The first technical problem I had to solve when I decided to open Stevie and Three was how to set up a WordPress blog on the same domain as my shop and keep the home page design flexible (e.g. not locked in to the shop template or the blog template).
I wanted to launch my shop on a budget as close to zero as possible. If it proved itself I would look for a more tailored solution with all the bells and whistles I wanted later. For now though, it was a case of getting something up that I was happy with and ticked the boxes above.
I decided on bigcartel as my online shop provider and would only ever consider WordPress for my blog platform.
The solution I came up with is the following:
- I created a sub domain and pointed it to my bigcartel shop (shop.stevieandthree.com)
- I installed WordPress in a separate directory on my domain (stevieandthree.com/blog)
- I designed a simple standalone html page and uploaded it to my domain to be the starting page (stevieandthree.com/index.html)
Notice how the url’s are all variations of stevieandthree.com. This is really important.
I see lots of online shops with a blog on a domain like – mydressshop.blogspot.com while their online shop will be mydressshop.com.
The problem with this is that all of that great content you’re blogging about and those gorgeous links that people are sending your way aren’t having any impact on the value/popularity of your domain.
Why should you care?
- You don’t own the platform that you’re attracting traffic to (e.g. blogspot)
- You’re missing out on one of the major factors that search engines use to value your page and determine rankings in the search results (links).
That’s why.
I hope this was helpful! Let me know if you’ve got any questions in the comments.
SHOP HERE
January 11, 2012 at 1:57 pm
Yes! our tribe have been asking this question, thanks for a great post we’ll definitely be sharing…
January 11, 2012 at 9:07 pm
Clare, may I ask how you were able use a custom name for your shop as opposed to the bigcartel.com domain? I’ve been trying my hardest to switch it over having read the instructions on the site and discussing it with my host but neither of us can find the logical solution.
January 20, 2012 at 8:24 pm
We’re in the process of adding a blog to our website (albeit not an online shop). This is very helpful – thank you!
January 22, 2012 at 9:07 pm
Hi Clare, I am very interested in the answer to Naomi’s question as I am also having the same problem
Jess
January 22, 2012 at 9:21 pm
Naomi and Jess – I just went back and found the instructions that I followed. It was pretty easy once I got my head around it (that was the hard part). You’ve got to have domain hosting and create a CNAME record that points to your shop domain on bigcartel (mine was stevieandthree.bigcartel.com).
Here are the instructions I followed http://help.bigcartel.com/articles/14-using-a-custom-domain (I selected other because my hosting wasn’t with any of the ones provided).
If all else fails I’d just call your domain registrar and tell them what you’re trying to do and get them to do it for you.
January 23, 2012 at 4:33 pm
Thanks Clare. Jess – I found that when I contacted my host/registrar they were concerned about me not being able to receive email due to the addition of another CNAME record for Bigcartel’s requirements. Once I set it up for my domain.com.au I did end up having problems with my email so I ended up creating a landing page on my domain.com.au and then setting the shop up like Clare did (thanks for this great idea!) at store.domain.com.au.
I found the Bigcartel forum/help guide very helpful too. And was able to get assistance from one of their recommended providers.
January 23, 2012 at 6:33 pm
Thanks so much Naomi! This has been a great help.
Would love to know your shop deets when you are up and running.
Best of luck,
Jess
January 25, 2012 at 2:02 pm
Thanks Jess! Similar to what Clare did with Stevie and Three, I created a landing page at http://www.emergin.com.au and redirected my bigcartel store to the URL http://store.emergin.com.au
If you have any problems with it, I found Matt of Tonka Park (http://www.tonkapark.com) to be very helpful.
Good luck!