A Fully Integrated Volusion Blog Is Your Ticket to Better Visibility and Higher Conversions
As a Volusion merchant, if you are not making use of a business blog you are missing a trick. Having a popular blog can go a long way in making your website more visible on search engines and opens your business up to more leads that convert. Take care of your Volusion blog integration, and the chances are that you will reap the benefits for years to come.
Search engines love content. They like websites that provide their users with useful information and lots of it. There is no better way to that than by maintaining a blog. Blogs give you a chance to show people that you are an authority in your field. This builds credibility and allows you reach targeted customers who will most likely convert. When complemented with proper keyword research and SEO, the blog can become the engine of your whole eCommerce site.
Volusion Blog Integration Basics
WordPress remains the most popular blogging platform used today with Blogger coming in at a close second. As such, Volusion doesn’t support integration with WordPress or Blogger. There are some plugins available that can help the process. But you can’t install WordPress directly on your Volusion store. You will have to create a separate subdomain for this. The subdomain can then be linked back to your store in a variety of ways.
The question now arises that why should you get a subdomain for your blog. Would it be better to have a blog on an entirely independent domain? The answer is no. It takes some time to build authority and credibility of a site. So if you have a store which already gets some organic traffic, you need to complement it with a blog. If you start a blog from scratch, you will need to build the credibility of that domain all over again.
The good news is that Volusion blog integration is possible whether you own an existing Blogger or WordPress account or an independent domain. Let’s talk about WordPress.com first.
WordPress / Volusion Blog Integration
If you have an existing WordPress.com blog, you need to carry out certain steps to make sure that your Volusion blog integration works seamlessly.
In your Volusion account, you should see a “Manage DNS” button – click on it.
Here you’ll see your current DNC records. Just below them, there is an “Add New Record” tab, which is a form you need to fill out.
The first space asks for subdomain name you want to use for your blog. Type in “blog” or something appropriate here.
In the “Record type” drop box, you’ll select CName.
Next, you need to state the name of your blog. So for instance, if your blog is abcfashion.wordpress.com, you will enter abcfashion in the first space and wordpress.com in the second field.
Once done, go to your WordPress account.
Find “Domains” under Store. Here you should enter the URL that you want your blog to have. It could be something like blog.abcfashionstore.com or abcfashionstore.com/blog, where abcfashionstore is your primary Volusion domain.
As you complete this, WordPress will notify you to upgrade your account and pay for the necessary features to take effect.
Blogger and Blogspot Integration
Blogger and Blogspot integration is slightly more complicated, although the objective behind it is the same.
Log in to your account and find the “Settings” tab in the “Options” Menu.
Under the “Publishing” option, there is an “Add a Custom Domain.” Select it and click on the “Switched to advanced settings” option.
Here you will enter the URL of the domain you want to use for your blog. Using the same example used above, that would be blog.abcfashionstore.com or abcfashionstore.com/blog.
Now you need to modify the DNS record of your Volusion store. Contrary to how we did it for WordPress, here we need to do it twice.
For the first time, find the “Manage DNS” in your Volusion accounts and click on “Add New Record.”
Select CName from the Record types.
Now enter “ghs” and “google.com” into the two blanks that show up.
Save and add a new record again.
Follow the same steps as above till you select CName as your record type. Now enter your blog record details in field one, which will be in a format similar to gv-XYZ. In the second field, type in “dv.googlehosted.com” to complete the Volusion blog integration.
Your blog will become active within the next couple of days and traffic will soon start flowing to your Volusion store!
Linking the Blog Sub Domain to Your Volusion Store
If you already have an existing subdomain, Volusion blog integration is all about creating a new CName record on your Volusion domain to link the two together. You can submit a ticket to your Volusion hosting and ask them for help. In any case, keep in mind that your blog must be hosted on a third-party server.
You can link your blog to your Volusion store by creating links to it on your storefront. This could be in the form of a category, menu item or link in the header/footer. If you are adding it in as a category or menu item, you can do this easily by adding the URL of the subdomain under the “Alternative URL” field of the “Advanced” section of your menu/category settings.
Additionally, you could add a bit of code to make the blog link appear in the header or footer section. You should have an understanding of HTML and coding to be able to do this. If not, it would be best to hire Volusion experts like us for help.
1 Digital Agency – Elite Experts in All Things Volusion
Volusion blog integration is all about building a stronger, more dedicated customer base. If you keep coming up with informative content, your customers are bound to subscribe to your RSS feed and keep coming back. You on your part can make sure your followers stay up-to-date on any future offers or product launches. This allows you to build a relationship with them which is much more than that of a buyer and seller.
Having said this, Volusion blog integration isn’t as easy as it sounds. More often than not, you will come across an issue that requires expert intervention. On top of that, blog maintenance isn’t a walk in the park either. It takes dedication and commitment to creating blog posts that are relevant, authoritative and engaging. Then there is the small matter of SEO to consider. You might have an exceptional blog, but if you don’t pay attention to SEO, it will most likely underperform.
1Digital Agency is a full-service eCommerce agency. We are Elite Experts in Volusion and take pride in our ability to help our customers get the best out of the platform. We have a team of eCommerce specialists, programmers, and marketers who can handle everything from Volusion blog integration to SEO. Give us a call on 888.982.8269 or drop us a line, we would be glad to help with your Volusion blog integration!