Installing WOZ mod

[sinsister]

Hi All,

This has driven me to the point of insanity finally.

I am attempting to install WOZ.

I've uploaded the blog files to my site under XXXXXX/store/blog/ directory

and the others in the store root directory accordingly.

gone into the admin panel > tools > WOZ manager

put in the complete path to wordpress files:

/xxxxxxxxxxxx/htdocs/store/blog/

get the error msg of "WordPress config(wp-config.php) was not found."

then tried:
/xxxxxxxxxxxx/htdocs/store/blog/check_path.php/

and get the error msg of "WordPress path was not found."

I'm sure it's blatantly obvious but can someone please point me in the right direction?

Thanks,
Sam

[stevesh]

It's my understanding that mod doesn't work with Zencart version 1.5.0 anyway.

I have used this successfully with 1.5.0:

http: //www.numinix.com/blog/2009/09/26/integrating-wordpress-into-zen-cart-1-3-8a/

[schoolboy]

Aside from the technical risks (none of the methods available are truly reliable), consider the PEOPLE ASPECT of this...

Your eComm site should have the single-minded purpose of guiding visitors to filling their carts and checking out. Anything embedded in the site that does not guide them down that pathway is a distraction, and a risk of "cart abandonment". All links that take them elsewhere, re-focus their attention on matters other than purchasing, or have the potential to confuse them, shoud be strenuously avoided.

It requires STRONG DISCIPLINE to avoid the temptation to pepper the site with such distractions. In 100% of cases of visitors arriving at your site, the PRIMARY purpose for their visit is to see what you are selling, and to discover if what you are selling is what they are looking for. They did not come there to "blog", or have social chats on an associated facebook link. They came there because in their search to buy something, your site came up.

By all means... leverage social networks and blogs to generate interest in what you sell, and why people should buy it, but keep these features at arms-length from your eComm site.

We look at such sites as "harvester sites" or "satellite sites" that "circulate" round the main site (the webshop). We get our clients to use these "harvester sites" for both SEO purposes, AND to showcase products and discussions on those products. Links point TO the webshop... we recommend NO LINKS on the webshop pointing TO the blog or facebook page... It must be one-way traffic. (Though many clients insist on such links, sadly).

Research shows that 85% of visitors who leave your site through an external link (or a distractive link) are unlikely to return. So why invite them to do so?

[stevesh]

I guess I'll disagree on a couple of points:

The Numinix Wordpress integration is, in my experience, stable and trouble-free.

In the case of things like Facebook and Twitter links that take your customer to a different (and possibly more interesting) website, I'd agree with schoolboy. I think of a blog integrated into Zencart as being like an extension of EZ pages. The content of both is important and should provide the visitor with information that helps her make a buying decision.

[schoolboy]

I guess I'll disagree on a couple of points:

The Numinix Wordpress integration is, in my experience, stable and trouble-free.

In the case of things like Facebook and Twitter links that take your customer to a different (and possibly more interesting) website, I'd agree with schoolboy. I think of a blog integrated into Zencart as being like an extension of EZ pages. The content of both is important and should provide the visitor with information that helps her make a buying decision.

We looked at this in some detail and analysed (using Google Analytics data with funnelling and goals) for a period of 8 months on three of our clients' sites, where the client had insisted on a "close" relationship between their blog and their eComm site.

In two cases, we found that between 17% and 20% of visitors each month who landed on a GOAL page (add to cart), funnelled through a product info page, were then going through to the blog link and abandoning their carts. In the case of site "A" (educational resources) the value of abandoned sales as a consequence of following the blog link after arriving at the goal page amounted to about £53,000 over the 8 month period. In the case of client "B" the lost sales value was about £33,000.

We took off the blog links and then also removed both side-columns at the cart display and checkout pages - so almost NO distractive links were being shown. The key objective at that point is to streamline checkout.

Removing distractive links, and stopping abandonment via the blog has INCREASED checkout_success by nearly 72% on site "A" and just over 50% on site "B".

The third site, sadly stopped operating half-way through the exercise, but was showing the same tendencies.

We now use the principe of "All roads lead to Rome"... where "Rome" is the checkout_success page... How a "blog" can be more important than this puzzles me...

[Gerjan]

Thanks for sharing this Schoolboy. Although I did not realy analyse this myselfe, the goal indeed is to sell stuff (yes, the checkout_success page...). So keep it simple, provide the description with the necessary info (with some extra's when needed).

I sometimes get lost on site's with many info page's, blogs, extra info etc. I think it does distract people from choosing the product and going to the checkout.

For me your analyltics confirms this, thx!