Are You Building Your Affiliate Marketing Income on Digitally Sharecropped Quicksand

starting an eCommerce business is not as complex as it used to be just a few years ago. This is why you see so many online stores selling all kinds of stuff on the web.
But one problem that most of these new eCommerce websites face is attracting relevant traffic to their products.
And no traffic means no sales.
Starting a blog is one of the best things you could do for your eCommerce business. When you create new blog content, it helps you rank for relevant search keywords and generate traffic to your website. Studies show that websites that blog regularly, have 97% more inbound links and 434% more indexed pages.
Blogging is also a great way to build your brand image, connect with your audience and increase sales.

However, since blogging is a time –intensive activity, you need to have strategy to ensure that your hard work isn’t wasted.
Here are a few eCommerce blogging tips to help you increase your online sales.

1. Understand the Needs of Your Customers

The objective of eCommerce blogging is to solve the problems of your readers by offering actionable, accurate and high-quality content for free. When you offer free actionable advice, readers start trusting you. And trust, according to several studies, is the number one factor that drives online sales.
However, to create accurate and high-quality content, you need to understand the needs of your customers and prospects. Ask yourself the following questions

• What problem is my product solving?
• What’s the core benefit and value that I’m offering my customers?
• Why would someone spend money to buy my product?
• What am I offering that others are not?
• What questions are my prospects likely to ask when I offer them my product?

Don’t just assume the answers. Look for them on Quora, Facebook groups, LinkedIn Groups and your competitor blogs. You can also survey your existing customer base to get more insights.
When you come up with precise answers to each of these questions, you can use this knowledge to create high-quality content, answer the questions of your prospects and build a strong relationship with them.

2. Build Your eCommerce Store on a Blogging Friendly Platform

Over the last few years, dozens of free web-based eCommerce platforms have popped up and made it really simple to set up an online store. But many of them do not have their own blogging platforms.
To start a blog for your business, you need to ensure that you’re using an eCommerce platform that supports blogging. WordPress is the best option in most cases, since it can be used as an online store and a blogging platform at the same time.
But in case you’re using any other eCommerce app like Shopify, BigCommerce etc, you can integrate it with your WordPress blog.
In fact, most experts agree that even if your eCommerce store app has a blogging platform with it, it’s better to use WordPress because of its seemingly unlimited range of free plugins.

3. Create Multiple Content Types To Drive Engagement

Your blog is a content creation and publishing platform.
Why stick to just one form of content when you can mix things up and generate more interest in your audience?
For example, research shows that infographics and list posts get the highest number of social shares.

The best way to approach this is by creating a content plan for your blog and include different forms of content in it.
Here are a few examples

• Product Focused Content

Since you’re running an eCommerce blog to help readers understand the benefits of your products and indirectly convince them to buy from you, product focused blog posts should be among your top content types.
Create blog posts that educate your readers and demonstrate your expertise. The eCommerce blog of Decor Clad is a good example.

Create useful content around your products and include links to your sales page within the content body where relevant.

• Emotionally Driven Content

Selling is all about persuading your clients to take action. If your content can trigger the right emotions in your readers, selling becomes much easier.
There are two main components of an emotionally driven blog post

• Effective storytelling
• Powerful headline

Effective storytelling helps you engage customers and drives action.

Source: OneSpot

Jon Morrow, one my favorite bloggers and storytellers, generated six-figure sales from just one blog post.
That’s the power of an effective story.
However, an effective headline, the second component of emotional content, is even more important than storytelling. If your content headline doesn’t engage the readers immediately, they’re unlikely to read the rest of your piece.
For example, this eCommerce store selling men’s gifts uses a headline that immediately generates interest.

• Video Content

High-quality product videos are among the most effective forms of content for eCommerce blogs. Using videos to demonstrate product usage can significantly boost your conversion rates.
You can also increase your website’s average time on site by embedding video content within text blog posts.
There are several other content forms like infographics, memes, product reviews etc. that you can include in your eCommerce content plan

4. Use Blogging to Build Your Email List

Email marketing is one of the biggest sources of eCommerce sales. According to studies, more than 65% of consumers in the U.S made a purchase in the last year because of an email.

More than 90% consumers check their email at least once a day, which gives you a great way to build long lasting relationships with your prospects.
Blogging can help you accelerate the list building process.
Not sure how? Here are a few ways.

• You can offer post specific lead magnets in your blog posts to increase sign ups.

• You can use a content locker plugin to hide a specific portion of your blog post and ask users to sign up to read the full post.
• Regularly posting on your blog brings in organic search traffic to your site which can be converted into subscribers.

A blog opens up hundreds of ways to convert readers into subscribers. And when you have a large list, you can send them new product offers and convert more customers.

Wrapping Up

Some of the biggest eCommerce companies in the world are investing insane amounts of money in content creation and blogging. By starting an eCommerce blog, you can create awareness about your products, build a loyal tribe and generate cheap word of mouth for your brand. Just make sure you keep this post in mind while creating your next eCommerce blog.