WordPress blog integration for osCommerce
The SEO benefits of installing a blog on your website are widely known. From an aesthetic point of view it’s a good idea to style your blog so that it matches the design of the rest of your site. This tutorial shows you how to integrate WordPress with your osCommerce website. Please note that these instructions are for OSC sites running on STS not BTS templates.
1, Install osCommerce MS2.2 onto your server into a directory such as http://yourdomain.com/shop/.
2, Install WordPress into a folder in the same directory, eg: http://yourdomain.com/shop/blog/. If you already have OSC installed at root level then install WP at http://yourdomain.com/blog/.
3, Login to your WP admin and click ‘Settings’. In ‘Blog address (URL)’ type http://yourdomain.com/shop/blog.php ( or http://yourdomain.com/blog.php)
4, In the file /shop/includes/application_top.php file put the following php code just after the opening comments:
// turn off WordPress themes and include the WordPress core:
define(‘WP_USE_THEMES’, false);
require(‘./wordpress/wp-blog-header.php’);
5, Download the following two files and place them in the root of your OSC install.
blog.php (save txt as blog.php)
stylesheet.blog.css (save file as stylesheet.blog.css)
If you have issues with WordPress links not working for navigating pages, posts or categories try setting permalinks. This should cure the problem.
Caroline Bell
SEO Programmer
This sounds pretty easy but brings up additional questions:
1) do I still have to log into WordPress and OSCommerce separately?
2) how do WordPress updates affect the integration?
3) how well does this setup allow for blog info on the cart pages and cart info on the blog pages?
4) for static pages, would we use the static page set up in OSCommerce or in WordPress?
5) would we still have to set up the theme/template for each one or would we be able to set up the PHP to share one theme/template?
I have more questions but figure this will help me understand whether I should spend the time trying or seek another way to integrate a shopping cart with WordPress.
Why don’t you use one of the osCommerce contributions for the blog functionality? There are plenty out there and you don’t have to manage the blog and store separately.
Hello,
I too agree with enigma1, other option can be wordpress.