3 Reasons Your E-Commerce Business Needs a Blog

A blog can be an incredibly effective tool for generating site traffic – and sales – plus building an overall audience for your e-commerce business. If your e-commerce site doesn’t already have a blog, here are three solid reasons to start one.

Reason 1: To help your site rank in search engines. Even with a small readership, a blog’s impact on search-engine optimization (SEO) can be huge. A blog provides additional pages on which to include pertinent keywords and phrases, which helps your site appear in more searches; for example, with a blog entry titled “Silver Jewelry for Bridesmaids,” your silver jewelry may come up via searches for wedding accessories as well as jewelry. Also, a regularly updated blog is a sign that you update your site, which search engines reward by bumping you up in their rankings.

Reason 2: To tell your story. Blogging gives a personal voice to your shop and helps establish an emotional connection with existing and potential customers. Because of space constraints and constantly updated feeds, most social media platforms can provide only limited glimpses at your products and mission, while a blog allows for longer copy, plus visuals and links. If you sell antique books, for example, you could describe in detail sources you use – like flea markets and estate sales – to find new books for your store with an entry titled, “Looking for Books: An Antiquer’s Perspective.” Readers may find your forays into acquiring new titles as engrossing as the books themselves, and that will keep them coming back for more stories.

Reason 3: To get noticed. Reporters and high-profile bloggers are always looking for new content, and a blog about what you sell may be just what they’re looking for. Let’s say you sell ladies’ shoes. A topic like shoes can be irresistible to online fashion magazines and style bloggers, especially if your content is timely and/or specific; for example, “Stylish Heels for Conservative Offices”. With a fresh point of view and links to your products, you could see your blog entry linked on other blogs, pinned on Pinterest or Tweeted – all with trackbacks to your site.

The Bottom Line
Blogging doesn’t have the instant impact of Facebook and Twitter, and may be more time consuming to develop content for than other social media options, but it can be time well spent for the rewards of increased traffic and search-engine rankings. Think about what motivated you to start your store, what your products mean to you, and how they can impact your customers. Before long, you’ll have plenty of inspiration for blog entries that get noticed … and get sales.