Integrating Magento and WordPress, Architecture considerations and plugin/extension evaluation

1. Integrating WordPress and Magento
By Eric Landmann
Sr. Project Manager / Lead Developer
Earthling Interactive Madison, WI USA
©2014 Eric Landmann, Earthling Interactive, Madison, WI

2. About Earthling
Total Staff: 25+
Avg Experience: 7.5 years
# Staff > 8 years Experience: 10+
# Staff > 5 years with Earthling: 8
Well-Rounded
Developers/Computer Scientists, DBAs,
UI Designers, Business Analysts, Statistics
©2014 Eric Landmann, Earthling Interactive, Madison, WI
Current Clients
From Small to Enterprise, local to international
Have built over 30 Magento sites (EE & CE)

3. How to build an integrated site?
©2014 Eric Landmann, Earthling Interactive, Madison, WI

4. Architecture Considerations
– Is there an existing Magento instance?
– Is there an existing WordPress instance?
– What are the design requirements and desired templates?
– How to handle forms and search?
– How are menus built?
– How upgradeable will it be?
– How maintainable?
– How are Magento’s CMS pages handled?
– How many blog/content pages/posts are there?
– What is the frequency of content modification?
– Is there any SEO value to existing structure?
©2014 Eric Landmann, Earthling Interactive, Madison, WI

5. Architecture Considerations
– How should the URL be structured (subdomain/filepath/none)?
©2014 Eric Landmann, Earthling Interactive, Madison, WI
Subdomain
blog.mysite.com / store.mysite.com
Filepath
www.mysite.com / www.mysite.com/store
Or remove “blog” or “wp” from the URL
www.mysite.com
– What are the available modules to integrate
Magento and WordPress?

6. Architecture Considerations
What is the site focus?
Need to determine if the site is
Wordpress-centric or Magento-centric
Wordpress-Centric
A complex marketing site that happens to have products
Magento-Centric
An ecommerce site that has some supporting content
©2014 Eric Landmann, Earthling Interactive, Madison, WI

7. Architecture Considerations
WordPress-Centric
 Complex, blog-like or marketing copy page designs
 Multiple WordPress plugins with unique functionality
 Some product integration
 Uses WordPress theme(s)
Approach: Emphasis is on using WordPress templates with
plugins that pull in Magento product data
©2014 Eric Landmann, Earthling Interactive, Madison, WI

8. Architecture Considerations
Magento-Centric
 Ecommerce style page design
 Few WordPress plugins, but common ones (contact form,
Facebook, gallery)
 Lots of Magento extensions and functionality
 Relatively less blog/marketing pages to handle
 Use Magento themes
Approach: Use Magento themes with extensions that
integrate WordPress content
©2014 Eric Landmann, Earthling Interactive, Madison, WI

9. Architecture Considerations
And now for something completely different…
©2014 Eric Landmann, Earthling Interactive, Madison, WI
 Homebrew
Use some other exotic method (custom)
 Or just do the blog inside of Magento
AheadWorks Blog Professional
MagePleasure Blog Pro

10. WordPress-Centric Approach
Most pages are WordPress pages with Magento product
information pulled into WordPress
WordPress Plugins to Pull in Magento Data
 Kemp Magento WordPress Integration
 Wordgento (no longer maintained)
 Feraro Mage Enabler (no longer maintained)
©2014 Eric Landmann, Earthling Interactive, Madison, WI

11. Magento-Centric Approach
WordPress Integration Extensions
Fishpig – WordPress Integration
Sonassi – Wordpress Integration
plus a few others … see the references
©2014 Eric Landmann, Earthling Interactive, Madison, WI

12. Feature Matrix
Feature Sonassi Fishpig
Uses your Magento theme for your WP blog X X
1-Click login to your WordPress Admin from
your Magento Admin X X
Associate WordPress posts with
Magento products
manual using
shortcode
©2014 Eric Landmann, Earthling Interactive, Madison, WI
automatic through
Magento admin
Use WordPress plug-ins Some Some
Magento search also searches WordPress
content X 1
Display Magento's blocks in WordPress posts X
Use WordPress menus in Magento X
Supports custom templates for posts/pages X
WordPress shortcodes can be used in Magento X X
Multi-language blog supported X
Both Magento admin and WordPress admin
function independently X X

13. Feature Matrix
Feature Sonassi Fishpig
Magento customers have their profiles directly
linked to WordPress X X
Magento layout block calls can be used within
WordPress posts and pages (e.g. {{block
X
type=""}}
WordPress Upgradeability Manual
upgrade,
some core
files modified
©2014 Eric Landmann, Earthling Interactive, Madison, WI
No core mods,
automatic
WordPress
upgrade works
WordPress plugins supported "almost any" Some free,
some paid
Cost
£150
Free + puchased
modules
1 With additional module

14. Features Matrix
Fishpig Add-Ons and Compatibility
Root (£49.99)
Custom Post Types (£49.99)
Advanced Custom Fields (£49.99)
Customer Synchronization (£49.99)
Integrated Search (£49.99)
Facebook (£49.99)
Contact Form 7 (£49.99)
WordPress SEO
AddThis
YARPP
Google XML Sitemaps
Lightbox Gallery
©2014 Eric Landmann, Earthling Interactive, Madison, WI

15. Our
Example
Site

16. Design Requirements
 Use one template for both Magento and WordPress
 Template can be simple (not complicated content)
 Responsive design
 Few WordPress plugins
 Not much content to be managed
 Menu structure to be hand-modified
 Use Magento template’s home page
 Need complicated forms integrated with Magento
 Wordpress posts should show on category page
 Associated products should show on content pages
 URL structure should not display “blog” or “store”
 Wanted commercial support (if needed)
Conclusion: Use Magento-Centric Approach with Fishpig Extension
©2014 Eric Landmann, Earthling Interactive, Madison, WI

17. Typical
Category
Page

18. Typical
Product
Page

19. Magento category
page showing
associated
WordPress posts

20. WordPress post
page showing
products in an
associated
Magento category

21. Example forms
page created with
MageMe
Webforms for
Magento

22. Sonassi’s method
of calling a
Magento category
listing

23. Sonassi
configurations

24. WordPress post
showing
categories that
will be used to
relate to
Magento
content

25. FighPig-provided “Associated Blog Posts” tab is where you
can connect WordPress posts to a Magento category

26. FighPig-provided “Associated Blog Categories” tab is where
you can relate a Magento category to a WordPress category

27. Defining a top nav in WordPress (stock functionality).
Requirements are that the top nav be fully controllable
by the admin so we are building it in WordPress

28. Fishpig configuration settings

29. Fishpig configuration settings

30. Fishpig configuration settings
This is where we append the WordPress menu to
Magento’s top nav. If Magento’s category navigation
display is set to no, then no categories will display
and this menu takes its place

31. References
Example Client Site – http://www.clgenetics.com/
Fishpig Extension – http://fishpig.co.uk/magento/wordpress-integration/
Sonassi Wordpress Integration –
https://www.sonassi.com/knowledge-base/magento-kb/magento-wordpress-deluxe-extension/
Mage WordPress Integrated Search –
https://www.smackcoders.com/store/magento-wordpress-integrated-search-extension.html
Kemp Magento WordPress Integration –
https://bitbucket.org/jamesckemp/mwi-magento-wordpress-integration/src
Wordgento – https://wordpress.org/plugins/tristar-wordgento/
MageMe Web Forms Pro – http://mageme.com/
Gravity Forms – http://www.gravityforms.com/
AheadWorks Blog Professional –
http://ecommerce.aheadworks.com/magento-extensions/blog-professional-and-enterprise-editions.html
StackExchange Discussion – http://bit.ly/1ALAShD
©2014 Eric Landmann, Earthling Interactive, Madison, WI

32. ©2014 Eric Landmann, Earthling Interactive, Madison, WI
Questions?
Eric Landmann
landmann@earthlinginteractive.com
Twitter: iteratews LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/elandmann