Is blogging helpful for an ecommerce website? The answer is a resounding ‘Yes’.
Take the case of Marcus Sheridan owner of River Pools and Spas. His blog post on fiberglass pool costing led to sales worth more than $1.7 million for his swimming pool company.
While it is rare for a single blog post to lead to such huge amount in sales, there are numerous small businesses that have seen substantial increase in their conversion over the long term. According to a study by Hubspot, businesses that blog get 55% more visitors and 97% more inbound links.
Here is how blogging can help your ecommerce site in the long run:
- Blogging improves SEO
Blogging regularly leads to better ranking on search engines such as Google and Bing. More blog posts mean more indexed pages for Google to crawl. An average company that blogs has 434% more indexed pages compared to one that does not blog. This translates to better ranking on Google.
Search engines also prefer sites that are updated regularly with fresh content. This is why adding new blog posts regularly will boost your rankings.
Blogging will also give you an opportunity to rank for keywords that do not fit into your product pages. For example an ecommerce website selling bicycles cannot target popular keyword ‘best bicycles for mountain trails’ unless they write a blog about it. Blogging will also increase keyword density of important keywords in your site and drive up your rankings.
Lastly blogging allows other bloggers or businesses to link to your informative post and earn you precious back links. Blogs are also sharable and this helps to optimize your site for search engines.
- Helps in Branding
All successful businesses are great storytellers. Nobody wants to visit a site with just a list of products. Blogging is an effective way to tell your brand story.
Blog lends a personality and voice to your website. Visitors can know more about your business and product philosophy through blogs. Blogs can be used to connect with your visitors and build a relation with them.
An informative blog that addresses reader’s pain points will keep them coming back for more. Educating your readers with what they are passionate about will build a certain brand authority in their mind. They will turn to you for any query in your industry. This helps to establish a loyal online community that values your brand.
- Increases Conversions
Yes, blogging has a direct impact on your sales conversions too. In fact, businesses that prioritize blogging experience 13 times increase in ROI according to Hubspot. This is because of the continuous stream of traffic that blogs drive to your website. The marketing ‘rule of 7’ says that most of your prospects won’t buy from you unless they have seen your brand at least seven times.
A quality blog will keep your audience coming back and make sure that you are on top of their mind when they think of purchase in your industry.
- Supports Content Marketing and Inbound Sales
Blogging provides a continuous stream of content to drive your content marketing. Sharing others content can build audience, but how do you make sure your following becomes your traffic to ecommerce site?
Blogs are an integral part of inbound methodology to convert visitors into leads. This can be done by inserting a call to action in your blog itself. This could be a discount coupon, free guidebooks or free shipping in lieu of their email id.
Sharing your own quality content will build your brand authority, drive traffic and also convert it to customers in your ecommerce business.
- Customer Touch point
Blogs are also a great way to be in touch with your prospects and customers. Encourage your readers to comment on your post to have a dialogue with them. This drives up user engagement and gives your readers a sense on involvement in the business. Blog comments can also be used to choose the next topic for your blog. Many of the successful blogs just answer the most pressing questions that customers in their industry have. Encouraging a two way communication on your blogs will drive user engagement, conversion and feedback.
The importance of a blog for an ecommerce site must be clear after reading this. So have you started on your blogging journey yet?