Blogging is a strategic part of any ecommerse strategy. So, if you don’t have a blog on your Shopify store yet, then you’ll want to start now to avoid missing out.
In this article, we look at the benefits of having a blog for your online business, how to upload a blog onto your Shopify store and examples of some of the best Shopify blogs out there.
Benefits of using your Shopify blog
Using a Shopify blog on your online store makes it easier to:
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Build trust with your customers
Nowadays, consumers are cynical about buying from brands they don’t know. This is where blogs can help. When your Shopify blog content is relevant and up to date, customers are more likely to engage with your content and stay on your site for longer.
A comments section on a blog post is also a brilliant trust signal for customers, it’s proof that other people are engaging with your content and this helps to cultivate a community of loyal fans.
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Improve your Shopify SEO
Multiple Shopify blog posts can help increase your store’s rankings in search engines like Google. So be sure to optimise your content with relevant keywords and backlinks. Also, if you’re looking to take your store globally, then check out this handy article Shopify SEO: Best Practices for International Expansion.
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Convince a customer that your products are right for them
Product descriptions are great, but you don't have enough characters or space to write detailed information about your brand or the products themselves. This is where blog posts come in handy. Blogs give you a chance to talk to your customers and explain everything you want them to know in a way that resonates with their daily lives.
When thinking about blog content ideas, always focus on topics around how your products benefit a customer and solve a problem they might have. And don’t forget to always backlink your products to your blogs with clear calls to action (CTA) throughout. This will make it easier for your customers to make that all-important purchase if they decide to buy from you.
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Communicate your brand’s personality and values
Regular blog content is an effective way to communicate to your customers your brand’s unique personality and values. You can write blogs in your ecommerce business’s unique tone of voice and cover niche topics that your audience will find interesting and relatable. So, get creative, and give your customers a reason to keep reading and purchasing!
Tips for creating high-value blog posts
To make the most of your Shopify blog, you should be prepared to invest time in maintaining it. This means publishing original content, writing with your customers in mind, and injecting as much value as possible.
When drafting your blog content consider the following:
Have a clear goal in mind
Ask yourself why you’re writing the blog in the first place.
Avoid the hard sell
Your blog should promote your products, but it shouldn’t be sales-focused. Instead, your blog should educate, entertain and delight customers with relevant, high-quality content.
Quality over quantity
Whether you’re writing an in-depth how-to article or roundup of monthly news, always have your customer in mind. Keep your blog concise and establish your expertise.
Write simple sentences
Avoid ‘keyword stuffing’, as this can make your blog difficult to read. Keep it simple and speak in the language your customers will understand.
Consistency
If you only post one blog a month, that’s okay. Just make sure you’re consistent.
How to add a blog to your Shopify store
Activating your Shopify site’s blog is easy. Simply go to your Shopify admin area and click “Online Store” on the left side of the menu. On the sub-menu, click “Blog Posts”. At the top, click “Manage Blogs”, and then on the top right, click “Add Blog”. Give your blog a name and then add it to your site’s navigation menu.
Shopify’s content management capabilities
With blogging, it’s all about content: what topics you discuss, what your customers are interested in, and how far and wide your content is shared.
Luckily, Shopify makes it easier for your customers to find, explore and share your content.
Manage comments section
Shopify gives you control over how your comments are displayed on your blog posts. For example, you can:
- Disable comments: We wouldn’t recommend this because it can make it difficult to build a brand community and get feedback from customers, but on the plus side, it keeps your time investment to a minimum.
- Comments with moderation: You have a lot of control over what types of comments are visible on your site, but this can be a time-consuming process, depending on how many readers leave comments.
- Comments are automatically published: This helps cultivate an active community and requires minimal time management, but this can leave your brand at risk if inappropriate comments are displayed. So be sure to monitor your comments frequently.
Set a publish date
On Shopify, you can set a specific publish date for your blog in advance to align with your content calendar and promotional offers. This also allows you to streamline your content: scheduling multiple posts at once, and setting them to publish once a week, for example. You can also backdate a Shopify blog post.
Organise your blog posts with tags
Shopify gives you the flexibility to assign one or more tags to a blog post so that customers can easily find blog posts relevant to that category. For example, when a customer searches for a particular tag on your store, matching blog posts will appear in the search results.
Promote featured posts
It’s often the case that particular blogs will perform better than others - either it drives more traffic, or it significantly generates more sales. It’s these types of blogs that you want people to find quickly and easily. On Shopify, this isn’t a problem, you can position a featured blog post so it appears on your store’s homepage.
Search engine optimisation (SEO)
Out-of-the-box Shopify makes it easier for search engines to find your store. The Shopify SEO preview functionality allows you to edit content such as page title, meta descriptions, and URL for each blog post.
title and meta description have character limits. If you enter more text beyond the character limit, then your page title and meta description will be shortened in search engine results. Shopify shows you a preview of how this will look in the search engine.
Customise your Shopify blog with apps
Shopify gives you the freedom to customise your blog section with additional functionalities and features. To do this, you just need to head to Shopify’s third-party app library and find the app that’s right for you. Each app seamlessly integrates with Shopify, so you can have your blog section looking the way you want it to, in no time at all.
For example, one app that’s particularly popular with merchants is AddThis, which makes it easier for customers to share blog content across their social media channels.
The app allows you to customise the icons to suit your branding and connects to over 200 different social networks, including Messenger, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, and many more. Also, you can use AddThis Analytics to get valuable insights into customer engagement.
Shopify covers all your blogging needs, plus it’s quick and easy to get started. We hope after reading this article you understand the importance of blogging and how to upload a blog to your Shopify store.
Speak to a content marketing expert
At Velstar, our digital marketing experts have years of experience working with Shopify brands to help them produce high-quality, SEO-driven content that achieves results. If you’d like us to do the same for your business, contact us today.
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