How a Blog can benefit your eCommerce business – an introduction

The term ‘blog’ is used a lot these days. Long gone are the days where a blog is just a persons online diary. Blogs can now be used as an effective promotional tool for your business to improve SEO and give a better user experience. We aren’t going to go in to details of blogging platforms in this article, but be sure to check back as this will follow.

So how can a blog benefit my eCommerce site? well, there are plenty of ways. First of all, decide what you want your blog to do for you – is it to drum up more sales? is it to get more user interaction? maybe a combination of many different things.

Ways of using a blog to increase sales:

• In depth looks at products. This one is simple, make a video and/or do a detailed write up about a product. Make it personal and less formal than you would make a product detail page. Product reviews should always be honest and unbiased, if a product has problems then tell people but, make sure you communicate the good points well – this leaves the user in the position to make an informed decision about purchasing the product. Be sure to include some clear calls to action in or around these blog posts encouraging users to purchase.
• Helpful articles. Products are much more likely to sell if they are genuinely useful, so tell your potential customers some great ways in which they can use your products. Lets look at an example: lets say you sell some shelving units. Now, this is a pretty run of the mill product, but how about some clever and unique ways in which someone can use your shelves? how about an article like “The easiest way to store your vegetables this harvest”. This is clearly not going to appeal to everyone, but it gives your run of the mill product a new use, and solved a genuine problem. The articles should be complemented with images and/or video to support the article.
• Competitions and discounts. Blogs are a great way of communicating and receiving feedback – how about giving discount coupons or running competitions on your blog? Why not combine the two? create an article like this “10% off your next order, and a chance to have your whole order refunded!”

Ways of using a blog to get more customer interaction:

• Competitions and discounts. Yep, this one again but for more interaction take a different approach. How about “Comment on this post with a product you’d love to see on our website and get 10% off your next purchase!”
• Create articles which provoke discussion. Seems obvious, but you’d be surprised at how many people don’t do this well. If you want people to interact with you, then give them a reason to. This could be done by either asking questions within articles or by making a whole post which asks for peoples opinions. The more interesting or controversial the topic, the more chance of a good response in terms of comments.

Why having a blog is great for SEO:

• Search engines love unique content – create unique content and reap the rewards.
• Potential to make great backlinks and/or social followers.
• Give yourself more indexed pages in Google.

Of course, there are many more ways, this is just an introduction so make sure you check back for our latest tips!

Do you have any personal tips for eCommerce bloggers? share them with us using the comments box below!