Do you need to create blogs for your e-commerce business? The answer is a big YES! Especially for small businesses. If you want to find out why, read this blog post. I will also share with you how you can create blogs.
Benefits of Blogs for your Business
So, why do you need blogs? The answer lies in this list of benefits that your e-commerce business can get:
- Blogs Increase Website Traffic
Let’s say your business has an online presence, or maybe it’s purely for e-commerce, whatever it is, I’m pretty sure that one of the reasons why you created a website is to drive traffic. You want your potential customers to discover your products through your website and eventually make a sale. Blogs will help your website get discovered and drive traffic as audiences will have the means to check it out. Especially if your content has been keyword optimized using SEO. How? For instance, make a blog that solves a problem using your product or services. If someone searched for an answer, your blog may be chosen as the best result. Thus, it will result in fresh traffic as well.
- Blogs Increase Sales
Nowadays, people read blogs before buying a product. They either want to know how to use it, what is it for, and if it’s reliable or effective. Blog posts will provide the information they are looking for. And if convinced, it will convert them to sales.
- Blogs Make Loyal Customers
Creating blogs is also a way to build trust in your brand. In making a successful online presence, driving audiences to your website is important but it doesn’t stop there. You also have to give them reasons to come back. Making blog posts weekly can help you achieved that. And whenever they come back, trust build up as you engage with them through your content. Eventually, they’ll become loyal customers that will usually patronize your products.
- Blogs Brand You as an Industry Expert
Creating a blog is not easy. You need to do some research before you can create content. But on the bright side, such knowledge that you’ll acquire can make you an expert in that industry. Especially if your blogs are tutorials, tips, tricks, solutions, and hacks. And whatever reputation you’ll get with your blog content is also reflected to your brand.
- Blogs Support Your Social Media Marketing Effort
Blogs nowadays have buttons that allow audiences to share the post on their social media. Such publicity or promotion from your customers support your social media marketing effort.
Preparing to Create your Blog
Before you may create your blogs, you have to answer these questions. All of which will help you determine how you’ll proceed with the idea of blogging for your business.
- Why are you blogging? Set your goals so you won’t lose interest. For instance, you’re blogging to solve problems and at the same time promote your products. Or to engage with your customers by weekly updating them with announcements through blog posts.
- Have you identified your target audience? From the design of your website, the topics of your blogs, to the tone of writing voice that you’ll use, it should be all based on your target audience’s interests, lifestyle, demographics, ethnicity, location, etc.
- What does your blog offer? Your blog posts shouldn’t be just to promote your products. Keep in mind that it should also be a way to build trust and connect to your customers.
- What Action do your readers want to take after reading? Set your call-to-action that you want your readers to do after they read your blog. For instance, you want them to read related blog topics, check your product catalog, etc.
- Will you create your own blog or hire someone? If you don’t have the time and if you know that you can’t write engaging content, or even be consistent you might need to hire someone who can.
- How will you promote your blog? Aside from SEO, you should consider ways on how you’ll drive your customers to view your blog.
- How will you measure your blog’s success? It is important to see how your blogs are performing towards your goal. Is it driving website traffic? Is it converting people to sales? You have to have way to measure these metrics.
If you can answer those questions, and if you have your existing website already, you may now create a blog or prepare topics for your hired blogger.
How to Create a Blog Website
If you’re a beginner or if you want a separate website for blogging, creating a blog website should be easy. Here are the steps;
Step 1: Choose a Blogging Platform
Luckily, creating a blog site has been made easier by blogging platforms like WordPress, Blogger, Wix, etc. They have premade templates or themes that you can use to set up your blog website.
Step 2: Choose and Register a Domain Name
Ideally, the name of your website should be the same as its domain name. It’s the URL that will be used to access it (i.e. www.ebizguts.com). So before you name your site and start customizing, register your domain name first. Go to web hosting companies’ websites to do so by purchasing it. And make sure to use .com and use your business name if possible (or close to it if it’s not available anymore).
Step 3: Purchase Web Hosting
Creating a blog website with WordPress, Blogger, or Wix is free but you still need to pay for your blog website to be hosted. It cost more to do so, and you also need to purchase an SSL certificate. Usually, web hosting and SSL certificate is sold separately, but not with Siteground. It’s part of their package and will cost you less.
Step 4: Customize your Blog Website
Once you registered your domain and purchased a hosting site, you may now begin customizing your blog website. Doing so depends on the feature of your chosen platform. But always remember to base every design, placement, fonts, etc. on your target market.
Step 5: Plan, Write, Repeat
Once your blog website is up and running, list down the topics you or your blogger will write. And for your blog to be successful, you must be consistent with the content. If it’s a weekly update then you should have blog posts every week.
