There are many ways a blog can give your ecommerce brand an added boost.
For one, it gives you the opportunity to establish yourself as an industry expert and build brand authority over time. It's also a great tool for increasing conversions—a well-written blog goes a long way in positioning your brand as credible and relatable.
More importantly, it's a highly effective tool for boosting ecommerce SEO (Search Engine Optimization). More unique, high-quality content on your ecommerce site will improve its indexing and ranking. Blogs are also a means for external and internal link building (as we will illustrate below).
While your product detail pages may already include SEO keywords, blogs give you the chance to incorporate other relevant search terms and address related queries. This helps to further cement your dominance within your niche.
In this article, we'll walk you through our recommended blog writing process and provide some suggestions you can follow.
How to start your e-commerce blog
Before you embark on starting your e-commerce blog, it is crucial to have a clear understanding of your brand's niche and target audience. Knowing your niche will help you tailor your content to appeal to a specific segment of customers, while understanding your target audience will enable you to create engaging and relevant content that resonates with them.
To kickstart your e-commerce blog, here are five essential points to consider:
1. Identify your blog's purpose
Determine the purpose and goals of your e-commerce blog. Are you aiming to provide valuable information to your customers, generate leads, or increase sales? Defining your blog's purpose will help you create a content strategy that aligns with your objectives.
2. Choose a blogging platform
Selecting the ideal blogging platform is crucial for your e-commerce blog's success. Popular options to consider include WordPress, Webflow, and Wix. When making your decision, take into account factors such as ease of use, customization possibilities, and SEO capabilities.
3. Create a content plan
Develop a comprehensive content plan that outlines the topics, keywords, and posting schedule for your blog. Research trending topics in your industry, identify relevant keywords, and plan a varied mix of content types, such as how-to guides, product reviews, and industry news. If you want to begin creating your blog content strategy, you may want to read this article here.
4. Optimize for SEO
Implementing effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategies is vital for driving organic traffic to your e-commerce blog. Conduct keyword research to identify the terms your target audience is searching for, optimize your titles and meta descriptions, and include relevant internal and external links to enhance your blog's visibility in search engine results.
5. Promote your blog
Once you've created compelling content, it's crucial to promote it to reach a wider audience. Leverage social media platforms, email marketing campaigns, and partnerships with influencers or industry experts to spread the word about your e-commerce blog. Engage with your audience by responding to comments and encouraging them to share your content.
How To Write Blogs That Boost SEO For Ecommerce
With your keyword research and a blog topic in mind, you can finally get to the blog content itself.
1. Start with an outline
You should always start with an outline for your blog post.
First, consider the main message of your article. Next, list out all the main points you want to share with your target audience. Think about how you can group them into a few overarching sections.
These first two steps should allow you to come up with your blog title and sub-headers, SEO-friendly ones at that. It's a chance to get creative, but try to follow these "best practices":
- Get people curious. Not only does having a unique, catchy title compel people to read your blog post (and increase your click-through rate), it also indicates to search engines how uniquely valuable your content is.
- Include keywords. Your title should feature your main keyword and you should attempt to optimize your sub-headers for important keywords. But make sure you don't keyword stuff (or you may be penalized).
- Keep it succinct. Try to keep your title between 55-60 characters long. Anything longer and it's likely to be truncated on a SERP.
- Use the right formatting. Ensure that your blog title should have use the H1 header tag, while your sub-headers should use H2 header tags.
You might find yourself struggling to come up with engaging blog content regularly. This is where a copywriting tool like ours can come in handy. Built for ecommerce, our AI blog article writer can automatically generate blog titles and outlines that are tailored to your brand background and products. If you're a Shopify user, our Shopify app also does the job!
2. Use the right tone of voice
Before you put pen to paper though, you need to have a good understanding of your brand voice.
The tone of voice you use when writing your blog post should not only represent what your brand stands for, but also display an awareness of your target audience. This will influence the stylistic choices you'll have to make along the way, from your sentence structure down to your word choice.
For instance, if your brand is about adding a fun twist to the mundane (the cute tea infusers!) and targets millennials who are knowledgeable about tea, then you might opt for a more informal but witty tone. You shouldn’t be afraid to use tea-related jargon too, since it allows you to demonstrate your expertise, which will add to your credibility.
3. Apply a "winning" formula
A well-written introduction paragraph is key because it captures your reader's attention and gets them to continue reading the blog post.
An effective conclusion, on the other hand, features a call-to-action that encourages the reader to take the next step. This is particularly important for ecommerce, since one of the main goals is to get readers to eventually visit your online store.
Writing compelling introductions and conclusions can be tricky, so you might find it helpful to adopt a tried-and-tested formula. This guide by Lasso features several ways you can go about writing your introductions and conclusions.
4. Include links
Link building is an essential part of improving ecommerce SEO. After all, search engines use links as an indicator of how "valuable" a page is.
When it comes to ecommerce, adding internal links to your blog post is crucial because it drives more traffic to your product pages or other important landing pages (e.g. category pages) within your site.
Always make sure you're linking to "evergreen content", that is, content that continues to be relevant and valuable in the long run. Optimizing on seasonal content, such as an existing promotion, could mean that future readers are directed to irrelevant pages or a broken link (unless you remember to update your links).
Highly relevant links that direct readers to external authoritative sites could be helpful as well. For example, you could link to a blog post written by a respected industry expert whom your target audience is familiar with.
Linking to such sources helps to grow your digital footprint and adds to your credibility. This could potentially lead to reciprocal links as well, helping you to increase your number of backlinks.
Moz offers a link explorer that provides greater insight into your site's, as well as your competitors' links. Taking a closer look at how your competitors are earning their backlinks can give you a better idea of the authoritative sites within your brand's niche. You can even try reaching out to request for a feature.
Some examples of how your ecommerce brand can get a backlink or feature are:
- Reaching out to a industry expert that blogs about your type of products
- Setting up an affiliate program to drive more incentivized links
- Offering to guest post for another blog in your domain
5. Improve readability
As you review your blog post, don't forget to make it reader-friendly.
On top of good grammar, consider other factors that could make your blog post easier to "digest". Here are some things you can try:
- Keep your paragraphs short. Break up your writing into paragraphs of no more than 3 sentences long.
- Vary your sentences. Use a mix of different sentence structures and avoid using too many compound or complex sentences that may be hard to follow.
- Write simply. Use words and expressions that are accessible to your target audience.
It's also helpful to think about more effective ways to put across your point.
Bullet or numbered lists can make your blog post more "skimmable", while infographics can help to illustrate complex ideas or provide a summary readers will remember. Quote and callouts useful when you want to highlight important points within your blog post.
We recommend using a grammar and style checker like Grammarly and ProWritingAid. Both tools also provide a readability score and recommendations of how you can improve on it.
Reason to start a blog for ecommerce
Starting a blog for your ecommerce business can bring numerous benefits and help you establish a strong online presence. In this section, we will explore some compelling reasons why starting a blog is a smart move for marketers in the ecommerce industry.
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- Boost brand awareness: A well-written blog can create brand recognition and increase awareness among your target audience. By consistently publishing valuable content related to your products or industry, you can position your ecommerce brand as a thought leader, gaining trust and credibility.
- Improve search engine rankings: Blogging is an effective strategy for boosting your website's search engine optimization (SEO). Incorporating relevant keywords and providing informative content will help search engines recognize your ecommerce website as a valuable resource, leading to higher rankings on search engine result pages.
- Showcase your expertise: Use your blog as a platform to showcase your expertise and share valuable insights about your industry. By demonstrating your knowledge and understanding of your products, you can establish yourself as an authority in your niche, further enhancing your brand reputation.
- Increase customer trust: Blogging provides an opportunity to establish trust with your customers. By offering helpful tips, advice, and educational content, you position your ecommerce brand as a reliable source of information. This builds trust and loyalty, making customers more likely to choose your products over competitors.
- Generate leads and conversions: A well-crafted blog can serve as a lead generation tool. By including clear call-to-action buttons or links within your blog posts, you can guide readers to relevant product pages, promotional offers, or email sign-up forms. This can ultimately lead to increased conversions and revenue for your ecommerce business.
Elevate Ecommerce Blogging with AI
Blogs are a highly effective means for boosting ecommerce site, especially when they are published regularly. More than that, they serve as a good platform for educating users about your products and showcasing your brand personality.
Having your own blog planning, writing and publishing process will go a long way in helping you consistently craft high-quality, SEO-friendly blog posts. We hope you'll be able to use this as a springboard to come up with a process that's most effective for your ecommerce site. Elevate your ecommerce blogging with Hypotenuse AI today and unlock the full potential of your brand.
