Importance of Blogging for eCommerce Businesses

Blogging is one of the most popularly known content formats on the internet today. As an eCommerce consumer, we can bet that even you have read one or the other blog to learn more about a product or just to compare several products. Blogs can be a rich source of information for consumers who are either learning about the product or are considering buying it.

According to a report by SEMrush, 86% of content marketers Use blog posts as a part of their content marketing strategy. This shows us that even though they are long-term in nature, blogs have a significant impact on your marketing strategy.

Buyers these days are knowledgeable and aware. Consumers are always looking out for more and more insights to ensure that they make the best purchase of information on the internet. For the research and consideration part of the consumer funnel, you must provide them with information that distinguishes your brand from your competition. 

With this blog, let’s have a look at how you can use blogs to your advantage and enhance your eCommerce website for your user.

What are Blogs?

For those who do not understand what a blog is, let’s quickly look at the definition.

A blog is a website page that is written in a conversational or informal style. It could be giving out information, talking about trends, or just mention anything that the writer might feel like expressing. An individual or a company can run them.

Let’s see how they are useful for an eCommerce website.

Why are Blogs Relevant For Your eCommerce Website?

Improve User Engagement

Blogs are an excellent medium to engage with the user. Besides providing information, you can also include several widgets that lead customers to a social platform, add polls, or record customer responses via comments or reactions. As you write about new products and launches on your blogs, customers are likely to learn more and lean toward making a purchase. You can also tell stories on your blog that can help improve brand loyalty and engagement.

Cross Promotion

Blogs are an excellent way to cross-promote your products with your contemporaries. With an active blog, you can invite people to write guest blogs on your website to leverage their audience. Along with this, you can also write guest blogs for other websites and engage them back to your website. According to a report by Bigcommerce, 92% of consumers place their trust in recommendations from friends, family, or word of mouth. A guest log on your website can help you establish authenticity and attract more users to your products.

Convert Customers Faster

As you give out all relevant information in a ready-to-read and consume format, there are chances that you can convert consumers faster as they will absorb more information and move from the awareness to the consideration stage quicker. You can also lead them to product pages in a more organic fashion and lure them into making purchases.

Establish Thought Leadership

Being an industry expert is extremely important if you want to ensure that you keep getting repeat customers. With a blog that you run regularly, you can talk about industry trends, your opinions on any recent events, and your products. This will help you establish thought leadership in that domain and attract more customers to your website based on your originality and ideas.

Enhance SEO Rankings

Blogs can help you improve your search engine rankings. If you optimize your blog with all relevant keywords, you can crawl up faster in search results and get identified by Google and other search engines to rank higher on such results on search results. People who are generally researching on the Internet look for random keywords, like, ‘what I should do in this weather, ‘best places to eat, etc. If you write a blog around these keywords, you can reach your customer sooner than you expect. Also, you do not need to invest a hefty amount in blogging to improve organic search ranking.

Build an Online Community

Blogs can help you build an online community of loyal customers and readers. If you keep churning out quality content regularly, your customers will not just come to your website to purchase products but also read the information you provide. This can help you establish an online community to further convert into loyal customers and even brand evangelists.

Link Building

Not just SEO, blogs can also help you in link building. You can link out product pages to improve your internal linking within the website. You can also add external links to other websites to enhance external linking. These initiatives will help you in your overall search engine optimization and search engine marketing. Blogs can be a facilitator to improve your SCRP and organic search performance.

How Can You Optimize Your eCommerce Blog?

Once you create a blog, it will not grow automatically. You need to put in constant efforts to optimize your blog to ensure that it reaches the right customers and takes an interest in reading it. Here are a few ways in which you can optimize your eCommerce blogs for the customer

Use Keywords in the Title

First, make sure that you use keywords in the title and subheadings. This will help Google identify your blog faster and show it to relevant readers sooner. This will, in turn, help your website ranking and also ensure that your brand blog reaches the consumer more quickly.

Share Thoughts and Opinions

 Blogs are meant to be conversational and informal. Therefore, take the liberty to share your thoughts and opinions on your blogs. This will make it more engaging and give your brand a separate identity. You could talk about your brand’s journey, thoughts, ideas, etc. Establishing a special connection with your consumer is necessary to ensure they keep coming back.

Segregate Content

Don’t add information to the blog for the sake of adding. Take time to edit, and proofread the content. This will help you identify gaps and improve them. Next, ensure that you segregate information in a readable format. If you do not do so, the user will get confused and will not take an interest in reading the blog. With a diverse attention span distributed in multitasking, the user wants information that they can consume at a glance. Therefore, break it down into headings and subheadings so users can go to the part they want to read first. 

Add Links to Product Pages

The primary purpose of your blog is to generate sales and create awareness. If you do not add any links to the product pages, your blog is like any other read on the internet. Give your consumers a chance to click and shop. Add relevant product links to make sure the customer is aware of the product and is driven to consider purchasing it. 

Write With a Problem Solving Approach

If you write with a problem-solving approach that gives the customer an actionable solution, your customer will be more driven to purchase from your website. Instead of just stating facts, write your opinions and how you can be useful for the customer to solve the problem.

Address Readers Directly

The tone of your blog is as important as the content. Make sure you write in the first person and address your readers as ‘you.’ This will help establish a personal connection, and The reader will feel much more valued as the content will resonate directly with them. Writing in an active voice will help you gain more credibility.

Few eCommerce Blogs You Must Follow

There are several blogs on the internet that you can take inspiration from. Here is a list of three blogs we think will be handy if you are just starting or growing your eCommerce blog.

Shiprocket Blog

The Shiprocket blog talks about eCommerce aspects, ranging from marketing, sales, shipping, logistics, packaging, fulfillment, etc. You can take inspiration concerning segregation, quality content, and information regarding eCommerce in-general. This can help you get a kickstart for your blog and extract data to grow your business. 

Shopify Blog

Shopify is one of the leading industry experts in eCommerce website building and store management. Their blogs give you an idea about establishing thought leadership via quality content. A must-follow if you want to take information and inspiration about growing your blog to become an industry expert.

Bigcommerce Blog

Bigcommerce also writes out trending topics and elephant eCommerce information. You can refer to the blog for taking up ideas around eCommerce and the changing trends and technologies around.

Conclusion

you can grow your blogs the way you like and connect with your consumers in the most fun way possible. Make sure you incorporate an eCommerce blog on your website so users can gain much more than they ask.