Publishing lots of blogs and going nowhere? Stop debating which blogs should be written, how they should be written and why!
What type of blog content should an e-commerce website create?
One of our most common conversations about blog content involves answering these questions:
- How long should the content be?
- What are the key performance metrics that will show us success?
- What type of content should we create?
A great blog operation for a great brand should have a mixture of blogs that attack a variety of goals. Grasping some of the different goals and how to attack them will help you to make sure that your content is efficiently attacking your goals. It should be short when it can be short. It should be monstrously long when this is what is called for. You should know when to invest in a promotional budget for your content and when the depth and hard work will speak for itself over time.
Goal #1 Target New Keywords
Target specific keywords where there is a void or you have defined a topic as high priority. Look for keywords that have reasonable volume and your website does not currently rank in the search engines.
We can run a keyword gap report that compares all of the keywords that a website ranks for vs all of a competitor’s keywords. From there, we can easily find keyword areas to attack.
Why? This will help a website rank for keywords that it does not yet rank for. The goals should be to rank for keywords organically and increase traffic that results in sales, email subscribers, or user engagement including time-on-site.
What type of content?
- Top product list content
- Product reviews
- How to
Goal #2 Promote Priority Products
Why? These products might have high margins, excess inventory, or maybe this product is just the new cool thing on the block.
What type of content?
- Deals, promotions
- Product reviews and “how to” blogs can work, but remember that in this category the goal involves short-term wins (sales), not long term keyword rankings. You can keep it short rather than go for depth.
You should consider a paid budget for this type of content and make sure that you blast this out to your email list.
Goal #3 Earn Incoming Links
These blogs exist to eventually increase sales, but not because you plan to convert visitors from this page into customers. You want to earn incoming links and this is a primary goal of these blogs.
Why? Incoming links to your blog can power the rankings for your entire website. These blogs don’t need to convert traffic into sales and this is not their goal. The goal is to acquire natural links and give link builders something to work with.
What kind of content?
This is the toughest question to answer on this page. For an e-commerce site, you can start by thinking about unique, proprietary photos or data that belongs to you. Provide value to your industry and to readers. Aim to create in-depth content that is useful and that other people will link to.
Goal #4 Convert Email Subscribers, Create Sales Tools
Why? Increase conversions from other channels besides the blog within your brand’s ecosystem. This content can be referenced and shared from other website pages, from the newsletter, from social media and beyond.
What kind of content? Infographics are a favorite choice here. These can usually be given an effective and catchy title, and these can get a value proposition across to a reader quickly. For example, a great way to sell Product A would be to compare the cost savings of Product A vs Product B.
Goal #5 Increase Trust and Brand Recognition
Why? If you made it this far, you probably know why. We are marketers and this is a part of what we do. Increasing trust and brand recognition can increase website conversion rates, keep people in the sales funnel, and set your brand apart.
What kind of content?
Behind the scenes and “about us” content is often created with the goal of creating trust and brand recognition. Try putting your owner’s face and name out there. This would be a great time for them to do a video blog.
Goal #6 Build Your Brand
Why? Be unique, memorable, in line with what you and your customers think and feel. Some blogs are just awesome and should be written for the sake of being written
What kind of content? Here are a few very different examples that all share one thing in common. They can define your brand.
Try one of these default ideas: Historical timelines behind a product, lists of industry charities to support, top Instagrammers to follow.
Attack Them All!
A great blog may attack most of these goals and they are not mutually exclusive. You should be giving website visitors what they want and in some cases this is short content that gets right to the point. Other content needs to be long and in-depth and it is your job to know what to order from your writers.
