The most important thing for any e-commerce businesses is to sell their inventory and make money. But you can only do that to the people who are willing and ready to buy. What about the rest? Those “almost-buyers”? Well, with some extra love and care, you can tap into the extra slice of the profit pie—starting with a business blog. Not convinced? Read on to see why your online business needs an e-commerce blog.
Blogging Misconceptions
Often times, many business owners don’t see the value in blogging, don’t have post ideas or aren’t sure if it’s applicable to their business. Sometimes it’s lack of time, or because writing brings them back to those awful school term papers. Whatever the case, we want you to push past the misconceptions about blogging to see the true business benefits.
Blogging doesn’t have to take time or be a painful process. With a little research to get you started, all you need to do is write about what your business knows and excels in. Know who you’re writing to and package your message in a way that’s direct and easy for your target market to understand.
Now, don’t worry a bit about the details of business blogging—we have more posts planned that will teach you our tried-and-true blogging methods.
The Ever-Lasting Fruit of Business Blogging
When it comes to digital marketing, everyone wants to “get found” online. And there are so many ways to achieve that. Some methods work fast, with others yielding long-term results. Blogging is a marketing method that captures both short-term and long-term website hits and leads.
But there are so many more reasons why blogs are a must for businesses! Blogs….
- Look good on your site.
- Show products in action.
- Build authority for your brand.
- Improve website bounce rates.
- Keep your business competitive.
- Keep your audience informed and engaged.
- Attract new brand advocates, fans and customers.
- Create opportunities for forms, calls-to-action, backlinks and inter-site linking.
- Allow you to tell your brand story, educate and inspire and create a dialogue with your audience.
Lead Nurturing
Now, remember that yummy slice of the profit pie we had our eyes on? Your e-commerce blog will be your ticket to sweet, sweet sales. How? By using it as a tool to nurture leads at whichever stage they’re at in their buying cycle.
Before starting your e-commerce blog, think about these key questions:
- How long is your buying cycle?
- Can you define the steps to it?
- What are your buyer personas?
- What topics would they be interested in?
- What do they want?
- What do they need?
Based on the answers, you’ll be able to develop some hard-hitting content. But before we get too hasty, let’s take a moment to be strategic. You may know what will resonate with your buyers, or even which phrases or words to use, but that doesn’t always match up with your target market. Start with what you know, like the FAQs you always get in-store or on the phone. The rest can be found with our good old friend, Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
SEO Blog Research
An optimized site is an absolute must for all businesses. The more an e-commerce site can be optimized to its target markets, the more you’ll be able to get relevant buyers to purchase on your site.
But, there are only so many keywords you can optimize on your website. It’s not feasible to add webpage on top of webpage for a long list of keywords (not to mention to get them all to rank on Google). But, you don’t want to miss out on opportunities to bring people to your site to buy. What to do?!
You guessed it–blog.
All those keywords you can’t find webpages for? Make a blog post about it! Long-tail keywords should be the focus of your blog, since they capture relevant searches of people in research mode. Reaching out to those who are asking the questions will make the post all the more effective.
You can find long-tail keywords through tools like Google Adwords, Keywordtool.io, SEMRush, etc.
If you get stuck during any stage of your blog planning, feel free to contact us! We’d be happy to learn about your brand and recommend a solution that’s unique to your e-commerce business.
Ready to Boost Your E-Commerce Biz to The Next Level?
I live to learn, and creating is my passion. Whether it be “telling the story” for our clients through marketing campaigns or painting, crafting or cooking in my free time, I’m always exploring something new. On a day off, you’ll find me cuddled up to my dogs, researching new recipes to try or delving into the latest documentary on Netflix!