Every business, especially e-commerce, should have a blog. The benefits are clear – better SEO, more traffic, increase in engagement and customer loyalty, more revenue. While the goal is easy to see (more money) the path to get there can be hard to follow. It’s easy to give in to temptation and blast your readers with “buy my stuff” propaganda, but there’s no value in that approach and soon your words will become lost as noise to your audience. Instead, use your content to establish yourself and your brand as an industry thought leader and provide your audience with strategic buying signals.
This approach will help guide your fans, followers, and subscribers through your conversion funnel rather than trying to force them to take the action you want. For some, crafting engaging content seems to come easy. For others – maybe not so much… Regardless of your writing skill level if you’re operating an e-commerce website you should be posting unique content on a regular basis.
E-Commerce Topics
During this process – it’s important to keep in mind you should NOT always be writing to “sell” your products. If you’re spending all your time trying to convert visitors to customers you’ll soon become noise and not provide signals to your audience. Instead, talk about news, events, and products used within the industry. For example, if you sell high-end computers and home electronics don’t write specifically about why consumers should purchase a custom gaming rig from you. Write about computers in general in ways that your audience will find interesting and helpful. Consider writing about the general industry of gaming and computers. Odds are low that they’re searching for the exact product you’re looking to sell from your catalog. They are, however, searching for information on products and answers to questions they have about products they’re considering to purchase.
An effective brainstorming strategy for your next blog topic should answer these questions:
- What can you teach them about a product?
- What can you teach them about the industry?
- What insight can you provide to them to make them more knowledgeable?
The answers to these questions should provide some value to the reader. By approaching your writing from this perspective you’re taking your expert knowledge and educating your audience to establish trust. This makes it easier for them to buy from you when their time is right. Keep your writing simple. Sharing the information that you may take for granted and rudimentary can go a long way for people looking to break into your industry.
Now let’s analyze a few ideas from our brainstorming:
Idea 1: How Products are Used
Not every product is self-explanatory. Talk about different or unconventional ways that a product can be used.
Great product-based content topics include:
- How to be more efficient and effective using the product.
- New uses for the product.
- Lesser known features of the product.
Idea 2: News About Products and the Industry
For example, if you sell running shoes and new technology is arriving that will help reduce stress on runner’s feet, shins, and knees – talk about it! Include your opinion about the new product and how you expect it will impact buyers. As interest and excitement build around the new product, you will have already started pulling in traffic to your site about it. When that product is available on your site you already have a potential clients ready to buy!
Idea 3: Promos and Giveaways
Any type of promo should be top of your list for blog posts. These posts should also focus on how your target audience benefits, not just about your e-commerce store or the products. People enjoy contests, discounts, and free opportunities and these posts can attract a lot of eyeballs. Discuss the promotion. Be sure to explain its value.
As you begin to regularly share content on your site you should analyze which articles generate the most traffic (in Analytics), comments (audience engagement and loyalty), and inbound links (Search Engine Optimization) to your website to help determine what interests your audience most. Reviewing this data regularly will help make it even easier to find your next content topic.
How do you find topics to write about and what have been your best success stories? Share your experience below!
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