Together At Last the Way They Should Be | Features & Functionality

Zen Cart and WordPress Integration, , , , , , , , ,

(AKA The Marriage of Zen Cart & WordPress..)

WordPress has long been viewed as a useful tool in a shop-owners SEO arsenal. Because blogs are (usually) frequently updated, this can help with search engine rankings (provided the site-owner is posting RELEVANT content — nonsense content will be ignored by search engines). Blog sites and Social Media Pages are an essential part of your web presence and if eCommerce is a part of your web presence, they can help you engage new and existing customers and serve as a mechanism to drive them to your store and products. Properly used (meaning that you should be regularly creating new, compelling, & relevant content) WordPress (like Facebook) can be an AWESOME tool for driving clients to your website.

Zen Cart® for WordPress (zen4wp) & WordPress for Zen Cart® (wp4zen) makes integration of Zen Cart and WordPress easier than ever.

Why You Want These Add-Ons

  • Helps you to build backlinks to your store
    Now when you post an article, you can provide links to products in your shop for some awesome anchor text. You’re in charge of your blog, so take advantage and put those anchor text best practices to use.
  • Give people something that they can naturally link to
    Although it’s totally possible to email someone about your store and include a link, sometimes people aren’t motivated to do so unless there’s a story to go alongside it. It’s much easier and more natural for people to link to your blog post with content related to your product. And if your blog posts links to those products, then you’ve just helped your website’s SEO.
  • Encourage people to “socialize” your work
    When you regularly post to your blog, you have more content to share with your network via social media – namely, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Similarly to how people are more likely to link to your blog posts, people are also more apt to retweet you, like your Facebook post, or +1 it. It’s an easy one-click of a button – and ease is key in getting people to share your work. Once someone has shared your post, then it get shared with their network, thereby increasing its reach beyond your own personal network.
  • Increase website traffic & build a following
    If you post engaging content that presents value to your readers, then they will probably spend more time on your blog/shop and continue coming back for more. If you’re frequently linking to your products, your blog becomes a tool to drive traffic to your shop.
  • Play nice with Google’s Freshness Update
    In fall 2011, Google announced that it had altered its search algorithm to provide users with fresher, more recent search results. Dubbed the “Google Freshness Update”, the intended purpose was to place greater emphasis on returning the most up-to-date web content. Said Google:
    “Search results, like warm cookies right out of the oven or cool refreshing fruit on a hot summer’s day, are best when they’re fresh. Even if you don’t specify it in your search, you probably want search results that are relevant and recent.”
    What does this mean for bloggers? SEO experts largely agree that Google’s update means that fresh content can boost your blog or website in the SERPs for a certain period of time. Bloggers have an advantage because serious shopowners/bloggers continuously publish large amounts of fresh content.


See These in Action

Our Approach

  • Display WordPress content in Zen Cart OR display Zen Cart content in WordPress
  • Seamlessly transfer visitors to Zen Cart or WordPress
  • Minimize duplication:
    • Any change to product data should take place in Zen Cart, WordPress will simply output and display product data.
    • Any change to post/page data should take place in WordPress, Zen Cart will simply output and display blog data. 
      (having to remember to make the same changes in different places is a recipe for disaster)


Features:

Zen Cart 4 WordPress

Zen Cart® for WordPress Basic (zen4wp) is a WordPress plugin that allows shopowners to display Zen Cart content on their WordPress site via a series of widgets.

Zen Cart® for WordPress Premium (zen4wp) extends the functionality of Zen Cart® for WordPress Basic (zen4wp) by adding additional widgets and shortcodes. (including the shopping cart widget)

Here’s the features this awesome new plugin will offer:

Basic Features (Free)
Widget Shortcode Name and Short Description

x

 zen4wp_new
Displays a collection of new-products from the Zen Cart store, including the product’s name, image and price with a link back to the product’s detailed information page. You configure the total number and the number-per-row for each instance. The Zen Cart configuration controls what products are considered new.

x

 zen4wp_featured
Displays a collection of featured-products from the Zen Cart store, including the product’s name, image and price with a link back to the product’s detailed information page. You configure the total number and the number-per-row for each instance.

x

 zen4wp_specials
Displays a collection of products-on-special from the Zen Cart store, including the product’s name, image and price with a link back to the product’s detailed information page. You configure the total number and the number-per-row for each instance.

x

 zen4wp_best_sellers
Displays an ordered-list that contains the current best-sellers from the Zen Cart store, each list-item is a link back to the associated product’s detailed information page. You configure the number to display and whether the purchase-count is included.

Premium Features (Paid)

*To use the premium (paid) features, you must first install the (free) base plugin
Widget Shortcode Name and Short Description

x

 zen4wp_categories
Displays a list of top-level category links from the Zen Cart store, including each category’s name. This widget is hideCategories-aware, i.e. if a top-level category is hidden, its link will not be shown.

x

 zen4wp_manufacturers
Displays a list of links to the index-listing page for each of the manufacturers from the Zen Cart store.

x

 zen4wp_reviews
Displays a collection of product reviews from the Zen Cart store, including the review’s text and rating and the product’s image with a link back to the review. You configure the total number and the number-per-row for each instance as well as the number of characters of the reviews text to include.

x

 zen4wp_testimonials
If the testimonials_manager plugin is installed, displays a collection of testimonials from the Zen Cart store, modeled after the Testimonials sidebox. You configure the total number and the number-per-row for each instance as well as the number of characters of the testimonials text to include.

x

 zen4wp_shopping_cart
If enabled via the Zen Cart admin, this widget shows the number of items and current total amount associated with a customer’s Zen Cart shopping cart. You configure whether the Zen Cart login/logoff and the Zen Cart shopping_cart page links are shown. Requires a SQL patch and a piece of code running on the Zen Cart store.

x

 zenprod id=xx
Generates an HTML link to the specified product in the Zen Cart store, if the product ID specified is a valid product ID, using the product’s name as the anchor-text. If the ID value is not valid, the string “The product with an ID of “xx” was not found.” is output.

x

 zencat id=xx
Generates an HTML link to the specified category in the Zen Cart store, if the category ID specified is a valid category ID, using the category’s name as the anchor-text. If the ID value is not valid, the string “The category with an ID of “xx” was not found.” is output.

x

 zenmfgr id=xx
Generates an HTML link to the specified manufacturer’s index page in the Zen Cart store, if the manufacturers ID specified is a valid manufacturers ID, using the manufacturer’s name as the anchor-text. If the ID value is not valid, the string “The manufacturer with an ID of “xx” was not found.” is output.

 

WordPress 4 Zen Cart

WordPress for Zen Cart® (wp4zen) is a Zen Cart module that allows shopowners to display WordPress content on their Zen Cart site simply using sideboxes.

These admin configurable sideboxes are meant to link your WordPress blog to your Zen Cart store without having to implement complicated WordPress blog embedding solutions/add-ons. These sideboxes pull content links directly from the WordPress blog. All a store owner has to do is to style their WordPress blog to match their store (or vice versa).

Some may find these sideboxes are a LOT less troublesome than blog embedding solutions. Here’s what this module offers:

Basic Features (Free)

  • Blog Pages
  • Blog Post Categories
  • Blog Archive

Premium Features (Paid)

*To use the premium (paid) features, you must first install the (free) base module
  • Blog Calendar
  • Latest Blog Posts
  • Blog Tag Cloud
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Related posts

2 thoughts on “Together At Last the Way They Should Be | Features & Functionality”

  1. Hi

    I inquired about this module a while back and you did answer me the very next day. Things got busy sidetracking us but we are now getting back to zen4wp. One more question if you don’t mind. Your documentation states that zen cart and wordpress must share the same domain. Will this scenerio work where zen cart and wordpress share the same domain but are both in different folders like this

    http://mywebsite/zencart
    http://mywebsite/wordpress

    thanks
    regards
    Mary

    Reply

    1. The folders you put WordPress or Zen Cart in are not included in the requirements because they don’t matter…. WordPress & Zen Cart must be in the same domain.. WordPress & Zen Cart must share the same database..

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *