There’s no denying it — producing valuable content with SEO in mind is a great way to improve your eCommerce website’s performance in search results and grow your organic traffic (in terms of quantity and quality/relevancy).
But to make your valuable content work for you, you need a solid strategy.
The question is, what exactly makes for a good eCommerce content strategy? And how do you get started building one?
Read this quick yet actionable guide to learn specific ways to skyrocket your eCommerce traffic with a strong content strategy.
Why a content strategy will grow your website traffic
A good content strategy lies at the heart of growing your organic traffic, no matter your niche. Churning out content without a strategy is equivalent to mixing up some words and visuals, hoping for the best, and adding to the valueless branded content noise on the internet.
Alternatively, a solid content strategy can drive real results for your business, with benefits such as:
- More traffic to your eCommerce product pages
- Better brand visibility on search engines and across the social web
- Greater credibility and brand authority, encouraging conversions and retention
Put simply; you need to tie your content marketing efforts to a clearly defined purpose with measurable goals — like going from 10K to 100K monthly visitors in 8 months. For this goal, you’ll need to devise a content strategy.
So, how do you do that? Let’s take a look at the…
Attributes of a good content strategy
An effective content strategy comprises the right multi-channel marketing mix. And the one “thing” that will make your strategy work well is how each of those individual attributes is complementary — which means they work together to present a united vision.
Here are the six key attributes that make up a solid, traffic-driving eCommerce content strategy.
It’s 2022, and unless you just arrived on earth, you’re aware of the importance of maintaining an active business blog.
In fact, according to a recent benchmark report, blogging drives 6% of eCommerce sales (and doubles to 12% for brands that blog regularly for 6+ months).
But putting out shallow 500-word blog posts on random topics doesn’t work anymore. To make your blog stand out and rank on the first page of Google, you must:
- Research your competitors to see their best-performing content and identify gaps you can fill in your content
- Survey your audience to learn about their biggest challenges and pain points, and address those in your blog articles
- Dive deeper into each topic than your competitors to publish comprehensive long-form articles that answer all questions your readers might have
- Conduct keyword research to target the right keywords in your content for better rankings on search engines
- Add Call-To-Action (CTA) links to your product pages from your blog
If you haven’t already, start a blog and implement these best practices immediately!
2. Social media profiles
With your blogging game going strong, don’t overlook another powerful content marketing channel — social media.
Today, you have countless social media channels to promote your content and products on. Start by pinpointing where your target audience spends most of their time, and focus only on those channels.
Instagram, in particular, is one platform you need to leverage and build your brand’s presence. Here are a few tips to increase Instagram followers and authority:
- Create bite-sized videos to post as Reels
- Link to your eCommerce product/content page in the bio
- Post high-quality product photos with relevant hashtags
- Showcase your team’s behind-the-scenes
- Jump on trends and use trending audio
- Team up with complementary brands to expand your reach
- Host live streams (shopping, QnA, AMA, etc.)
- Encourage and repost user-generated content
- Take inspiration from competing brands
Apart from Instagram, promote your blog content on Pinterest and Twitter, and if you’re B2B, leverage LinkedIn.
3. Guest posts
Without backlinks from high-quality websites, it’s impossible to get your most important content and product pages to rank on the first page of Google (and thus, skyrocket traffic).
One of the best ways to earn quality backlinks is by guest posting — a content collaboration tactic wherein you create content for relevant publications in your niche. It usually involves reaching out to the publisher with an email pitch, suggesting topic ideas that benefit their audience, and then creating an article as per their editorial guidelines. You can include a contextual link to your blog or a product page in the content.
It’s a win-win because the publication benefits from fresh content. At the same time, your brand gets exposure to wider audiences, builds thought leadership, and earns direct traffic from the content along with a backlink that helps your Google rankings.
4. PPC campaigns
If you want an immediate bump in your website traffic, running pay-per-click (PPC) ads on Google or social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram is the way to go.
Based on your strategy and goals, you can run ads to drive traffic to your most valuable content pages (such as long-form how-to guides) or your most popular/newly-launched product pages.
Either way, the high-level steps involved in a paid marketing campaign include deciding your budget, researching keywords, crafting the ad copy and visuals, and launching your ad.
To set up an effective Google Ads campaign, check out this great guide. And to succeed with Facebook ads, go through this comprehensive post.