Blogs can be incredibly effective for web stores because of various reasons. Everything revolves around the fact that you basically gain a communication channel that reaches your current and potential customers. The “discussions” that happen can be about inventory purchases, trends, news, sales, events and practically any topic that would be beneficial for the business. It is really easy to make your own blog thanks to open source CMS like WordPress and every business, including ecommerce sites, can benefit from creating one.
Obtaining Genuine Feedback
Most of the blogs will allow comments. For a web store, this means that customers are able to comment on the postings and offer the feedback that they have. This in itself is beneficial because it enhances connectivity. Every single marketer out there will tell you that making a sale is much easier when the potential customer is engaged. That is exactly what you can obtain through the comments section of a blog that is associated to the web store.
Use the blogs to present new products or services. Ask questions about the shopping experience. See what the customers like and do not like about the store. All this and much more can be done with the use of a simple blog.
Increased News Visibility
Did you launch a new product? The blog is the perfect channel to showcase the news and increase your company’s visibility. Blogs associated with blogs make it a lot easier to talk about upcoming product categories or simply about things of interest for the company. This is so much easier than constantly adding reminders and notices on the pages of a web store.
There are many situations in which web stores have to be redesigned to include a news section. Alternatively, manual HTML modifications are necessary. This means that there is a need to work with a designer, which would cost a lot more than simply adding a new blog post.
Highlighting Specific Web Store Sections
The blog that is associated with the web store can easily be used in order to highlight some web store sections. There is no longer a need to redesign the navigation bar of the store when temporary promotions are promoted by the marketing department. Targeted links can be promoted every single day, week or month.
Associated SEO Benefits
The truth is that web stores are not seen as high authority websites by search engines. This is only the case when there is also a lot of extra content added to most of the products presented. A huge problem with web stores is that unique content is limited. Duplicate content can appear and the SEO structure of the site is not optimal.
When you add a blog to your web store you automatically gain various SEO benefits. The web store pages will appear higher in search engines. However, this is only possible in the event that you consistently deliver high quality unique content.
Remember that all the extra links appearing through blog posts will be seen as important additional references by the major search engines.
Using Blogs To Educate Customers
The blog offers a great media source that the customer can use in order to learn more about the products that are to be purchased. Also, it is possible to learn more through the comments/feedback that appears in the comments section of a blog post.
Smart internet marketers have been using blogs for a really long time to help people learn more about the products that are offered in an associated web store. This is actually a great way to properly use the blogs. At the end of the day, such a web presence is all about the content that is delivered. It is really important that all articles are of a very high quality. Web surfers appreciate the content that teaches them something new. As long as the content you offer on the web store blog is associated with the industry, it is a certainty that it will be beneficial for the entire business.
Using Blogs To Increase Social Media Presence
No site owner can deny the importance of having a really strong social media presence. Many do this through social media advertising campaigns. This is definitely an option that you can consider if the budget is available but you should seriously think about incorporating blogs in your social media marketing campaigns.
Having a web store blog is perfect for the social media profile of a company. Blog posts can be used as high quality shares on the store’s Facebook pages and statistics show that conversion rates are higher when a proper landing page is promoted. You can basically create a wonderful landing page on the blog and then promote it with the use of social media. At the same time, you can easily write tutorials and “how-to” articles. These can go viral online and bring in a lot of traffic on the blog. When the content is great, this automatically means that more people will see the products. Sales can easily be increased when there is a quality blog developed around a web store and proper social media development.
Using Blogging Portals and Communities To Increase Sales
The main goal of a blog is to connect with those that are interested to make a purchase. One strategy that is quite useful in this case is to visit sites where potential customers already read blog posts. For instance, in the event that the web store covers a large niche like fashion or technology, blogging portals developed for such a customer set can be quite beneficial. Look for such communities and see if it is possible to add the blog posts or the blog feed.
Such an approach is great because you take advantage of traffic that is already high for the blogging portals that are popular and the exposure gained can be quite huge.
Always think about the various options that are available and do not dismiss the advantages associated with using blogs to increase web store sales.
