Why blogging still drives massive footfall to ecommerce stores

At face value, blogging for ecommerce stores might seem redundant – you’re trying to sell products, not ideas. But, in reality, a blog is a vital part of any website’s marketing strategy, especially when it comes to ecommerce marketing. It allows you to connect with potential customers in a way that other channels don’t allow for, at points in their journey where they’re ready to act or exploring their options. 

HubSpot reports that companies with blogs can increase their lead generation by 67% per month, and a recent study shows that 61% of customers make purchases after reading a blog. This highlights just how effective blogging can be, regardless of industry.  

Catch customers as they make their decisions 

Blogging isn’t just SEO filler content. It’s an opportunity to catch customers during the vital decision-making process when purchasing a product. With most consumers using blogs during the research process, it goes without saying that quality written content can help improve sales from sources that product pages can’t. 

Customers have questions, give them answers 

By catching customers in their research stage, you can influence their decisions by being the one to provide reliable answers to their questions. Utilise keyword research to figure out what questions your customers are asking about your products, your market and your industry, and use this as the basis of a blog strategy. For the questions that you can quickly answer, use these as Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) - a section of your blog where common questions are answered - and for those that require deeper exploration, use those as a basis for an informative blog post. 

As generative AI becomes more mainstream, consumers are turning to AI for their recommendations and research. Appearing in AI search can be vital for drawing in a wider breadth of web users, especially when Large Language Models (LLMs) work to answer questions. By crafting your blog posts with an answers-focused approach, you can make sure you appear wherever your customers are searching. 

Prove that you are the expert 

Google loves blog posts that prove expertise, and so do customers. By providing insights from your experience, you can build trust with your audience and gain authority within your niche. This will help you grow your audience whilst also proving to Google that your website should be ranked higher in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). 

Stretch it across multiple channels 

Blog posts don’t just need to be dumped onto your website and forgotten about; they also provide a core for further content marketing. You can rework your blog posts into your organic social media strategy, such as a LinkedIn post, or an Instagram carousel post, which will help drive engagement from your established audiences. You can also use blogs within email marketing campaigns, helping boost the content in your newsletters. 

Strengthen your website 

From a technical SEO perspective, blogs can help strengthen your website’s structure and boost your other pages by utilising an internal linking strategy. By linking to important pages on your website and using related keywords as the anchor text (or clickable text), you can show search engines that the destination page is relevant to that keyword.  

With consumers, internal linking can provide an incentive for new users to keep browsing your site, giving them the opportunity to research more into your product offerings, or further insights from your other blog posts. 

Any traffic is good traffic 

A major factor in improving your sitewide organic traffic is by getting traffic in the first place. While this initially sounds backwards, search engines want to serve content that web users will like, which can be determined by traffic stats from other sources. By strengthening traffic from sources that aren’t your product and collections pages, the benefits will be shared across your whole site, allowing your website to generally rank higher for your keywords. 

Implementing this into your ecommerce blog strategy 

Now we’ve established why a blog is important, we can explore how to write a blog for an ecCommerce website, and how to work our tips into your wider content marketing strategy. 

Quality over quantity 

While more content can help cover more topics, a high-quality blog with less posts tends to perform better. By focusing on Google’s E-E-A-T – Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness - guidelines, you can write blogs that are more meaningful, and more likely to future engagement with your website. 

Find out what works in your industry 

Your competitors are a great source of ideas when it comes to overall digital marketing. Lean on their efforts to explore what works in your industry. From an SEO perspective, you can explore who is ranking for keywords you’re targeting with your blogs and analyse why they are ranking so well. 

Optimise everything 

Ensure that your blogs are meeting SEO best practices, whilst also maintaining the overall quality. Conduct keyword research, and make sure those keywords are incorporated organically into the content and metadata of the post. Ensure that each blog is littered with internal links to maximise the potential for further clicks into your site. 

Be proactive and prepare for seasonality 

Research and preparation can ensure that your blog is ranking at the right time and being found by the right people. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Start working on a blog strategy as soon as possible. Prepare your seasonal-themed blogs at least a month before they’re going live and post them as early into the season as possible. For example, a Christmas related post uploaded in November will have more time to build traffic, than one uploaded in December. 

By planning ahead, you can ensure that you’re not only posting regularly, but that you can allow time for effective research. If you need help getting traffic to your ecommerce store, then contact our SEO experts for a free audit.