BigCommerce News / Product News
Ready, Set, Blog: Built-in blogging comes to Bigcommerce
Blogging has become an absolute marketing must-do to drive traffic, improve your SEO and credibility and, ultimately, increase your sales. In fact, we’ve found that Bigcommerce clients who blog bring in up to double the revenue of those who don’t. Blogging is officially a Major Deal.
That’s why I’m very happy to announce that blogging for your Bigcommerce store just got super easy thanks to our new built-in blog. It’s streamlined and easy to use while giving you all the tools to create and publish great content and boost your traffic and sales.
Easy writing and editing
We’ve built a new rich text editor that has the word processing features you need to write beautiful posts, including text formatting, HTML markup, and image and video embedding with drag-and-drop support. If you’ve ever used WordPress, Tumblr or even Microsoft Word, you’ll feel right at home.
Built-in social sharing
We’ve made it dead simple to let your readers share your awesome posts with the world. There’s no need to mess with widgets: we’ve included the most popular social services like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn and more.
A seamless experience for your shoppers
Your blog is styled just like your site so it fits right in. And you don’t have to deal with managing multiple domains and login details for your store and blog; you’ll handle everything right from your Bigcommerce control panel.
Write now, publish later
Have to run before finishing your latest post? We’ve included full support for drafts so you can keep it on ice until it’s perfect. And all drafts have a preview URL that gives coworkers, friends or anyone else you want a sneak peek.
All the usual suspects
We’ve baked in other must-have blogging features that you need to be successful, including:
- SEO metadata and optimized URLs
- Comments by Disqus
- Support for multiple authors
- Tags for organization by topic
- A mobile-optimized version if you’re using one of our mobile themes
Ready to start using the new blogging feature to produce killer content that’ll keep people coming back for more? If you’re new to Bigcommerce, log in to your Bigcommerce control panel and go to Web Content > Blog and start writing. Existing clients: Log in and you’ll see a blue banner at the top inviting you to check out blogging.
And keep an eye on our own blog over the next few weeks for some best practices and other tips on how to blog like a pro. Happy blogging!
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54 comments on “Ready, Set, Blog: Built-in blogging comes to Bigcommerce”
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Less Development. More Marketing.
Let us future-proof your backend. You focus on building your brand.
I have a WordPress website http://seowebsitepromotion.com it ranks on the 5th page of Google for “seo minneapolis”. I want to build relevant blog post to give it a boost. I also need to get a shopping cart for my services. Do you think your platform will integrate with my site with out conflict?
Hello. Is it possible to schedule blogs or do they all need to be published manually? Thanks!
I’m chiming in to add that I would also like to have existing WordPress blogs be able to be imported to the Bigcommerce blog platform.
Also, the blog really, REALLY needs categories!…. and tags. and the ability for us to edit metadeta ourselves easily like the Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress allows.
…..also, separate folders for images would be great. having one huge “content” folder that isn’t subdivided is not so good for my image-heavy site :(
Can you please tell me how to display BLOG CATEGORY or TAGS links on blog page? As you were saying this will be fixed soon. :) @julie_neumann:disqus
Can we make blog page the home page?
This is nice “we’ve included the most popular social services like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn and more”. I love it
@racquetpoint:disqus: Thanks for the support case number. We’ll look into it and will reply back to your case.
Hi, yes I have, it is the same shortname. I already have a ticket number : 01914024.
On some other themes/templates the fields appear, but not on the template that I’m currently using.
@racquetpoint:disqus: I see what you mean. This could be caused by a couple different reasons.
I. Double check your Disqus shortname. Have you set one up here? And, does it match exactly the one that you typed within the blog settings section of your control panel?
https://disqus.com/admin/create/
2. Are you using the same Disqus shortname for multiple sites? For example, your BC blog and Tumblr? If so, I’d recommend creating unique shortnames for each as that could potentially cause some commenting conflicts as well.
The comments fields on my site are not working, I signed up with Disqus but customers can’t leave comments because there are no fields to leave comments. Is there a code that needs to be installed? My site is http://www.racquetpoint.com . Thanks!
Any word when categories might be coming to the blog?
Agreed with ISCcoilovers. This so-called ‘blog’ in no way functions like any modern blog I’ve ever seen. I manage numerous websites from WordPress to enterprise-level CMS’s. Really, it’s a static page that you must manually populate links / thumbnails / snippets every time you add a new blog post. You may as well just create a regular new page, title it ‘blog’ and it’s the same thing.
There’s no way to use categories or tags (they still don’t work) or organize your content in any way unless done completely manually (touching each presentation page, every time there’s an update to the blog). If you are expecting a “wordpress-style” (quoted from the Big Commerce user manual) – i.e. dynamically-updated pages that automatically pulls in snippets / thumbnails of your most recent post, allows you to browse the blog by category or ‘tag’ (which takes you to a ‘page not found’), you will be sorely disappointed. After watching several videos on YouTube about ‘work-arounds’, I learned there really is no true work-around – it’s simply hand-coding your new stuff from recent posts onto this new page we’re calling ‘blog’. Really?! I’m absolutely blown away… 2002 called – it wants its CMS back!
Any update on the RSS feeds on the blog?
@MaileU:disqus: You are using one of our older themes. While the blog feature is available, you may need to tweak the styling a bit in your template files yourself.
If you need help, we would recommend posting a question in the design section of our community forum. http://forum.bigcommerce.com/f4
I am having the same problem: http://www.boutiqueacademia.com/blog/ Did you find a way to fix it?
Thanks!
My blog is already filling up with posts.
http://www.books-forever.net.au/bookstore-blog/
Another option is the ability to simply show the wp blog content integrated on the same page as the big commerce blogs via some sort of API/plug-in or customization?
@danoleson:disqus: Unfortunately, we don’t have a way to bulk import and also backdate old posts at this time. If you have a lot of traffic to your WordPress blog at this time, you might want to keep it linked as a subdomain at this time.
Hi Julie,
I am in the same boat as “ngehani” above. I have a blog built out in WordPress for my site at AnkleSwagger.com and would love to use the built-in blog feature moving forward but would prefer not have to maintain two blog platforms. Please let us know when/if an import feature will be enabled.
Thank you!
Dan
Hi James, we are actively looking into adding categorization in the near future. Thanks for the constructive feedback.
Yes, it can be edited under the Blog Settings page.
Awesome! Thanks! Anyway to fix the alignment? See how it’s right up against the left side: http://www.jagtactical.com/blog/
Are you able to edit the title and description tag for the main blog page? (ie http://www.site.com/blog) Right now I can find no way to add it as I would like to add something there.
Hello,
1/
After X amount of blog posts – does the blog home category automatically go into ‘pages’ to spread posts out?
(i am looking at page upload time if it grows over time without page breaks)
2/
I am also looking at the “recent posts” chart on the right hand side and wonder how it will look after a few hundred posts – so categories would be great!
Thanks
Unfortunately we don’t support imports at this time. For SEO purposes, I would recommend leaving the old blog up, linking to your store blog and adding fresh content to the new one. You could even rehash your most popular old posts with a new twist.
Glad to see integrated blogging make it into BigCommerce. Is there a way to import all my historical blogs from WordPress to get it all started?
I did add a blog post. I am an amateur, so I am happy. Is there a way to add my blog as a page instead of just seeing it at the bottom of my webpage.
Change the display name and display url on the blog settings page.
There’s no pre-existing blog page. If I type /blog on the end of the main website address, I get:
* Not Found
*
* The page you were looking for appears to have been moved, deleted or does not exist.
*
* This is most likely due to:
*
* An outdated link on another site
* A typo in the address / URL
When I view the blog item, from the link in the admin system, the URL appears as https://store-blu#####.mybigcommerce.com/admin/blog/settings rather than http://www.website.com/blog
I can confirm that:
1. The Blog Visibility is “on”
2. The item is Published
To be honest I don’t yet want the blog visible to the public, but would like the ability to do so when needed. Can you help?
Make sure you have no webpage named blog – or whatever your built-in blog display url is. If you have a second page called blog (maybe from an existing blog), you will need to rename it.
Depending on how established your Blogspot blog is, you may want to continue using it. Then, just go to Web Content in your control panel. Create a new webpage. Then, select “a page that links to another website or document.” Then, add your blogspot blog in there. This will link your blog to your store.
Now, if you do decide to scrap your Blogspot blog, you can setup 301 redirects (Setup and Tools–> 301 redirects) redirecting all your old blog links to your new blog. If you do decide to go this route, you may experience some short-term SEO losses. This should rebound within a couple of months, assuming you have 301 redirects setup correctly.
Is there a way to redirect my blogspot blog to my BC blog?
Thanks for the feedback. I did create a test blog item and made it visible. I can only assume that I must have previously modified the template to prevent the blog link – it doesn’t seem to appear. I’ll take a look at the templates and see if I can work it out.
Once you create a blog post, it will automatically be visible. To change the display link, you can do so by going to the blog settings page (i.e. the wheel icon).
https://support.bigcommerce.com/questions/1835
There is no extra charge to use the built-in blog feature.
Also is there an ongoing additional charge for the blogging facility?
Sorry, stupid question but how do I make this visible within my website? I.e. a link to /blog/? Do I have to add in via the template files? It’s a while since I used your system so have kinda forgotten how the main/footer menus are managed! Thanks!
It sounds like Matt Cutts is now saying www. and shop. and blog. all share the same juice and authority. Mydomain.com, regardless of subdomain, gets and shares the SEO benefits. But a lot of people on Moz aren’t convinced that everything is equal yet, and Google certainly is a bit of a black box. I’m sure the safest bet is still to blog in a subdirectory wherever you want the juice.
Hi Julie thanks for the reply… I suppose I was more thinking from the perspective that you have a website that has a subdomain pointing at BC i.e. shop.mydomain.com then you have a main website at mydomain.com but i suppose all the link juice and domain authority will go to shop.mydomain.com.
To Eddie & Team, Great Job!
Sorry to hear you are unhappy. I understand your frustrations, but we do have many clients who are excited to get started with the first version of this feature. As I said above, we do have improvements on the way, and we will continue to share client feedback with the product team. In the meantime, you still have the option of blogging with a subdomain on a dedicated blogging platform, giving you the SEO benefit as well as more advanced tools. Google’s Matt Cutts recently confirmed this approach has no negative impact on your SEO, so it is a matter of preference – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MswMYk05tk
Hi Vinny, the built-in blog feature should have a positive effect on your SEO since Google will see a regular stream of fresh original content on your site. Plus more content to distribute and link to. According to recent updates from Google’s Matt Cutts, blogging on a subdomain or a subdirectory should give you equally solid SEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MswMYk05tk. It looks like the emphasis is shifting to quality of content, regardless of where it is hosted, over the old SEO games.
Hi Ed, tags are still a work in progress, but we’ll forward the tagged RSS request to our product team. Thanks for your feedback!
I wonder how this works from an SEO perspective, all traffic is sat on BC servers. It’s a great addition though…http://moz.com/ugc/choosing-an-seo-friendly-ecommerce-platform-20-features-to-look-for
Hi Julie, can we create tagged RSS feeds from these blogs (i.e As with Tumblr mydomain.tumblr.com/tagged/tagx/rss) or is this an upcoming feature?
So the product was in no way ready to be released, because as it stands its not a blog. Its just a reskin of the previously used news system. Why not just actually build something that is worth releasing instead of always releasing some half baked features that you have to ask the product team for tips and tricks. aka work around and hacks to make it function more like a blog because its not a blog. why even try if you are not going to have categories or tags? How else are we supposed to organize the articles or even set them up for SEO? It seems your product team pushed out a unfinished joke of a blog to the sales force to make sound like the next best thing. It lacks every major feature that would make this even be a real blog. its simple a news article page with a url breadcrumb /blog.html… Little less play time in the offices and a little more work would go a long way. Heck higher some Indian programmers off freelancer.com and get some actual work done. I see you guys added a san fran office with all these employees you would think some progress on the broken or missing core features would get some headway.
Awesome, you are certainly welcome!
This is a first release, which is still opt-in but now available to all clients who want to turn it on. Several improvements, including additional design and SEO features, are coming in the next couple weeks. Unfortunately tags and categories are going to take longer, but those are on a short list of prioritized features. I have asked our product team for tips and tricks for this version, and we’re starting to see some interesting experiments in the wild, so please stay tuned.
We have been using the new blogging platform for the past week or so and love it! Thanks guys!
Sooo.. How do the tags on the BC blog work? Are these real tags? Is this as good as it gets or will there be more improvements? I was told this was a beta version and was not getting pawned off to the entire BC user base as a real blog, its clearly just a reskin of the new system and not really a blog is it?
We hear you Yumi. We have improvements already in the works, and we’ll see if we can get additional resources or feedback from the product team to help you make tweaks on your own. Good luck launching your blog!
I’ve been wanted to start to blog for my e-commerce website. I’m so glad you introduced me your blog feature, however it’ll be nice to have option to design blog page a little more attractive!
@brandonhoe:disqus : Thanks, Brandon! We’re glad that you are digging the new blog feature. Blogging is supported across all themes. However, if you have some customizations, you may need to make some tweaks to your template. As for Google Authorship, we do have plans to add in this functionality in the near future.
Glad you like it Brandon! We have more cool announcement on the way :) As for your questions:
1. Yes, your current theme will be applied to the blog, if you need to access design files this article should help: https://support.bigcommerce.com/questions/1835/How+do+I+setup+a+blog+in+my+Bigcommerce+store%3F+
2. Support for Google Authorship will be coming in the next couple weeks.
This is really cool! Happy to see you guys respond to our requests for this feature. I have two questions about this:
1. Will blogging be supported across all themes?
2. Will it be easy to associate Google Authorship with the blogging platform?
Thanks!