electronic stores recently, specifically during the pandemic period, as users began to rely on online shopping to a large extent, and indeed, a large number of electronic stores were able to achieve the necessary success and spread.
However, the emergence of a large number of e-stores has caused competition among them to ignite, which has prompted e-store owners to search for all possible marketing methods, the most important of which is without a doubt content marketing, which is our topic for today, as we talk to you about the importance of content marketing, and how to implement it. And the main role of the blog in increasing sales.
Content marketing for online stores
Content marketing is one of the most important, most effective and least expensive marketing methods. This method allows you to influence potential and current customers and your audience in general and bring them closer to the purchasing stage. Content marketing methods can be applied in more than one way, but creating a blog for the online store is the best way. .
This is because the online store’s blog plays a major role in attracting visits in general, specifically through search engines, and pushes the user to take a step or complete a purchase. However, reaching this goal requires some effort from you, and it also requires you to have a good understanding of the rules of content marketing.
Definition of content marketing
Content marketing is about creating content that is interesting and full of information while maintaining its interactive nature. The goal is to attract potential customers or even readers, but naturally, that is, without creating paid advertising campaigns or paying for it.
The types of content marketing vary, as video clips, podcasts, or digital guides and books fall under content marketing, but the most popular form of this process is the textual content that is published within website blogs.
Compared to other marketing tools, content marketing is the least expensive, as its cost lies only in paying writers and SEO specialists, without paying any other parties, such as Google advertising campaigns, for example. The results of content marketing usually appear several months after starting, as it is considered a method. Long term marketing.
Why do you need to create a blog for your own store?
A large number of online store owners neglect the idea of creating a blog, and some of them underestimate its importance, but this is not the case, as the blog plays more than one role in improving performance in general, and increasing sales in particular.
When you create a blog for the online store, and then write high-quality content about the products that your store sells, this content marketing process will undoubtedly contribute to increasing sales, and in addition, your blog pages themselves – that is, the articles – will contribute to attracting more visits. Through search engines, unlike the product pages themselves, which enjoy fierce competition.
What makes content marketing based on a blog an excellent way to market products is that it provides the opportunity for your store to share details about the products, or how to manufacture and develop them, or how to deal with them professionally, and more.
Examples of content marketing
For example, if you sell (portable battery), you may fail to appear in the search results for that highly competitive keyword, but your article with the long-tail keyword (best portable batteries in 2022) can appear in the search results, and within the article itself you will naturally This is the case with reference to the portable batteries sold in your store, which may make you able to target someone interested in purchasing the product. On the other hand, the reader getting benefit from your store’s blog post may prompt him to continue reading other articles, which increases the time he stays on the site. , and improves overall performance.
Your talk about the products will not be silent. Rather, you will have the opportunity to add high-quality images of the products, which may stimulate the reader’s desire to purchase. Whether the images are produced by you or not, the opportunity remains, and you can observe these practices from huge brands. Like Starbucks :
You can notice that the writer has referenced a large number of products in the article, with purchase links, along with the use of high-quality images.
The blog, and content marketing strategies in general, allow you to tell the story perfectly, and this process can take place in more than one form. Returning to our example of (portable batteries), for example, you will be able to tell a story in which you explain the importance of owning a portable battery, and how to To save you if your smartphone battery runs out at any time.
Content marketing and its relationship to search engine optimization
There is no doubt about the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) for any online store or for any website, regardless of its field or form. Therefore, we previously shared with you a guide to search engine optimization for WordPress sites . Speaking of content marketing through the online store’s blog, it depends mainly on SEO.
This is because you may write hundreds of blog posts and articles without any benefit if you do not pay attention in the first place to focusing on search engines. Perhaps the first and simplest step is to choose the appropriate keyword.
For example, writing an article about (men’s watches) can be more useful than writing an article about a specific watch by name. On the other hand, you must know the search rates for the keyword before writing any article about it in the first place. Through Google Trends or any other service, whether paid or free, and you can also see our article explaining SEO, “A Beginner’s Guide to Getting to the First Page . ”
As is known, search engine optimization is divided into external search engine optimization Off-Page SEO and internal search engine optimization On-Page SEO. In the case of relying on the blog, the possibility of free external search engine optimization is better, as other sites and platforms may refer to your articles. Because it is useful, but this will not happen for your product pages.
In terms of internal search engine optimization, the rule remains true, as the presence of a blog will allow you to link articles to product pages in a professional manner, which is what we talk about in subsequent parts of this article.
Increase visits through the online store blog
We previously learned about the most important points related to content marketing by creating a blog for the online store. There is no doubt that launching a blog for the online store is a necessary step, given the benefit of the visits that the blog may begin to receive after a short period of operation.
This step comes to solve the problem of not getting visits to the online store from the search engine, which is a major problem that all online store owners go through. If you create high-quality content with a focus on SEO performance from day one, you can expect to receive thousands of visits per month, which you can Direct it to your store and its products, as we talked about previously.
Speaking of external search engine optimization, as mentioned above, a large number of other sites may mention your site and refer to it as long as you provide distinctive, high-quality content, but you will not get mentions of links to your products easily.
Therefore, continuing to work on and develop the blog, and working to improve content marketing and search engine optimization strategies will lead to excellent results that improve day after day.
The steps to increase visits through the online store’s blog begin with choosing the topic itself. Naturally, you must choose a topic related to the products that you already sell in your online store. That is, it is not useful to publish articles about medical tools while your store sells coffee and drinks.
Choosing content for the online store blog
The steps begin by choosing a number of topics and ideas related to the products that you sell in your online store, and then you must ensure the feasibility of the topics with regard to search engine optimization and performance through them.
You can get inspiration in more than one way, and perhaps the most important sources lie in your competitors themselves, as you must read other blogs that publish content related to the field you intend to talk about.
After that, you can use the BuzzSumo platform to search for related topics, all the way to using the Ahrefs platform to learn about the performance of your competitors by searching based on the link to the competitor’s article. Below, after analysis and preparation, you must begin the process of writing and editing the content, by: A professional writer who knows the rules of SEO.
At this point, we advise you to read our previous article about 10 tips for writing content that advances in search engine results , in addition to the article 21 of the most common SEO mistakes and the best practices for preparing your site .
Get visits to products through the blog
Perhaps you have now become almost completely familiar with the idea, which is that working on a content marketing strategy on the one hand, and developing the search engine optimization performance of your site on the other hand, leads to more visits coming to you, when you take the steps correctly.
Below we will discuss with you how to practically apply these steps, starting with determining the audience and ending with publication:
1. Determine the target audience
Creating a successful content marketing strategy requires you to target the right audience, especially with regard to e-commerce, as it is not healthy for you to target people outside your geographical area, or people who do not have purchasing power or intention to buy in the first place.
Therefore, your topics must target the right audience as much as possible, and perhaps the first step you can take is to get to know your current audience through the Google Analytics tool by going to the Audience section within Settings.
You may want to read: How to track WooCommerce store data via Google Analytics
2. Identify ideas and analyze keywords
After determining the ideal audience, comes the stage of preparing ideas and analyzing the keywords related to these ideas. For example, if your online store specializes in coffee products, the keyword may be (the best types of coffee in Saudi Arabia), and this is of course if you want to target Saudi customers only.
Then comes the stage of analyzing the keyword itself, through platforms that allow this, such as Google Keyword Planner, SEMRush, or other tools, and then you will be able to know the monthly search rate for the word. You have to continue experimenting until you find the best keyword in terms of search rate.
Through the Google Analytics control panel linked to your online store, you can discover more information, such as the keywords that your store already controls.
3. Use internal links in your online store
After you have completed the process of preparing the content, analyzing the keyword, and publishing the article, there comes a very important stage, which is to indicate the product links within the already published article or blog post, in their correct places.
For example, you wrote an introduction to coffee, then information about the benefits and characteristics of coffee, and later you started suggesting the best coffee products. At this stage, you must add links to your products that you want to promote in the post.
Naturally, the blog must be on the same domain as the store, and this is a very important point. For example, if the link to your online store is coffeestoreksa.com, then the blog must be coffeestoreksa.com/blog or blog.coffestoreksa.com, and the first combination is the best in order to help the domain. Basic, respectively.
4. Choose the appropriate writing style
The blog writing style itself must be attractive and interesting, and you can never copy it from other sites, which is something we talked about in the article warning against building a site based on recycling the contents of other sites .
In general, the article must be directed to promoting products, but in an excellent manner that adds value to the reader. You must build trust between readers and your site, because even if readers feel that you are only working hard to promote the product, they may feel worried about it and its quality.
5. Post content as much as possible
After creating an ideal blog post or article related to the products sold within your online store, you must strive to publish the blog post on social media sites, in groups, or any appropriate place or platform without being annoying.
You should know that if the post is written professionally and the SEO settings are ideal, visitors will come to the site automatically after the post occupies a position in search engine results, but for this to happen, you must publish it on social media networks and appropriate platforms, as mentioned above.
6. Summary and final product
When you reach this stage, you have done your job properly, which is identifying the ideal audience, then identifying and analyzing the keywords, leading to writing the content and constantly revising it and then publishing it. After that comes the stage of linking the content with links to your store’s products in order to push the visitor to buy from it. On the one hand, it improves SEO performance on the other hand due to internal links.
In addition, in the long run, you will benefit from search engine visits to your carefully crafted articles, while paying attention to social networks, of course.
External search engine optimization
In order to achieve the desired results from content marketing through your online store’s blog, you need your site to be mentioned on other sites, which is known as external or backlinks (Backlinks), which is the case in which your online store’s link is mentioned on another site that is more reliable (Authoritative) than your location.
You can get this in more than one way, but some notorious methods may harm your site, such as posting annoying comments on sites to get a backlink. Perhaps the best way of all is to request this from the site owner, who may ask for financial compensation. Although Google does not support purchasing backlinks, there is no direct harm.
The ideal solution is for the content of your site to be so good that other site owners refer to it, which takes time. In addition, you may obtain other excellent results if you cooperate with blogs to point to links to products from your site in exchange for paying them a commission on sales, so that Even if it was low.
Why does every online store need a blog?
Well, we have answered this question more than once and in more than one form in this article, but we remind you of other features, characteristics and benefits due to the importance of the matter, as the specialized platform HubSpot has reported that 53% of marketers have declared that blogging is the most important means of content marketing. Below we point out very important points:
1. Improving search engine rankings : When your online store’s blog articles are able to achieve good results in search engines, this means that the site’s ranking will improve, and this applies to the site as a whole – that is, the store – and not just the blog.
2. Public benefit : Your online store’s blog articles, even if they are purely marketing, will benefit users greatly, and will answer their inquiries about your products without them even contacting you, in addition to the trust that is built between you and the visitors.
3. Increased sales : We talked about this feature more than once, but this is the situation: frequent visits to your blog will contribute to increasing purchases without a doubt.
4. Communicating with customers : Your blog can be an excellent platform to publish important updates to your store, or to talk about new policies that you have begun to follow, or even highlight the quality of your technical support by publishing blog posts explaining how to solve customer problems effectively.
WordPress plugins for internal linking between pages
The platforms through which you can create an online store vary, but there is no doubt that the WordPress platform is the most prominent, relying on WooCommerce of course. The reason for this is due to complete control over your site and your online store, unlike creating it by relying on platforms that provide ready-made online stores, such as Shopify or Cart.
If you already own a store based on WooCommerce, creating a blog will not be a stressful matter. All you need is to install an additional version of WordPress or even rely on the current version. We explained this previously in the article Steps to Create a Professional WordPress Website | Step by Step .
When you adopt content marketing strategies through your store built on WooCommerce and your blog built on WordPress, the process of managing internal links will be very easy, as all you literally need to do is edit the product page or article page and then insert the appropriate product link.
At this stage, we point out very important additions, which are as follows:
Add Internal Link Juicer to add links automatically
The Internal Link Juicer: SEO Auto Linker for WordPress plugin plays a major role in improving the user experience and search engine performance at the same time, by automatically mentioning related products within your posts and pages on WordPress.
This plugin directly adds the appropriate internal links to pages by default, if you want to automate the process, but instead you can do it manually. In order to start using the addition, we will follow the following steps:
1. Go to your WordPress site’s control panel
2. Go to the Plugins section, and then to the (Add New) section
3. Using the search box, search for Internal Link Juicer
4. Now, after installing the plugin directly through the control panel, activate it directly by clicking on the activation button, as plugins in WordPress are not activated automatically.
After activation, the following message will appear to you, through which the add-on requests access to some of your site’s information to improve the user experience. The decision is up to you, but it is preferable to refuse it, especially since the add-on allows refusal, by clicking on the (Skip) option or Skip:
Thus, the add-on is ready for use, and all you have to do is adjust its settings to suit your site or online store.
Add Internal Links Manager to manage internal links
The Internal Links Manager add-on is distinguished by its high performance in managing internal links on your site, regardless of their type. It also allows you to automatically link between related topics. For example, according to the developer’s explanation of the add-on, if you write an article about a specific idea, any other article includes the same The keyword or a similar word will be linked to internal links.
As for the method of use, it is also very simple, as all that is required of you is to publish your articles naturally and they will be linked automatically, after downloading the add-on in the same way mentioned above and then activating it and adjusting its settings to what suits you.
Your next search engine optimization readings:
- How to check and fix broken links in WordPress
- What are Dofollow and Nofollow links and how do you use them to benefit your site?
- Inserting links on your site to enhance the user experience and improve your site’s SEO
Marketing channels for electronic stores
We talked previously about using content marketing through the online store blog to carry out marketing operations and try to double sales, but the marketing channels concerned with e-commerce do not stop there, and we will now briefly talk to you about other e-marketing channels.
You may want to read: Setting various prices for the same product based on the type of customers inside the store
Marketing via social networks
Social media marketing methods are known as one of the most important marketing methods in general, and this includes networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, in addition to other networks that may be important to some sectors, such as Pinterest.
Marketing is often done through social media for a store that has already been in existence for some time and has a sufficient audience. Although publishing on social media is free, you need to launch advertising campaigns to attract valuable views and interactions. In addition, all social networks, including Instagram and Snapchat, have begun to support e-commerce extensively.
Search engine optimization
There is no doubt that search engine optimization, SEO, is one of the most important practices related to electronic marketing, and the search engine optimization processes for the online store itself differ from optimizing the blog, as we talked about previously.
In order to achieve the desired results, you must pay attention to the performance of internal and external SEO, in addition to using all available methods and tools. Online stores achieve large sales when relying on search engines, and there is no doubt that you yourself have reached a large number of products just by searching for them on the search engine. Google or others.
Pay per click (ads)
Paid advertising methods vary from platform to platform, but paid advertising within search engine results is undoubtedly one of the most important types, as through the PPC system you can benefit from every interaction, and you can achieve an excellent percentage of the amount paid in exchange for a purchase. one.
The Google Ads platform is known as the most famous and most performing. Note that this system differs from advertisements on social media networks. In addition to the Google network, there are other very important networks, such as Bing and Amazon.
The following image shows an example of an ad that appears when you search for a specific keyword:
You may be interested in reading: The best add-ons for analyzing and tracking your site statistics
Email marketing
Email marketing also depends on creating attractive selling content, just like content marketing, and email marketing is also a branch of content marketing, but not in all circumstances.
In any case, you must pay attention to the email marketing process, and take advantage of the billions of effective email addresses available in this world, and in order to succeed in this, you must first start collecting the email addresses of customers and potential customers, which you can do by relying on add-ons. Different.
Email marketing strategies differ from each other, but we recommend reviewing our previous article: What is email marketing? How do you manage it on your site ?
Tips to increase visits to the online store
At the conclusion of our article, we present to you the most important tips through which you can attract many times more visits to your online store, in order to achieve the best possible benefit and double the percentage of successful sales.
1. Referral marketing : Creating a referral marketing program or commission program helps you pay other platforms and sites to deal with you and your online store, and you should consider this option if your budget and profits allow it.
2. Improving site speed : If your site is very slow, all your marketing operations will be at risk, as if the user finds your site slow and unable to load, he may abandon the idea of visiting and browsing it in the first place.
3. Smartphone support : You can expect to benefit more from visits and double their numbers if your site is perfectly adapted to work on smartphones, and this applies to your online store and your blog alike.
Read also: 14 free WooCommerce add-ons that will make you manage your store like a professional
4. Investing in search engine optimization : In this article, we talked about the great importance of search engine optimization in attracting visits on a regular basis, and the more you invest in search engine optimization by hiring professionals, purchasing tools, and writing better content, the better your results will be.
5. Provide solutions to problems : Try to include in the product description on its page, or within your blog, a method for solving problems based on the product it sells, as this may increase the likelihood of purchase.
6. Tracking abandoned carts : The phenomenon of “abandoned carts” is a famous phenomenon in the world of online shopping, which occurs when the user browses your store, then chooses the products and puts them in the shopping cart, and finally withdraws from the purchase and closes the site. At this stage, you must send him an email to remind him to complete the shopping, and you can track abandoned carts through various add-ons and tools, including Get Response .
7. Collect email addresses: You should use more than one method to collect the email addresses of visitors and potential customers, because it alone will help you re-target them with offers and discounts or re-promote products to them again. You can do this by getting them to subscribe to your online store to receive offers and discounts.
Conclusion
Here we end, and by reaching this stage, you have possessed sufficient information to begin exploiting content marketing and search engine optimization processes through your online store’s blog, in addition to dozens of other tips and strategies that we referred to in this article.
It is understandable to us that the process of managing an online store is a very difficult process and consumes most of the time, but we always advise paying attention to all marketing channels to improve sales and give a boost to the store’s performance. But when talking about creating a blog and adopting content marketing, never forget that this is an investment in the future, as the content you create in your online store’s blog will remain and will remain able to attract visits and advance your store for many years.
Therefore, we advise you to start launching your online store blog immediately, and we never advise you to rush in writing and publishing, but instead follow the previously mentioned steps very carefully to achieve the best goals.
