Best location for blog for ecommerce site

[willow888]

I'm interested in starting a blog for our ecommerce site. It is a retail site. I would like the blog to include our monthly newsletter, updates on shipping times for special order items, previews of upcoming sales and new products, etc.

Some of the possible goals for the blog would be:

-To keep current customers informed of new products, newsletters etc since our newsletters often don't get through.

-Provide frequent updates so customers return more often

-I've heard that blogs are spidered often, so hopefully our site would be spidered more frequently

-I don't know if blogs accomplish this, but I'd like to use it to improve search engine ranking

With these goals in mind, what would be the best strategy for setting up our blog? Should it be in a latest news category on our site? Our would we be better off improving search engine rankings by using a separate blog site linked to our home page? Any other suggestions for this type of blog?

I'm just starting to research blogs so please forgive me if these goals and questions aren't well informed.

Thanks,
MG

[Liam]

Hello.

I've just visited your website and could not immediately find a blog, so presumably it has not begun yet. Forgive me if I missed it.

Well you have a relatively search engine unfriendly format in my opinion - a heck of a lot of code versus the text. Therefore an alternative area for your blog, linking to the shop may well be an excellent idea.

What system have you chosen?

Cheers.

[earthsusan]

Dear willow888,

I would like to check out your blogsite and or website in order to make suggestions as to how you could incorporate blog sites into your marketing strategy. Is the blog site up now and if so can you post the address? Thanks.

Susan