How to Set up Your Ecommerce Blog in 4 Steps

Are you thinking of setting up a blog for your online store?

Well here at AmeriCommerce we just love to blog and it's not hard to see why...

Did you know that when companies blog 20 or more times in a month, they see the most return in traffic and leads?

We can't reiterate enough that it will bring traffic to your site – hey it brought you here didn’t it? But that's not only reason to set up an Ecommerce blog...

Do I really need a blog?

The answer to that question is simple, yes you do. But don't take our word for it, let's look at the cold hard stats...

• 92% of companies who blogged multiple times a day acquired customers through their blog.

Blogging doesn’t have to take the shine away from your products. In fact, it can be the perfect tool to showcase them! If you want to see more customers coming your way then it's time to get busy blogging!

• Companies that blog receive 97% more links to their website

Building your inbound links is pretty darn important. It's the stepping stone to bringing leads to your store and moving you higher up the search rankings.

• Companies with over 400 indexed pages generated the most traffic and leads

Whenever Google checks your site, it ranks you higher if you have more pages because Google loves to see new content! So the more blog posts you write, the more pages you'll have on your site.

• Blogs have been rated as the 5^th most trusted source for accurate online information

Building customer trust is really important to the success of your store. And if you start creating great blog content, you'll be proving to your audience that you are a reputable business, and you can be trusted.

So how do you get started? Follow these 4 easy steps....

Step 1: Come up with fresh ideas

First step to blogging to come up with your blog topics.

Now, we're about to let you in on a big secret - blogging isn’t just a random thing. Your blog topics and titles will make all the difference to how much traffic you see, so you need to get this part right.

Don't just write a blog because you think it'll direct traffic. Do your research and find out exactly what it is that your customers want to read about.

As an Ecommerce owner, your audience will typically be interested in finding out how you can solve their problems with your product.

Your blog goals should be:

• Convince people you are an expert
• Offer advice and how-to guides
• Show how you can solve your customers problems
• Provide visuals for a more engaging post

So when it comes to your blog, you need to grab their attention with a powerful headline. If you check out the HelpScout blog you can see that they use powerful headlines and simple images to encourage people to click onto the post and read further. 

Top tip: If you're struggling to come up with clickable headlines then check out forums. It's here that your customers will be asking questions to the problems they have.

Step 2: Create a publishing calendar

A publishing calendar will help to keep your blog organized so that you don't miss out on creating a single post. Once you start to blog regularly you'll begin to build a following of people who actually want to subscribe to your posts. So the last thing you want to do is let your fans down!

Creating a publishing calendar may sound like a lot of hard work, but it doesn’t have to be.

Don't wait until your publishing date to come up with ideas. Set aside a couple of hours per month to come up with a content schedule that details your blog post titles, the date you're going to write them, and the dates in which you want them to go live. That way, you'll be all the more likely to stick to the schedule.

Once you know your publishing dates, make sure that you align it with your social calendar so that it doesn’t clash with any other content. Your blog content should be given as much promotion as possible, but we'll come to that soon.

Top Tip: Check out editorial calendar tools such as Google Docs , Kapost, WordPress Editor , or HubSpot. You can collaborate with colleagues and decide on topics to keep your blog super organized.

Step 3: Create and set up your post

So now you're ready to create your blog post!

Did you know that out of the 80% of people that read your headline, only 20% will continue to read the rest of the post. Ouch!

When a person lands on your post they will make an assumption as to whether it's worth their time reading on, so it's super important that your blog is engaging as can be.

Our top tips for creating an engaging post:

• Use powerful headlines that sum up what each paragraph is about
• Break your content up with bullet points
• Use stats that will back up what you are saying
• Include examples with images, infographics, or videos
• Ask your readers questions and encourage them to leave comments
• Wrap up your post with an actionable takeaway and CTA.

How to set up a post

Depending on your content manager will depend on how you set up your post, but generally it's an incredibly easy thing to do. You can schedule your posts and include keywords to make sure your post gets the exposure that it deserves.

If you are using the AmeriCommerce platform then you're in luck because we made a video about how easy it is to set up a post. Check it out below! 

Step 4: Promote your post

The last and final step is to get busy promoting your post!

The first place to promote it is across your social channels. Pay attention to when your audience is most active and work that into your publishing schedule. Be sure to take advantage of Social Media Management tools so that you can schedule your posts to automatically publish to your social channels.

And, depending on how much budget you have you can also pay to promote your blog. This will help target a larger audience for a better response.

Related reading: How to use Twitter ads to grow your Ecommerce store

For further exposure of your post, another great tip is to find influencers who have blogged about similar topics in the past. You can contact them to let them know that you appreciate their work and have blogged about a related topic – and then ask if they would they either link to your page or share your post on their social feed.

By attracting influencers within your niche to share your posts, you'll gain more exposure and drive credible inbound links to your online store.

Takeaway

The truth is, blogging doesn’t have to fill you with dread. It's easy, it's cost effective and if you do it right, it won't take up much time.

And since we just showed you how to do it in 4 simple steps, what have you got to lose?

Get busy blogging today and if you want an customer-built blog to go along with your online store then give us a call today!