Among the range of available marketing techniques, blogging is one of the easiest, powerful and cost effective ways to boost the business of your eCommerce site. The statistics on recent survey can throw a light on the significance of blog in eCommerce. 

• 61 percent of online consumers read blogs and then make purchases based on the information

• 60 percent of consumers feel more connected to a brand after reading unique content on its site

• 47 percent of buyers viewed three to five blog posts before engaging with the brand

• 51 percent of online shoppers read blogs and get stimulated to shop online.

Let us move on to more details. Here are the top 10 reasons why blogging is vital for your eCommerce business.

Your Customers are constantly looking for answers and you should have them

What is that one main reason that Content exists in the online world?

Search Engine Journal Contributor, Ryan Jones gives a simple answer for this question. 

“Today’s searchers search to solve problems, to accomplish tasks, and to ‘do’ something.”

In simple words, everyone is looking for an answer, whether they intend to buy your product or not. If they buy, they have the benefit of that product. If they don't, they have the knowledge, which they will pass on to someone, who is in need of your product. If you deliver the answers they are looking for, via blogging, then it's great. If you do it properly, with an engaging content, without selling the product, then it is greater. Whether they buy your product or not, you have built the confidence in their mind around your brand, even if you did not sell. This is the greatest thing. 

More confidence -> More trust ->Customers move to sale quickly or even if they are not in need of your product, they recommend to others, who are in need.

So, you either deliver a product, or answers to their questions, via blogging. 

Blogging for eCommerce has proven success

This is one of the best examples that shows the success of a brand through a blog. 

'Man of the House', a Proctor & Gamble blog, is the best example that targets niche audience. The blog caters to the men and focuses on areas of interest for men, including money, career, technology, family and fitness. In fact, there are many mommy blogs in the online space, but only a very few sites focus on men and their interests and P&G has captured this niche market in the perfect manner.  They do it properly by covering all the highly profitable keywords in their blogs, especially the ones for which their niche audience are actively searching. 

People read blogs before buying your product

This is especially true, if your product targets specific audience at a specific period in their life. The best example is bridal wedding gowns or baby prams. 

According to a 2014 survey, among 1,000 UK Consumers by Dynata,

• 84 percent purchased products based on how they were described in blogs.

• 46 percent said they read blogs to do initial product investigation.

If a Consumer reads your blog that is giving information about a particular product they want to buy, they are more likely to buy your product, with confidence and trust on your brand. Even a product that is not much in demand can be sold, if your blog is providing information that will inspire them to purchase the product. 

eCommerce blogging builds trust to your brand

According to Content Marketing Institute (CMI)'s 2019 B2C report, blogging is the No.1 brand building activity. It is best among all the major aspects that build Customer loyalty. According to the same report, among respondents, who increased their content marketing spending in the last 12 months, 56% said that blogging is the top area on which they want to spend majorly. Among the same respondents, 81% of them said that they are majorly concerned with creating blogs for building loyalty with the existing Customers.

So, overall according to the report, driving web traffic is highly important, but, blogging forms one of the major reasons to have the existing Customers come back and achieve a long term success in eCommerce business. So, blogging is the only means through which you can create brand loyalty among existing Customers and Brand awareness among the new Customers.

The ROI on Blog is not 'Once and Done'

Blogging is an investment for which return builds over a period of time. You do not publish a blog to get back what you put in one week or one moth or even one year for that matter. You wrote a blog spending hours in researching, outlining, writing and promoting. All these put together has  a life beyond its initial publish date. 

Say, today you got 25 views for your blog, a week or a month later, you will see that you got more views through sharing. After 2 or 3 months, you will see your blog popping on Google for a search query.

If the blog is loaded with popular keywords, you will see it doing very well in terms of search engine ranking. 

After all these, you will see the return coming to your blog with a boomerang effect. 

Blog is the best means for building brand, gaining trust and increasing leads for your business, although it happens passively. 

Blogs help to rank your site for relevant keywords

Blogging provides an excellent opportunity of SEO to eCommerce websites, including ranking the site in search engine and driving traffic to the website through search terms that are most relevant to the products you are selling. Ideally, the SEO team will perform the keyword search using the various tools to determine the high performing keywords, especially the long tail keywords, if you are targeting the niche audience. 

Typically, your product page, which is a gluten free oat meal for babies will not have the information like the 7 first foods to give your baby that are better than rice cereal. Your target audience are the Mothers. A blog like this will give you an opportunity to answer important questions of those Mothers. You can create a blog post with a keyword friendly title, along with relevant and beneficial information, which can also include recipes such as blending the oat meal with banana to make it tastier. These type of blog articles will not only give you a huge advantage of getting ranked on Google, but it will also motivate mothers to trust your brand, buy your product and also give word of mouth reviews.  

Entice your Customers and form a loyal online Community

Now that this article is encouraging you to have a blog and post content regularly, once you have the blog in place, you can start posting articles with relevant information for the Users, encouraging them to comment. Enabling social media shares to your blog will quickly form an online readership. Also, you should reply to the blog comments to convince that you care about your Customers. This will keep your constant engagement with your Customers, which will gradually form an online community. Then, any announcements about offers or discounts or release of a new product can be made quickly and effectively.  

Proves Industry Expertise

The Consumers of the digital age are not only looking for a seamless online shopping experience. In order to establish that trust among your Consumers, you need to build that credibility of your business. That happens through proving yourself that you are on par with the industry trends. And, all these can happen only by giving regular news and updates on the latest trends, through informative blog articles. Having a blog will give you an edge to generate industry expert content that will make you stand out as an authority or industry leader. 

Most cost-effective form of eCommerce marketing

Even if you have a high marketing budget, you don't have to spend it all, when you actually don't need to. Blogs provide businesses with an engaging content that not only brings confidence among Customers to buy your product, but also by stimulating a necessity for your product among Users, who did not intend to buy earlier. What more you want, when you are able to bring new visitors to your product page, without having to lift a finger after you have hit the publish button. 

Implement brand values and find your voice

You are definitely not the only one and there are hundreds and thousands of businesses that are selling similar products or services as yours, unless you are in a super niche industry. This competition will need you to get your voice heard. So, it is highly important to create a distinct tone that is relevant for your business and brand and also that can establish a long lasting and unique stake for your business, in the industry. And, none other means can do this more effectively than informative blog posts that will prove your industry expertise. If you cannot write all the blogs yourself, having a content writer, who can understand your language and tone and ghost write for you will be worthwhile. 

Start Blogging

Now that you clearly understand the significance of having a blog, it's now time for you to get started with one. It does require a lot of hard work, dedication and man power to write and manage. If you are confused about how to begin, do let the Spurtcommerce team know about your interest in having a blog. The team shall help you in implementing the blog feature for your eCommerce website and give you a platform to easily get started with blog posting. For more information, write to support@spurtcommerce.com