5 Reasons Why Blogging Is Necessary For an E-Commerce Site
Blogs may have started as online personal diaries. They were just another way for bloggers to share their opinions, experiences, and advice to all who cared to read them. Over time, blogging has evolved to become hugely popular and versatile. According to WordPress, one of the most prominent blogging platforms in the world, more than 409 million people view over 22 billion blog pages every month. When properly used, a business blog can be one of the best and most accessible tools to any e-commerce business.
Here are the five biggest reasons why blogging is crucial for an eСommerce site:
Reason #1 It Can Build Awareness of Your Business
With millions of people reading blogs every day, the most obvious reason for your business to have its own blog is to let the blogosphere know that your company exists in the first place. However, there are some sophisticated ways to use blogs to create awareness of your e-commerce business.
Indirect Marketing
Your potential customers are already inundated with advertisements from all over the internet. Over time, they may learn to ignore these direct advertisements and product listings. Blogging, on the other hand, engages your audience with longer-form content in which they may be interested. It also forms a subtler way to direct a visitor’s attention towards the products and services of your e-commerce business.
More Opportunity for Social Sharing
Your business blog forms an integral part of your social media strategy. It forms material for social posts and allows for social media discussions, social sharing. This will lead to more frequent and more extended visits to your site and to greater user engagement.
Establish Your Brand
Because blog content is long-form and of a personal nature, it creates the perfect opportunity for a company to tell their story, share their objectives, and let the world know who they are. When the tone of the blog is in line with the company’s image and voice, it helps to establish the brand effectively.
Establish Yourself as an Authority and Expert, Leading To Credibility
Writing informative blog posts on matters relating to your product and your industry will demonstrate your expertise in the matter. Not only will readers keep returning to your blog for relevant information, but they will also come to view your business as competent and trustworthy. Up to 87% of blog readers say they have made a purchase based on recommendations from blogs.
Image Credit: Blog Her
Attract Attention of Influencers
Influencer marketing has helped to put many businesses on the map. By creating high-quality blog content, which is shared widely, you can attract the attention of other high-profile bloggers who may want to reference your content on their blogs. This can lead to your blog and website gaining exposure to a much broader audience. It can also help to gain links from some high authority sites, thus boosting your website’s sites search engine rankings.
Reason #2 SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is crucial for e-commerce. Blogging offers many opportunities to boost the rankings of your e-commerce site.
Some of these opportunities include:
- Blogging allows for the more extensive use of all keywords, without having to resort to keyword stuffing.
- Blogging creates the opportunity for a site to get more internal and external links. More blog pages will lead to more internal links to your homepage, while references to and social shares of the blog throughout the web will lead to a higher number of external links. On average, companies that blog receive 97% more inbound links as well as 434% more indexed pages on their website than companies who do not.
- Regular blogging will lead to a higher content frequency: Search engine algorithms reward the regular uploading of new content with higher rankings. Content frequency has also been shown to lead to higher customer acquisition rates.
- Blogging also helps to invite traffic and new users to your site. There may be users who might not be looking for your product, but they happen to visit your blog because they searched for an article which is published on your blog.
Image Credit: HubSpot
Reason # 3 Visitor Retention
Even though your site may get many first-time visitors, this will not necessarily lead to sales. The average conversion rate for an e-commerce site is 1% to 3%. This is why e-commerce sites need to offer visitors a good reason to keep returning to their site. A great blog forms such an opportunity. Once a visitor has found useful and engaging information on a website, they are more likely to return to it at a later stage.
Up to 95 % of first-time visitors to e-commerce site are merely there to research products and services without any intention of making a purchase or of talking to a sales rep. However, up to 70 % of these visitors will eventually buy a product or service from either you or your competitors.
Reason #4 More Extensive Engagement with Visitors
Tell a Fuller Story
The structure and nature of a blog post allow a business to relay information much more extensively than they would be able to with traditional advertising and with other social media platforms. It also allows for the use of various media formats. All of these can thoroughly entertain the reader, boost rankings, and form ideal content for social sharing.
Opportunities to Include Your Products
Simple product listings rarely manage to inform a site visitor about a product or even to get them interested. A blog, which includes more extensive descriptions and advice surrounding the product, can do this a lot more effectively. In these blogs, you can provide the story behind a particular product, describe its features in more detail and suggest ways to get the most out of their use.
Answer Customer Questions
Site visitors may have many questions about your business, your brand, and your products. An onsite FAQ page is a classic and effective way to tackle the common questions asked. However, a blog allows a business to address these common concerns more extensively while starting a conversation with their visitors and earning their trust.
Comments
Social media, including blogging, offer businesses many advantages over traditional forms of advertising. One of the greatest of these is the ability to communicate more directly with customers and to establish a two-way conversation. The comment section of a blog post is a great way to determine the efficacy of your blog posts in getting your message across. It also serves to address customer concerns and to establish a relationship with your site users.
#5 COST-EFFECTIVE MARKETING
Image Source: Pexels
Another fantastic advantage of blogging, along with other forms of social media, is the cheaper advertising it offers.
Blogging allows you to create content as often as you would like, and it allows you to promote your products and services in both direct and indirect ways.
Blogging forms a significant part of inbound marketing, which costs 62% less per lead than outbound marketing does. Inbound marketing is all about quality over quantity, regarding site visitors. Those coming to your site are those looking for the content you have to offer. This makes it easier for you to target your audience and influence buying in a more optimized way.
FINAL THOUGHTS
It can be challenging to find content ideas for your blog posts, as time goes on. There are no strict rules, but here are some examples of content that has proven most effective:
- Industry news and subsequent thoughts on these matters
- Advice surrounding your product and relevant topics surrounding it
- Personal/success stories relating to your business and brand
- Informative posts including statistics and case studies, relevant to your industry, products, and services.
Sometimes, it is best to monitor the responses you receive from your blogs and proceed from there. Remember that a blog is a way to start a conversation with your audience. Listening to their needs and responses is the best way to ensure that this conversation is a two-way conversation and not a monologue.
Read Also
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