A lot of E-commerce store owners have tried to establish a blog, only to give up on it a few months later. This is usually because of unrealistic expectations, and the idea of success before commitment (See the 2nd quote from the bottom).
Other E-commerce store owners might have the commitment and drive to succeed, but lack the ideas on what to blog about, and how the blog and the E-commerce store plays together.
This is my 5 ideas on how a blog can benefit any E-commerce store.
Find strong communities in your products
Part of blogging is to establish a following, a tribe, a community. Most products already have a huge community already. Let’s take an online bike store as an example. They sell both mountain bikes and road bikes. Each “category” has its own community already, so the bike shop could blog about lots of interesting stuff related to mountain biking:
- How do you ride up a steep hill
- How do you safely decent
- How do you clean your bike
And for road bikes:
- How to climb Alp d’Huez
- How to achieve optimal gear shifts
- How to decrease your bike’s weight
Also, if you can find a niche in your products, target that niche. It is much easier for your blog to succeed if you target a smaller niche, rather that a wide segment.
Teach, but don’t self promote
Most of all, your blog should be educational for your readers. So getting back to our bike store, you should not blog about the brand new Trek mountain bike and why anyone should buy that, and never write they should buy from you! Don’t self promote.
Instead, write your blog post for the general term of mountain biking, so anyone with a mountain bike can follow your blog. The interesting part happens when people who would like to have a mountain bike start reading about your wonderful tips, and decides to buy one. Which online bike store would they go to first? Yours, of course.
You should skip the salesy approach, and out-teach your competition, instead of trying to out-spend them.
Write “How To” posts, that include several products
When writing a blog post about how to clean your mountain bike after returning from a trail, make sure to include a couple of products the reader can use to better clean the bike. Find products that compliments the bike. There might be some great tools to use when cleaning the chain, brakes and gear-parts.
After cleaning the bike, should you add some rustproofing material? What about the brakes? The chain?
Anything that makes the reader feel they’re taking better care of their bike, because of your tips will benefit you. It builds trust, and establishes you as an expert in this niche.
Blog about events in your niche
This is a hugely underestimated tactic for blogging. Whenever something big happens in your industry, you need to get some content out there to target people following the big event/news. Your chances of getting lots of traffic are quite good. Try to search for iPhone 5 in Google. You’ll find dedicated blogs that even have iPhone5 in their domain name, like www.iphone5rumours.com.
This is a good example of arriving early to the party. They know that an iPhone 5 will be released sooner or later, so why not join the rumor wagon?
Getting back to our bike store, you want to blog about events going on in your niche. So the Tour de France, Giro’d Italia and Vuelta a España are obvious events to blog about. People follow those races all over the world. Yoou could write about lots of related things, such as:
- How they work to prepare for the Tour (Pro tip: Don’t write about doping!)
- What they eat before and during the Tour
- The equipment they use, what it costs – just as a fun comparison
Connect your blog with Facebook, Twitter and E-mail marketing
Don’t make your blog an island. Build bridges from your blog to the rest of your marketing efforts such as Facebook, Twitter and E-mail marketing.
Specifically, this means you should:
- have a sign-up form to your E-mail list on your blog
- tell your e-mail subscribers about your best blog posts
- have a Facebook Page box on your blog
- post new blog posts on your Facebook Page’s wall
- have a Twitter Stream widget on your blog
- post new blog posts to Twitter
Remember, if you want to start a blog to drive traffic to your e-commerce store – be patient, consistent and don’t give in a month later because you’re disappointed. Commit to making your blog a success, it takes a lot of time and energy so stick with it!