9 Ways Of Invigorating A Tired E-commerce Blog

It’s well known that the search engines are suckers for fresh
content Sites that are updated regularly fare better than those
that remain static over long periods of time This has always
posed a problem for us store owners, because simply adding a few
new products each month just isn’t going to suffice in
competitive markets Nor is shuffling the featured products
around on our home pages every now and again!
Thankfully blogging goes a long way toward solving this dilemma
Get into the habit of making frequent, regular posts to a blog
and sites soon take on that fresh, organic quality the search
engines love
Of course, as well as helping rankings, blogs are also great way
of interacting with clients Sharing views and news with
visitors and allowing them to comment on posts creates a sense
of community around a store This does wonders for conversion
rates
So blogs and ecommerce are a healthy combination – but what
about the writing itself? It’s vital that a blog is kept ticking
over but posting fresh material every few days can soon become
taxing! So here a few tips and ideas for when you run out of
inspiration
1Product news
The arrival of new product lines should always be announced on
your blog If nothing else it provides an ideal opportunity to
get keywords into action, so use them in the titles of your
posts as well as the body Similarly you can also use your blog
to inform customers when a particular item is back in stock
2Additional product reviews
Not everyone likes long copy and you may prefer to keep your
actual store’s product descriptions short and to the point But
your blog provides an ideal opportunity to pull out all the
stops for the more obsessive customer Add extra photos, tell
anecdotes – use all that extra space to your advantage With a
little care and attention you can nail plenty of keyword
variations
3Apologies
Whenever there’s a problem with your store or something goes
wrong, address in it your blog Say sorry if necessary
Customers will appreciate your honesty!
4The future
Good websites are always a work in progress and you should keep
your customers informed of any changes on the horizon So if you
are planning on offering another payment method in a few months,
talk about it Say why you’re doing it and when it will happen
5We’re great!
Create a a blog category exclusively for your customer
testimonials Then whenever you receive a complimentary email,
ask the customer if you can post it You should be able to
collect a nice backlog of such comments for days when you don’t
have any news Then you can just post a testimonial to keep the
spiders happy! Of course, this tactic also serves a double
purpose in that you’ll soon have a fully functioning testimonial
page which you can link to from the main site
6Sales and promotions
Offering any discounts this week? Don’t just tell your
newsletter subscribers, post it
7Happy holidays!
There are countless different festivals, holy days and holidays
celebrated at different times throughout the year Mention them
Your customers may be of various nationalities and religious
persuasions so don’t limit yourself to Happy Christmas and Happy
Halloween!
8News close to home
You should never approach your store’s blog as a personal diary
After all your customers don’t want to hear about what you had
for breakfast But that doesn’t mean that you can’t mention
momentous or life changing events Maybe a member of your staff
is getting married or expecting a baby, for example Depending
on the overall personality of your store this may not be
something that you’d like to do, but in the right circumstances
mentioning this kind of news can endear you to your customers
very effectively Everybody likes to be reassured that they are
dealing with 3 dimensional people, not just a faceless money
making machine Just don’t overdo it
9Current bestsellers
If a particular product is really popular, it’s worth mentioning
for two reasons Firstly it can create a sense of urgency in
your customers if they think that stocks may be getting low
Secondly, if a lot of people are buying a certain product there
are probably a lot of people searching for it as well When
you’ve got a hot keyword, pepper a post with it and then feed it
to the spiders!

Tags | anecdotes, competitive, conversion, descriptions, dilemma, ecommerce, habit, inspiration, periods, photos, quality, stock, suckers, variations