WordPress blog to an online store, we will also install some fundemental plug-ins that are usually to enhance the appearance of the blog along with other plug-ins that have been identified to be useful to the client in their quest to enhance their blogs’ SEO permance.

The Essential Modules for your Integrated E-Commerce Blog

Akismet. This is a plug-in that is pre-installed with WordPress that requires you to register on the developers site to get the activation code. Once you have the API codes then you will need to copy and paste these into the appropriate text field boxes on the Akismet settings page. This is an invaluable tool to have activated as it intercepts ‘spammy’ comments made on your blog posts, early on you probably won’t notice the benefit of this plug-in but once your blog is established and the spam robots are running amock on your site posting countless comments promoting undesirable sites, it this module that takes care of it.

Google Analyticator. We add this plug-in for obvious reasons, if we have your Google Analytics details we will insert them into the required field but the e-commerce blog owner will still need to click the text link on the settings page to Authenticate their new integrated WordPress Blog with Google, this will then activate the part of the plug-in that displays the recent visitor statistics chart on the Blog Admin page.

Gregs High Performance SEO or Ultimate SEO.There are a few SEO mudules that we install onto new e-commerce blogs, probably Gregs High Performance SEO most often due to its ease of use. This plug in creates some additional editing boxes on the WordPress Blog Post Editing Page that allows you to enter your Meta Title, Meta Description and Meta Keywords for the page you are creating. Again the benefits are obvious, a module that allows you to easily add your chosen meta data to your e-commerce blog posts. This is another must have and must use plug-in that is ignored at the blog owners peril.

Google XML Sitemap. A straight forward ‘install and forget’ module that creates an XML sitemap that can be submitted to the search engines to enable them to search and index your new e-commerce blog faster.

WP Cumulus. This one isn’t exactly essential but the Tags it displays are. This is just a handy plug-in thats makes your tag cloud a little more interesting to look at and it doesn’t use so much space within your blog sidebar as the default tag cloud does.

Optimising your E-Commerce Blog Post

When creating a new post on your blog, it is a good idea to add at least one optimised picture. In WordPress this is quite straight forward, just make sure your cursor is on the line you want the image showing in the text editor area and then just above the text editor box (top left) there is an Upload/Insert media facility with photo, video and music icons. If you click the image icon a window will appear, in this window you have the options to either upload an image from your pc, insert a link/image path to your chosen image or use one from the media library (These are images that you will have already uploaded) once you have selected which method you want to use to add the image, you should then configure its’ size and alignment as well as inserting a link if you require it to be an imagelink. You should then insert a title, the alt text and caption if you want one displayed along with a short description. This is good SEO excercise for e-commerce blog owners as alot of people use Google Image search when shopping on the net and google puts optimised images higher in search results.

Did we already mention that our E-Commerce WordPress installations will include an SEO module which means that at the bottom of your Post Editing Page there are three text areas where should input your meta title, meta description and meta keywords?(It is important so worth mentioning again)

You will also need to set up a Category Structure by clicking add category on the new blog post page, and add the category name you would like the blog post to feature within making sure that the category you intend the use is checked. It is best to have a Category structure that is well thought out and is easy to navigate maybe Main or Top Level category titles that are general like ‘New Products’, ‘Site News’ or , ‘General News’ etc. and place each post within a category.

You should also add TAGS which are another form of meta keywords (can be the same) these are what make wordpress so powerful as they create another type of category structure and additional pages for the Search Engine robots to index. On the Post Editing page there is a ‘Tags’ input text box, over to the right, you can add your Tag words / phrases one at a time or all at once seperated by a comma.

Also you should copy and paste the first paragraph or so of your blog post into the EXCERPT text box, this is what is shown on the RSS feed, not advisable to show the whole post but just enough of it as a tantaliser and get someone to click the [more....] link to see the full post. Along the same lines by default wordpress displays 10 blog posts per page so it is advisable to add a html tag about a third of the way down your blog post it looks like this <!–more–> that will act as a cut off point for the post in category pages etc.

Don’t forget that within your Blog post content you should include your targetted Keywords or Keyword phrases. It is advisable to make sure that the blog post title must include at least one keyword and give some of you paragraphs a <h3> Your heading here </h3> (sub heading html tags) that include a keyword here and there too.