5 Blogging Tips Every Ecommerce Seller Should Know
With a blog, you can connect with consumers in a conversational way. You can offer advice, be casual and fun, and give important comparisons showing the difference between your product and all the others out there. While many e-commerce merchants have yet to dip their toes in the blogging pond, now’s the time to jump if you haven’t already. Here are some handy tips to help you get the best results.
Tip #1 – Use Great Images
Did you know images on your website are crawled by Google? There’s an entire tab for image searches on Google, plus they can get picked up in social media. You can gain more visibility and boost SEO with images.
For example, let’s say you sell kids’ socks. Pictures of the socks you sell could show up in Google’s image search. To get extra oomph from your images, name your image files descriptively. For a pair of kid’s striped socks, name your file something like “striped-kids-socks” to get the most SEO value. Also be sure to use alt tags and image descriptions, this will help Google determine the content of your image and rank you better.
Tip #2 – Make Content the Star of the Show
Ok, saying “focus on good content” may seem obvious. But it’s important to remember that you’re not creating content for content’s sake. The content has to be good. While quantity can feel satisfying, the real results will come from quality. Avoid content that’s shallow. Things like poor writing and grammatical errors will reflect poorly on your brand.
Bonus tip: Sometimes less is more. Don’t make the mistake of trying to overstuff your blog with keywords. Google’s become a lot more sophisticated in the way they measure websites.
Tip #3 – Follow SEO Best Practices for Your Blog
You don’t need to be an expert to use SEO best practices. Most people don’t take the time to understand the way Google rankings work. Following the SEO basics can take you a long way. Start by researching your keywords. Find the best ones that will bring you more sales. Then, install an SEO plug-in like Yoast to help you manage using the keywords on page and in metadata. The Yoast plugin will also help you generate an XML sitemap, which you can submit through Google Search Console.
Tip #4 – Rev Up Your Site Speed
People don’t like slow websites. Having a slow blog site can drive visitors away, it also reflects poorly on your brand. Plus, it can harm your SEO. Website speed has been part of Google’s website ranking algorithm since way back in 2010. Here are a few tips to help rev up your page speed…
- Use a lightweight blog template that’s made to perform well
- Spend money on good/fast hosting if possible
- Disable any plugins you’re not using and uninstall them
- Be sure to compress images
- Check your page speed and get recommendations from Google
Tip #5 – Promote Your Blog
Lastly, be sure to let people know about your new blog content. There are a lot of other ways for people to find your content besides showing up in Google. Share newly published blog posts on all of your social accounts. If you have an email list, feature new blog posts in your email communications. It’s a great to keep people informed – while making your content do double duty.