10 Reasons Why Your E-Commerce Site Should Have A Blog

Reason #1 Search Engine Optimization

You are sure to be investing both your time and resources into driving more traffic to your e-commerce website—and a blog is one of the most effective free methods of doing so. Adding a blog to your e-commerce site will drastically increase the amount of content your website contains. The more content you have, the more your website will index—and the more prospective clients will organically find their way to your website. For best results, infuse your blog posts with both trending keywords.

As you share your new blog posts on your social media profiles, you will create more backlinks to your website, which will further boost your SEO.

Reason #2 Brands You As An Industry Experts

Many e-commerce websites utilize their blogs as a method of branding themselves as industry experts. Your blog posts can contain tips and tricks that your target audience is searching for, tutorials, and the latest breaking industry news. While you can add blog posts that contain sales information, for branding purposes—focus more on adding value to your customers.

Reason #3 Engages Your Customers

Instead of beginning a website your customers only visit when shopping, you can utilize your blog as a method of engaging your customers on an ongoing basis. This can be achieved a variety of ways, and below are a couple of ideas to get you heading in the right direction.

For example, if you sell weight-loss products you could share client success stories.

Tell A Story—The story you tell could be anything from inspirational stories relevant to your industry, inspiring stories your clients have shared, or the story of how your business came to be.

Post Photos And Videos—While your e-commerce site certainly contains images of the products you are selling, your blog is an additional place in which you can utilize visuals to engage your clients. This could be a quick video of how to assemble a product, different methods of using a product, or photos and videos of that are non-product related—yet relevant to your target audience.

For example, if you sell pet supplies you can share funny pet videos and images.

Reason #4 It’s The Perfect Place To Make Announcements

Even if you utilize opt-in email marketing for your announcements, or have an area on your e-commerce website where you share announcements—your new blog will be an excellent place for your customers to learn your latest news and updates. This could be anything from new products, answer to your most Frequently Asked Questions, seasonal promotions, or anything new about your company you would like to share.

Reason #5 Boosts Your Conversion Rates

Your e-commerce blog will not only drive more traffic to your website—but it will increase your conversions too. Your blog will make you feel more credible and relatable, which will provide new clients with a greater sense of confidence in their purchases.

Reason #6 Creates An Online Community

Many blogs allow customers to comment on their posts, which makes your customers feel as if they are part of a larger online community. Just as with social media, ensure you actively respond to all comments and private messages.

No worries of questionable comments or spam being added, because you can set up your blog in a manner in which you can approve all outside comments before they go live.

Reason #7 Builds Brand Loyalty

You can have the best products or services in the world, but if you do not build brand loyalty, your number of repeat customers is likely to be low. As an online-only business or a business who sells online to clients from around the nation or around the globe—you must find a way to build brand loyalty.

While your blog alone will not build brand loyalty, it plays a key role in the process. As long as your posts are an appropriate balance of professional, fun, relevant, and informative—they will help to build loyalty. Don’t forget to highlight your community and charity involvement in your blog posts, as customers like to support businesses who are connected to something larger than themselves.

Reason #8 Provides The Potential To Go Viral

Your blog posts must have buttons that allow readers to quickly and easily share your posts on social media and/or email them to friends. Whether you post a blog with an inspirational story, or engaging video—the ability to share it with the masses, provides the potential for it to “go viral.”

Even if you do not achieve millions of shares, you can reach a much larger portion of your target audience by consistently posting engaging and relevant blogs.

Reasons #9 Supports Your Social Media Marketing Efforts

Each blog post you create has a unique URL, that can be added to your social media posts—and linked back to in your other online marketing efforts. You can add buttons to “like” or “share” your blogs posts, which is an essential part of expanding your reach on social media.

Don’t forget to have buttons on your website and blog that also link back to your social media profiles, which will further help you achieve more fans and followers.

Reason #10 It’s A Free Marketing Platform

Regardless of your marketing budget, your blog is a highly effective form of free marketing. While you may choose to pay to promote some of your blog posts, each post will garner an ongoing stream of organic traffic. Some posts will be relevant for months, and others will be relevant for years—but the traffic they draw takes nothing other than an investment of your time to create and post.

The 10 reasons above are the most noteworthy reasons why e-commerce blogs are beneficial. While results will not be achieved overnight, your e-commerce blog will begin to pay off within your first few months.

Source – https://www.outbrain.com/help/advertisers/why-ecommerce-site-should-have-blog