Author: Tom Cottrill | Date Posted: Jan 31, 2022
At this point in the internet game, most people have a general idea of what a blog is (for any kind of website, including an ecommerce blog), even though it may not be very concrete. A blog can be written about virtually any topic, but when it’s for a business, it is used to educate website visitors (and create more educated customers), provide quality content that both visitors and search engines like, and when using the right keywords for a site, help a site rank higher on the search engines and get found more easily.
Okay, okay, for agencies reading this, your eyes are probably glazing over because you absolutely know what a blog is and why it’s beneficial for a regular website, but did you know that it’s beneficial for an ecommerce site as well and can drastically improve the performance of your website, even when its main purpose is to sell products? Here are some ways a blog can help your ecommerce site succeed.
Just like any other website, a blog is a very important part of SEO for many reasons. The first of which is simply adding more of the right and relevant keywords that come with relevant content for your website. While your main ecommerce site may be ranking for “medical scrubs in Indiana,” you may want to rank for question keywords or other important search terms. The next reason a blog is great is because it allows you to add a significant amount of content to your website. The more content your site has, the more relevance you’re providing to visitors, more content you have for social media to bring visitors to your site, the longer you can keep visitors on your site, and the more you will index on search engines. Another part of this is that the blog will allow for frequent content updates on your website, which search engines tend to like quite a bit.
When you put all of this together, it becomes increasingly clear that when focusing on SEO for your ecommerce site, a blog is one of the most important to prioritize and implement. This is especially true since Google and the other search engines frequently change what they look for in a website when they send out their crawlers for indexing, but they are always, always looking for relevant content, strong and relevant keywords, regular updates of your site to show that your information is still up-to-date, and a fast and strong website.
The stages of a buyer’s journey start from the very earliest stages of Awareness—when they’re really just realizing they might have a need or see that something exists—and then Consideration—when the buyer is actually starting to consider the product or service—and lastly, Decision—pretty self-explanatory, but this is when the buyer is finally ready to make a decision on their purchase.
The problem with a site that is just an ecommerce site is that it only caters to the decision stage of the buyer’s journey. People are coming to your site when they are ready to purchase something, or maybe considering it and checking out the pricing. Either way, you’re not catering to the stages of the buyer’s journey that educates them early enough in the process that will hook them when they’re in the later stages. Your current setup only gets them if you’re lucky enough to not have been beaten out by someone else earlier in the journey.
A blog, however, provides content for all stages of the buyer’s journey, so you can get in front of your audience and get them on your site before they’re even ready to start making a decision—and possibly before they even know there is a decision to be made. So, when it is time for them to decide, your company will be front and center in their minds. And a blog may even take a person in the early stages of the buyer’s journey and pull them further in the journey once you’ve educated them or they’ve clicked through the rest of your site.
This is another one that is used for regular websites as well but is also incredibly beneficial for an ecommerce site. While your main ecommerce site is focused on sales (obviously), the blog can—and should—be focused on providing valuable information and content for your readers. This content can be used to show them that you know what you’re talking about. If you sell supplements online, for example, from an ecommerce website, being able to educate your readers on the supplements, their benefits, and general health is crucial for telling them that you’re the right place to go when finally getting down to shopping for the supplements. The more your consumers can trust you and believe in your company, the more likely they are to trust your product.
While you probably use social media for customer engagement, a blog is a great place to do it too. You can do it in a fun way, depending on what you sell, and encourage comments on the blogs, and you can also use the blog shares on social media to encourage even more social media engagement. You can tell stories of customer success, post photos and videos like how to use a product or assemble it, or even share company updates or contests on your blog.
In summary, a blog is just as beneficial—if not more so—for your ecommerce website for many reasons, but especially because you don’t want to always be trying to sell to prospects who aren’t ready for that part of the buyer’s journey. A blog helps you connect to your customers in a way just showing them your products doesn’t, and it helps put you in a place of authority, authenticity, and engagement.
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