Content Strategies to Increase E-Commerce Success
Today's article is about content strategies for online shops. In this post, we'll tell you why it is wise to think long-term and goal-focused as an online shop, as well as which content strategies are recommendable to generate more traffic and achieve success.
The Basics of Long-term Content Marketing
The foundation of successful content marketing is usually created with a strategic placement of the shop on the market, a clear USP, and by communicating this USP through ads and other means of marketing communication. The brand itself should already be established on the market as well. Individual content marketing on this basis can boost authority and strengthen the brand. Furthermore, the target audience should be defined. Only those that know their customers, and target them appropriately, can achieve significant success with marketing measures. However, knowing your customers is not always an advantage, the opposite could also be the case. The potential clients can only build trust, and recognize the expertise behind the shop when they know who runs it. This can be done by informing your target audience with professional and trustworthy content, and by delivering expert knowledge on the branch on a regular basis. This way, you show that you are an expert on the topic, and, at the same time, you strengthen the bindings of your customers to your assortment. Regular blog posts and insights that report from the daily work routine (for example a post with images of the business' Christmas party) help you build trust and underline your team's humaneness. Building on these basic marketing activities, there are several fitting content strategies that are authentic and convincing with true added value. In the following, we've collected some essential content strategies.Content Marketing With a Strategy: How to Increase Your Traffic!
Strategy 1: Product Descriptions That Raise Excitement
Product descriptions might be toilsome, but their effects are certainly worth it. With an informative product description, you can display your every product as positive as possible. You should answer all questions on the product, directly communicate the asked-for information, and provide a decision-making help when it comes to the purchase. You should definitely avoid lists in note form as well as duplicate content. To strengthen trust, and to set yourself apart from the competition, you should include manufacturer or product information.Strategy 2: Category Texts With Outlasting Information
Present a product assortment to your website visitors, inform them about offers, and strengthen the internal link structure of the shop using optimized category texts. Category texts can be characterized to be durable and informative, and are used for optimization, as well as the improvement of the usability.Strategy 3: Provide Helpful Answers and Tips in a Blog or Guide
Internet users are always searching for information and solutions that can help them in their everyday life. All thinkable problems ranging from "how to get fuller hair" to "guide to the installation of program XY" are possible. Think about your assortment and put yourself into the user's position. Which product-related or general questions come to mind? Authentic and informative solutions display a chance to convince shop visitors. On top of that, varied guides and articles that are commented and liked increase the social media presence of your business.Strategy 4: Expert Knowledge From A-Z
The expertise is not only underlined by guides or blog posts: indices and lexica with helpful word explanations that suit the shop assortment's branch can provide real added value and convince the visitors. The information boosts the trust in the store, and at the same time, the most relevant keywords can be covered. Another good alternative would be an FAQ area, which lists the most important customer questions. These relevant issues can be chosen from past customer questions, as well as from research results in forums, as common questions can increase the traffic significantly because the people that are looking for an answer to said question will end up in the shop as well.Strategy 5: Binding Customers With Quality Content and Improving Rankings
Quality content with a diverse design, e.g. with a good mix of text, images, and videos, binds users. It increases the visit duration and lowers the bounce rate. According to the user behavior, Google can draw conclusions about your content's relevance. Thus, your ranking can increase when the visit duration increases, putting the page at a higher spot in the search results, which will then be followed by increased visitor traffic.Strategy 6: Finally, You Should Always Combine Variety and Dynamics
Not just the content should be diverse; you should also use different channels for its distribution.Using a Combination of the Following Channels is Very Promising:
- Corporate blog that is accessible directly from the online shop (via subdomain, for example)
- Ebooks in PDF format that are available as a (free) download
- Posts on Facebook and Google+, that are geared with each other
- Videos on Youtube, that address potential customers on an emotional level