Blogging is very important to ecommerce businesses. It’s one of the easiest ways to update the websites content, and it also demonstrates expertise about the offered products. Blogging can complement online shops products and offer a reason for people to return to them. The return on the blogging investment is quite high in terms of content, SEO, trust and reputation.

Consider blogging because:

Blogging Builds Trust
Ecommerce sites often focus on attracting visitors for the immediate sale, but sometimes potential customers want to learn more about a business and products before they’re ready to make a purchase. With a traditional store, consumers know where to go if they have questions. It’s more difficult to find the same level of trust with an online store. Providing valuable information to potential customers builds trust based on long-term considerations.

Show Off Expertise
Consumers usually purchase from companies that have expertise with their products and in their industry. A blog is an opportunity to demonstrate this expertise, to share insider tips and to discuss issues of interest with your customers and provide them with valuable insights and information.

Easy SEO
Search engines like sites that constantly update their content. Blogging is an easy way to update website content, while providing something of value to potential customers at the same time. Also, including top industry keywords will help build valuable links to the Ecommerce site’s content.

Blog Comments & Feedback
Blogging gives online retailers the opportunity to have a conversation with and get feedback from customers and others in the industry. Not every blog will get comments & feedback right away but after blogging for a while, there should be an audience to tap into from time to time with short, one-question surveys. Additionally a focused, well-written blog can get readers hooked on the blog and promote repeat visits to the website or garner subscriptions via RSS feeds and email newsletters.

Ecommerce Site’s Personality
Many ecommerce sites have a personality that is associated with the company. Since people are more willing to purchase from another person it’s recommended to include some information about the personalities ‘behind the scenes’ of the ecommerce site.

Blog Themes
A blog’s theme should be consistent with a company’s focus, yet universal enough that the blog is not solely about things the company sells. A blog that only exists to link to its corporate site will not be trusted. A site selling cameras, for instance, should go beyond making the blog a secondary camera sales tool and get involved with photography as an art and business. It’s secondary to cameras, but it is directly related to the interests of potential customers.

Start Blogging
Most blogs are created using free or low-cost online sites such as Blogger from Google, WordPress, and Typepad . These services are simple to use and configure and it’s possible to have a blog up and running in less than an hour. With a bit of extra work, the blog can become part of the ecommerce site, adding value to the content and SEO.

Nevertheless, ecommerce retailers should be aware that setting it up and linking it to the website is the easy part. Keeping the blog updated, active and topical is the hard part. Ideally, the blog should be updated once a week. The more relevant content and posts are the more value the blog with have as a resource for new customers.

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