I‘ve worked with thousands of clients who are looking to start an online business, particularly eCommerce based, and I’ve heard this very question over and over again.
I have to admit, it is a valid question, one that caused me to reflect on the concept and ask myself, “Why do I really blog for my eCommerce site anyway?”
To help us answer this question, let’s first review what blogging really is.
Wikipedia explains blogs in the following way:
A blog is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order. Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of most early blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual although some focus on photographs (photo-blog), sketch-blog, videos (vlog), or audio (podcasting), and are part of a wider network of social media. The term “blog” is derived from “Web log.” “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. As of November 2006, blog search engine Technorati was tracking nearly 60 million blogs.
Other explanations I’ve heard about blogs include “online journal”, “digital newspaper”, and “web logs”.
Why are blogs so important when it comes to eCommerce?
Isn’t a blog just something else you have to work on and spend time doing? You bethya! However, the return on investment of a blog can come in a variety of ways.
4 Reasons Why Blogging is for eCommerce
- Free (or very inexpensive) Targeted Advertising: there are many free options out there. My favorites are wordpress.com and blogger.com. I use both of them but lean more and more to wordpress.com because of all the functionality. Having multiple blogs, in relation to your website, can be so helpful: it’s a way to build additional quality links – ways that search engines can find your website. As you make posts on your blog, you can create anchor links to specific pages of your new website using keyword phrases. This is off-site advertising at its best! If you want even better recognition, purchase a domain name from GoDaddy
and get your blog hosted for a low monthly fee.
- Build Industry Credibility: the more quality information you post about products, services, and information within your industry, the more your visitors (and potential buyers) can see that you know what you’re talking about; they can trust in the products you are offering. Without content and quality information to back up buying decisions, buyers will probably look elsewhere.
- Affiliate Marketing Opportunities: blogs can give you a few different ways to actually make money in addition to selling products online. The first is through Google Adsense, a pay-per-click campaign that makes money as visitors click on the advertising links. Google Adsense is free to set up and can be a great supplemental income to your business plan, at least to start. Other affiliate marketing campaigns on blogs can be product reviews with companies like CJ.com and Amazon.com. Sign up for these free accounts and start applying for affiliates within your industry or that compliment what you are doing. The pay may not be as good as getting products at a wholesale price and reselling at a retail price, but at least you give yourself the opportunity to make money (and there’s no cost).
- Your eCommerce Competitors are Blogging: that’s right, your competitors are probably blogging right now so you better take this post serious and start blogging too! Not only does blogging show that you know what you’re talking about in your industry, but it’s also very helpful for search engine optimization purposes too. Some of my biggest masses of traffic to my eCommerce store have come due to blog posts I’ve done about industry news. As potential clients searched for these topics in Google, guess who’s blog post they found at the top of the page? Not only did this help build my brand and reputation online, but these same blog posts had a direct connection with increased sales on my eCommerce site.
If you haven’t been blogging for your eCommerce website yet, don’t worry, there’s still time. Many business just seem to be getting the hang of blogging and doing it on a more consistent basis. The best recommendation I can give you as a new eCommerce blogger is to make sure you remember the key word for effective blogging – Consistency:
- How often you post – whether it’s once a day, week, or whatever, it’s important that you post new information on a consistent basis if you want readers to come back.
- What you write about- if you have questions about this see my post about the importance of focus.
- Anchor links – we don’t want to overdo the anchor links to our website, but it’s important to make keyword links to other pages (deep linking)
- Product Reviews - if you are selling products on your website, it’s a good idea to do reviews from time to time – tell visitors why your products are better than the competition (use testimonials and feedback from clients)
- Posting to other people’s blogs - find blogs you like that relate to what you are marketing and make good comments, asked to guest post, and get them involved in what you do too.
What are your thoughts about blogging for an eCommerce business?
Nate Moller has been teaching clients about how to start an online business for almost five years. He consults small to medium sized business, helping them establish and implement a blogging & social media marketing strategy to grow their business. Read more about Nate at MollerMarketing.com and follow him on Twitter (@mollermarketing).
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{ 32 comments }
Nice post.
I think you always need a blog, no matter what business you are in. The more personal and interactive you are with your customer/readers the more your business will grow, and the best way to do that is with a blog.
Simple, Inexpensive.. blog is a no brainer to any niche business growth.
Hey John,
Thanks for the comment and adding your insight. I, like you, think that EVERYONE should be blogging, whether they have a business or not. Blogging is the new “journal writing” or “family history”. It’s an excellent way to interact with your customers/readers or even family and friends.
Thanks again!
It does come as a surprise as to the reasons given by business do not make use of blogs and social media. I suppose that they cannot directly see any ROI.
After all, you post a blog post, you do not get direct sale from that. Well not as a rule.
But what they fail to see is the long term returns, the brand awareness, the engaging with your audience. Promoting your goods. THere are so many pro’s to blogging.
Oh and by the way, most would say that blogging is free. It is not, it costs time. Time is money/ Some people get paid a whole lot of money for their time.
Robert,
Personally I feel that businesses that haven’t jumped on the blogging and social media train will be passed up (if they haven’t been already) by their more “up to speed” competitors.
Yes, it is hard to measure ROI on blogging and social media from time to time, but, as you said, the long term returns are invaluable, especially for brand and reputation management.
Thanks for the comment.
It’s the easiest and the hardest thing to do. While it is easy to set it up and start writing posts, that writing is also the hardest. I know from my experience, I am still new to blogging, and I am using a (newbie) blogger.com platform, and a standard template, but I still don’t find all of that that important as the content. I often have hard time writing even about things that I have a plan how to write and present.
And I also believe that blogging, even if done only to make money, is the most ethical way of making money online, as you, like it or not, provide at least a certain degree of value to your readers/visitors.
Hey Davor,
There’s a great article at ProBlogger that is titled “ProBlogging: 10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started” – I recommend reading it as it will give you “pro blogging” perspective.
Content is critical; however, what I’ve seen is that some people write the BEST content in the blogging community but, due to lack of design, a credible hosting platform and domain name, and lack of awareness of what it takes to connect, their blogs ONLY get read by their family and friends.
I agree 100% that blogging is a great way to provide value to readers and visitors, if and only if it gets read by the right people.
Thanks for your comment. Look forward to hearing back from you.
You should blog for many reasons and the best one is to have a relationship with fellow bloggers.
Thanks Fas!
I agree that building the business relationship with your fellow bloggers (and potential clients) is one of the best reasons to start an ecommerce blog.
Talk soon!
I definitely agree that every business should be online and every online business should have a blog. Not only is it a chance to be interactive with their customer base but the search engines love blogs and frequently updated content which you just don’t get with a static site … especially with a bunch of products. Great post … thanks! *SmiLes* Suzanne
Couldn’t have said it better! How are ya, Suzanne? It’s been a while, huh?
Yan
PS: Nate did a great post indeed! A timely reminder for those who aren’t yet making their businesses visible online.
Thanks for the comments Suzanne. I agree that Blogs = Search Engine Friendly content creation!
@Yan – thanks for the positive feedback.
Truth is, every single business, student, individual of any kind needs a blog. It is the modern day business card. Great post!
Hey Ray,
Blogging IS the modern day business card and it’s much more credible too, especially if you have a hosted blog with a real domain name.
Thanks for the comment!
I would have to definately suggest everyone who wants or is currently involved in eccommerce to get into blogging simply because of the speed of indexing. You could write a webpage and wait weeks to be indexed versus making a blog entry and getting indexed within minutes. Using plugins like tweet this, twitter tools and the google sitemap generator you could be pulling a really heavy stream of traffic from the engines just seconds after a post.
Amen! Blog = quick indexing for sure. I’ve also seen the direct results of blogging about something newsworthy and having that article get top placement and loads of unique visitors. And then I think to myself, Blog On!
Besides the fact that you build a relationship with your customers GOOGLE loves wordpress blogs and it doesnt particularly like ecommerce stores. If you keep a blog updated it will dramatically help your ecommerce site get crawled if you use internal backlinks.
Like I told Master Resale Rights…blogging has helped my clogging shoes ecommerce business get so much new traffic just by writing about The Fab Five on America’s Got Talent! LOL! It’s fun to set up a Google Alert for your website or blog address, blog, and then get an alert within a few minutes with Google notifying you that your site has been crawled again!
Thanks for the comment!
Thank for the informative article. I was on the fence for a long time with regards to blogging – takes too much time, what to write about, who’s going to read it… etc. I started several months ago and found it to be a great place to get casual with readers and not have to worry so much about SEO and the rest that goes with managing several websites. Besides, the spiders love to read them.
Hey Chuck,
It’s time to get off the fence and start blogging about your experience while you were there. You, like many others including me, probably didn’t get too much done towards your online marketing goals if you weren’t blogging.
What I’ve found is that there’s always something else I could be doing. I’m glad you’ve found blogging as a great place to get more casual with readers and not worry so much.
Thanks again for the comment and insight.
Let me know what you think about a recent post I did regarding “The Professional Blogger’s Blogging Checklist“.
Great blog that you have here
Absolutely love your knowledge and information
Will be coming back again very soon for more of the same
Mark McCulloch
Thanks for stopping by Mark. Hope the information helps you and can be applied.
Talk soon!
I’ve been blogging for my eCommerce site for months before the store even launched. Though I’ve been at it for a while, I still have some challenges to overcome, such as posting more frequently. I take it that once a week is not nearly enough!
Hey Carla!
Thanks for the comment. It’s great to hear that you’re taking blogging so seriously even BEFORE your store launched.
One of the best things I’ve found is scheduled blog posting. Maybe you only dedicate 2-3 hours per week to blogging, but when you do dedicate that time, you write out and research as much quality content as possible. Then schedule it to post every couple days.
Then, when you have something come up that you HAVE to blog about, you now appear to be blogging practically every day!
Keep me posted on your progress!
Nate Moller
Hi Nate,
Thanks for the advice and tips! That is something for me to try in 2010!
Carla
Hey Nate
I am looking forward to getting started. This is all new to me. I do agree with you that blogging is a vital part of your business. Thanks for the great info
Hey Robin,
Great to hear from you. Let me know how your new blogging experience is going.
Keep the questions coming!
Most blogs are primarily textual although some focus on photographs (photo-blog), sketch-blog, videos (vlog), or audio (podcasting), and are part of a wider network of social media
Which blog experience have you found most effective for your online eCommerce business?
Hi Nate! I am finally getting why a blog, now it is just making the time to blog. I am especially interested in the affiliate marketing and what that is all about. I have a large company that I work with that now has an affiliate marketing program and wanted to see what I should know about it before moving forward with it. Maybe we can talk about it during our next meeting!
Hi Nate,
It’s been a little while. Hope all is well with you.
Thanks for all of your e-mails. They are very much appreciated.
Business has been slow, so I feel thats a great time to read up on more ways of how to market.
Been working on my blogging lately, and find it kind of fun with new posts, and looking up info. that is new to me. Need to start going on other peoples blogs though.
Please send any info. that you have about how to post effectively on other blogs and get my site out there with linking through posts.
Thanks a million. Your stuff is priceless for my growth.
Its a very good idea blogging at your e-commerce site, but don´t try to make money on Adsense or other affiliate plans. You will soon look “not serious” for the visitor, because it seems that you don´t trust in your own shop.
I agree that blogging is an important part of a good online strategy, it is also a bib commitment though. You really have to think about how you are going to keep writing interesting and compelling content, there is nothing worse than a blog which the last post is 9 months old!
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