As an entrepreneur, who values both time and resources, you must know that making decisions to spend on expensive adverts is a calculated one. You must also know that simply ignoring the importance of creating valuable blogs is a missed opportunity.
This article will help you take the next bold step forward, to come up with the best blogging strategies for online stores. We offer you a step-by-step guide to really understand the power and value of blogging.
- Small businesses that blog generate 126% more leads than businesses that don’t, says @HubSpot. (getmatcha.com)
- 79% use content to successfully build brand awareness. (getmatcha.com)
- 81% use content to build customer loyalty and increase retention. (getmatcha.com)
- Consumers who read educational content are 48% more likely to buy after 1 week, says @Conductor. (getmatcha.com)
Blogging on Shopify is a must for the entrepreneur who wants to close gaps in the market and improve his or her conversion rate.
Key Considerations Before Starting Your Shopify Blog
It’s important to sit down and focus on creating your best strategy for blogging for your online store. This plan should clearly define your roadmap to blogging success.
Here are some key identifiers to include in your blogging strategy.
Consider The Purpose Of Your Business
Get in touch with the problem you are solving as a business owner. Highlight topics that will directly identify these problems.
A blog is an opportunity for your business to really stand out as a problem solver in a niche area. So put your thinking cap on, and identify the purpose of your business by laying out the solutions you bring to the market.
Improve Your Brand Visibility On Google
Improving the visibility of your brand on Google while addressing the problems you’re solving is key to achieving your marketing goals.
Always have the end goal in mind when blogging, because ultimately it is performance-driven to solve a problem and build brand awareness at the same time.
By creating relevant blogs you are targeting audiences that have the potential to leverage more sales conversations.
Identify Your Main Competitors And Their Content Strategy
Once you’ve targeted your strategy and while you’re busy with Keyword research, you will be able to ascertain who your main competitors are.
Check out their marketing strategy and aim to improve your own content strategy so you can really stand out above your peers. Keyword research is therefore an important part of marketing content strategy.
Ask Yourself How Suppliers May Be Relevant To Your Content Strategy?
When you have a great relationship with your suppliers it adds credibility to your brand, especially if the supplier is the manufacturer of your main product or an important affiliate of the service you are offering.
By leveraging authenticity and transparency in your content marketing and highlighting the mutually beneficial relationship between you and your supplier to your consumer, you gain credibility.
You may be more likely to benefit from a dedicated service, preferential pricing, and special terms.
Find Your Brand Voice
Understanding the importance of developing a unique brand voice in your content marketing is often overlooked. Don’t forget that every aspect of communication is relevant to driving brand awareness.
Decide, if you will write in the first, second, or third character. The last option is usually the most beneficial, as it lends you a more authoritative voice.
Strategies To Create High-Quality Blog Content
Research Keywords Related To Your Product Or Service
Now that you have defined the problems you are solving and determined the relevance of the topics to growing sales, you can start researching and identifying keywords to use in your blog to optimize your ranking on Google.
When you research keywords you would be in a better position to gain an understanding of the audience who are all searching for information relating to the solutions you are offering. By keeping the end-user in mind, you understand what resonates with them.
You will also start picking up on online trends amongst consumers who are searching for similar information related to your product and service. By strategically positioning these target keywords in the content of your blog you will be improving your Google rankings.
So when consumers use these keywords to search for information, articles will most likely pop up.
Hire A Professional SEO Writer
Keep in mind that as an entrepreneur your goal is to be innovative and profitable. When it comes to producing content for your blog, it might not happen at all, unless you delegate this task to a professional SEO writer.
Consider you might also decide to scale your marketing content material. Therefore you can’t afford to spend the whole day writing blogs and running a business at the same time.
An SEO writer will be skilled at incorporating your keywords naturally into the article. They know how to make Google happy, and will be able to determine the search intent for your article.
A skilled SEO content writer can write your metadata, and make sure the article is the correct length. These are all things that will help your article rank better on Google, leading to more traffic to your website.
Create Focused Engaging Blog Posts
To improve your SEO ranking and get noticed online as a brand, your content must meet certain requirements. It is vital to understand all the important elements that make an SEO article or blog worth the read. After all, most people only spend around 37 seconds reading a blog.
Content that is relevant to your product or service will stand out on Google. Solve problems, and answer the reader’s search intent. The aim is to reach a target audience that is searching for the keywords you use in your blog.
As a rule, avoid being overly promotional in your content. Less is more when it comes to being promotional and subtlety is key to driving organic growth. Be authentic and unbiased.
The length of the blogs will vary depending on the topic and the information you are going to provide. Proper keyword research and using software like Ahrefs and Frase.io will be able to offer you a proposed article length.
Don’t shy away from using humor and personality. Your blog post is not a research thesis. Keeping it conversational while being informative and providing value is key to engaging your audience.
The value you provide should trump being promotional. Remember you’re sharing information to build trust with new visitors as an industry leader. To do this, you need to come across as genuine.
Create CTA’s That Work
Add engaging and visually appealing CTAs to your article. This can come in the form of product promo videos and related product or resource lists.
Keep CTAs at the end of your article. This way you won’t distract from your content and by the end, the reader is convinced of your expertise and can easily view your products. Deliver value, and then ask for more.
Create An Editorial Calendar
Create an editorial calendar to streamline and organize all the blogs you will post each month. It’s a smart way to ensure planning, coordination, and consistency.
Business blogging requires consistency to ensure you gain enough traction to increase the organic growth of your business online.
If you don’t plan ahead and have a system in place to work for you, the blogging process will end up being frustrating, disorganized, and scattered.
Create an editorial calendar, stick to a plan and schedule your posts.
Strategies To Promote Your Shopify Blog
Share On Social Media
Using your social media channels to share your blog posts is a great way of ensuring that your entire brand community is well informed and up to date with all your new products.
Share your valuable insights, company stories, team profiles, and help your audience get to know your brand, not only your products.
Social media is where you grow your brand engagement and interest. Grow your community, provide valuable content and engage with your audience.
Consistency for sharing blogs on social media is also key, if you have enough content for the month, you can share your blogs consistently. Using your organized editorial calendar will help keep this consistency.
You can run ads on Facebook and Instagram to promote your products and your business further.
Use And Grow Your Email List
This is where you can gain a more personal one-on-one relationship with your customers. Studies show that it’s one of the most affordable ways to get the highest ROI.
Not everyone wants to buy right now, but adding these interested parties to an email list means that you have a means of contacting them when the time is right.
Use your blog to convert readers into subscribers, and bring them into your marketing funnel.
Do this by using well-placed pop-ups, subscribe bars, and offering something of value to subscribers. Deliver on promises and you’ll retain a potential future customer. Always start with a well-crafted welcome email.
It’s all about sending the right message at the right time. Plan your email marketing strategy carefully. Don’t spam, or you will lose subscribers.
Share your helpful and valuable content with your email subscribers. When subscribers aren’t shopping, this is how you can remain on their minds and keep them engaged.
Consider your audience and how they relate to your product. The information you provide should be relevant, interesting, and valuable to your target audience. The aim is to convert your email subscribers to customers by not overtly selling your product, but by creating trust and interest in your brand.
Use Pop-Ups On Your Website
Even though some have coined pop-ups as distracting, irritating, and annoying, the truth is that it has a high conversion rate and remains an essential feature of every website today.
A basic popup is really to ensure that your visitor can receive the value of the content you share online straight in his inbox. This is a great way of expanding your email list, by getting more subscribers. You could further incentivize visitors to drop you their email address, by offering a discount on their first purchase, promotional content, and more information.
People who actually take the time to visit your website are already interested in what you are sharing via your blogs, emails, and social media. The next step is to get them hooked by encouraging them to subscribe to your newsletter. Offer them something of value if they subscribe to your newsletters, like product discounts or samples.
Create short simple popups, and avoid altogether lengthy popups that ask for too much information. Simply grab their email addresses, names, and surnames. Unless you are requesting a survey as a popup don’t overdo it.
In this way, a simple popup is not deemed as annoying but rather is seen as an invitation to become part of the community.
The Value Of Blogging For Shopify in 2021
Studies show that people who read educational content from a brand are 48% more likely to buy a product at least one week later.
Among surveyed respondents, it was found that 56% create content based on the stages of the sales funnel and 79% also use content to successfully build brand awareness. (getmatcha.com)
Here are the top benefits summarised to outline why blogging for Shopify in 2021 should still be a priority:
- Boost your Google ranking
- Expand your audience and market share
- Drive people to your website
- Convert visitors to sales
- Expand your brand footprint globally
- Generate more subscribers for your email list
- Target more people with discounts and special offers
- Create a community of satisfied customers who will be your best advertisement
- A relatively inexpensive way to gain more traffic
Conclusion
Every strategy for each business will be unique. It depends on your goals, your brand, and the products you sell.
The bottom line is that you need to get going soon with blogging on Shopify in 2021. There is a content-boom happening right now and people are obsessed with valuable, interesting, and engaging content.
If you don’t hit these three marks, people will lose interest quickly. So plan efficiently, and stay consistent.
Start your plan today and be inspired by the content value you will undoubtedly be bringing to millions of people across the globe while boosting your SEO and Google ranking.
