According to a survey by the Content Marketing Institute, 70% of B2C marketers use content marketing to engage with their target audience.
That’s because it works.
But to extract the most value from ecommerce content marketing, you need to combine it with SEO. If you’re on the fence about publishing content or haven’t made SEO a priority in your current ecommerce content marketing strategy, read on to learn how combining the powers of both leads to outsized results.
How Ecommerce Content Marketing Supports Business Goals
Whether you want to drive more traffic to your product pages, increase conversions, or build brand loyalty, ecommerce content marketing can help.
Check out how content marketing can help you achieve some of the following business goals.
Build Brand Awareness
Content marketing can help you reach a wider audience and build your brand’s credibility and authority. For example:
- Guest blogging: Writing articles for other websites in your industry can help you get your name in front of a larger audience.
- Social media content: Sharing insightful, informative, or entertaining content on social media can help you reach more people and build your brand’s following.
- Infographics: Creating visually appealing infographics that provide exciting information can help your brand get noticed and shared on social media.
Engage Customers
Creating ecommerce content that’s interesting, educational, and entertaining can help you engage your customers and keep them coming back for more. Here are a few examples of engaging content:
- Educational content: Create how-to guides, tutorials, or other educational content to help your customers learn more about your products and industry.
- Interactive content: Make interactive content like quizzes, surveys, or games to captivate your customers and make them more likely to share your content with others.
- User-generated content: Encourage your customers to share their experiences with your brand or products on social media or other channels to build a sense of community around your brand.
Drive Organic Traffic
By creating high-quality, SEO-optimized content, you can help your website rank higher in search engine results, which can drive more organic traffic to your site. Here are some content types that tend to drive traffic:
- Blog posts: Publish regular blog posts that target relevant keywords to help your website rank higher in search results.
- Infographics: Design informative and visually unique infographics to drive traffic to your website through social media shares and backlinks.
- Ebooks and whitepapers: Write in-depth resources like ebooks or whitepapers to establish your brand as an authority in your industry. This can lead to more organic traffic and backlinks to your site.
Drive Sales
Good content can help you convert potential customers into actual ones. Here are some examples of content that can help drive sales:
- Conversion-focused landing pages: Fine tune copy on essential landing pages to help generate leads and revenue.
- Product pages: Uncover the right search terms to target on your product pages and implement product schema to increase click-throughs from search engine results pages (SERPs).
- Product videos: Film videos that showcase your products and their features to help customers better understand what you have to offer.
- Product reviews: Encourage your customers to leave reviews of your products to build trust with potential customers and encourage them to make a purchase.
Learn more about ecommerce blogging here.
Tips for Effective Content Marketing in Ecommerce
It’s clear that creating effective content for ecommerce websites is about more than just writing a blog post or product description. So where can you start?
Follow these tips to make your content stand out and drive results.
1. Know Your Audience
Before you can start creating content, you need to know more about what your target audience wants to see. Do they prefer short videos or pithy social media posts? Long-form content or engaging newsletters?
By understanding your target audience’s needs, interests, and pain points, you can create content that speaks directly to them and inspires them to take action. And of course, there’s a good chance you have multiple target audiences depending on your niche. Regardless, this first recommendation is the same: Start by creating buyer personas for each of your target audiences, and use these personas to inform your content strategy.
2. Create High-Quality Content
Your content needs to be high quality to engage your audience and inspire them to take action. It should be well-written, well-researched, informative, and visually appealing. Whether you’re creating blog posts, product descriptions, or videos, make sure your content is up to the highest standards.
3. Optimize Content for SEO
Creating excellent content is essential, but it won’t matter if no one can find it. That’s where SEO comes in. By optimizing your content for relevant keywords and making sure it’s formatted so that search engines can easily index it, you can rank higher in search results and drive more traffic to your website.
4. Use Social Media To Amplify Content
Social media can be a powerful tool for promoting content and driving engagement. By sharing your content on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram, you can reach a wider audience and encourage people to engage with your brand. Tailor your content to each social media channel and engage with your followers.
5. Incorporate User-Generated Content
User-generated content is one of the best ways to build trust and credibility with your audience. By encouraging your customers to share their experiences with your products or brand on social media, you can showcase real-life examples of how your business makes a difference. Highlighting this content on your website and social media channels can inspire others to purchase.
Types of Content for Ecommerce Websites & How to Optimize Them for SEO
Creating different types of content for ecommerce websites is essential for engaging customers and driving sales. Use the following recommendations to generate ideas for your ecommerce content marketing strategy and make plans for optimizing them.
Product Descriptions
Well-written product descriptions are crucial for helping customers make informed purchasing decisions. To optimize product descriptions for SEO, make sure to include relevant keywords and make them easy to scan.
Optimizing product descriptions for SEO will make sure your ecommerce website appears in search results when potential customers are looking for products like yours. Plus, since product pages are transactional and fall under the “your money or your life” (YMYL) website umbrella, you want to take care to provide the most accurate information possible while still optimizing for search.
Follow these best practices to optimize product descriptions for SEO:
- Use relevant keywords. Include relevant keywords in your product descriptions to help search engines understand what your product is and what it does. Use specific and descriptive words that people are likely to search for when looking for a product like yours.
- Write unique descriptions. Avoid using manufacturer-provided descriptions, as they may be duplicated on other websites and won’t help you stand out in search results. Instead, write unique and original descriptions that accurately describe your product and work in your relevant keywords.
- Be concise and scannable. Make sure your product descriptions are easy to read and scan. Use bullet points, subheadings, and short paragraphs to break up the text and make them more browsable.
- Include technical details. Provide detailed, technical information about your products to help customers understand their features and benefits. Include specifications such as dimensions, materials, and other relevant information.
- Include high-quality images. Including high-quality images of your products can not only help your customers make informed purchasing decisions but can also help search engines understand what your product is and what it looks like.
How-To Guides & Tutorials
Creating how-to guides and tutorials can be an effective way to establish trust and credibility with customers.
To optimize this type of content for SEO:
- Use descriptive and informative titles that incorporate relevant keywords. Crafting accurate page titles that include keywords can help your content rank higher in search engine results. Avoid misleading or clickbait titles.
- Incorporate images and videos to enhance user experience and engagement. Adding visual aids can make your content more appealing and easier to understand. Videos, in particular, can be powerful tools for demonstrating how to perform a task or use a product.
- Include links to related products or services on your website. Including relevant internal links can encourage customers to explore and potentially make a purchase. Be careful not to overload your content with too many links, and ensure that each link is useful and relevant to the topic at hand.
Customer Testimonials & Reviews
Sharing positive reviews and testimonials from your customers is a great way to build your brand’s credibility and inspire others to make purchases.
Make the most of testimonials and reviews by:
- Adding reviews to relevant product pages. Use review schema to improve the chances of a rich result in SERP.
- Encouraging customers to leave reviews. Encouraging customers to leave reviews can help generate more content for your website and increase your visibility in search results. Consider offering incentives for leaving reviews or making it easy for customers to leave feedback by providing links or forms in texts or emails.
- Responding to negative reviews and addressing customer concerns. Responding to negative reviews in a professional and courteous manner can demonstrate to potential customers that you are attentive to their needs and willing to address any issues they may have. It’s important to address customers’ specific concerns and avoid generic responses.
Blog Posts & Articles
Creating informative and engaging blog posts and articles can help keep customers coming back to your website.
To optimize blog posts for SEO:
- Use relevant keywords in the title and throughout the text. Incorporating relevant keywords can help search engines understand what your content is about and improve your rankings in search engine results. However, be careful not to overuse keywords, as this can negatively impact readability, and Google may view it as spammy.
- Use subheadings to break up the content. Large blocks of text can intimidate readers and may cause them to lose interest. Use subheadings to reformat the content into easily digestible sections and make it more readable. This can also help search engines understand the structure of your content.
- Include internal links to related products or services on your website. Linking to related products or services on your website can encourage readers to explore your offerings further and may lead to increased sales. However, be sure to only include relevant links and avoid overloading your content with too many links.
Infographics & Videos
Visual content like infographics and videos can be a great way to convey complex information in a more engaging way.
To set up visual content for SEO success:
- Include relevant keywords in the title. Incorporate relevant keywords in the file name and description to help search engines understand what your infographic or video is about and improve your visibility in search results. Be sure to accurately describe your content and avoid keyword stuffing, which can negatively impact user experience.
- Use alt tags for images and captions for videos. Alt tags and captions can make your visual content more accessible and improve your rankings in search results. Alt tags describe the content of an image for users who cannot view the image, while captions can provide additional context for videos.
- Include transcripts for any videos. Including a transcript of the audio in your video can help search engines understand the content and improve your visibility in search results. It can also make your content more accessible to users who are deaf or hard of hearing. Be sure to provide an accurate transcript and avoid using automated transcription software, which may produce errors.
SEO Content Marketing for Ecommerce FAQs
What types of content should I create for my ecommerce website?
There are many types of content that can be effective for ecommerce websites, including product descriptions, how-to guides and tutorials, customer testimonials and reviews, blog posts and articles, and visual content like infographics and videos. The key is to create content that’s informative, engaging, and tailored to your target audience.
How do I determine my target audience for my content marketing?
To determine your target audience, start by creating buyer personas based on your ideal customers. Consider factors such as age, gender, interests, and pain points, and use this information to create content that speaks directly to their needs and interests.
What are some best practices for optimizing my content for search engines?
Best practices for optimizing your content for search engines include using relevant keywords in your title, headings, and throughout the text, using descriptive and informative meta descriptions, using alt tags and captions for images and videos, and linking to other relevant content on your website. Using product schema and review schema can help increase your click through rate in SERPs.
How can I use social media to promote my content and drive traffic to my website?
Social media can be a powerful tool for distributing your content and directing traffic to your website. Share your content on social media channels and engage with your followers. You can also repurpose your content so it’s appropriate for other channels. For example, create infographics, videos, or images showcasing the same info in a blog post and share that on social media.
How can I measure the effectiveness of my content marketing efforts?
Measuring the effectiveness of your content marketing efforts involves tracking metrics such as website traffic, social media engagement, and conversion rates. Use tools like Google Analytics to track these metrics and make data-driven decisions about your content strategy. Learn more about content KPIs.
How do I come up with new ideas for content on a regular basis?
To regularly brainstorm fresh topics, pay attention to industry trends, stay up-to-date on news and current events, and engage with your audience to understand their needs and interests. If you need help with content ideation, you can work with an SEO content writing service.
How can I incorporate user-generated content into my content strategy?
Incorporating user-generated content into your content strategy can help build trust and credibility with your audience. Encourage your customers to share their experiences with your brand on social media and feature this content on your website and social channels.
How can I use content marketing to increase sales and customer loyalty?
Create content that speaks directly to your audience’s needs and interests to boost sales and customer loyalty. Use content to provide value to your customers and evolve your site into a trusted resource for your target audience.
What are some common mistakes to avoid when creating a content strategy for ecommerce?
Common mistakes include creating content that’s too sales-focused, not optimizing content for search engines, and not measuring the effectiveness of your content marketing efforts. Focus on creating informative and engaging content rather than solely promoting your products or services.
Your Ecommerce SEO Partner
Ecommerce SEO involves a lot of moving parts, including a content marketing strategy that helps you capture additional keywords and increases organic traffic to your website. With a dedicated partner, you can focus on scaling your business while your SEO agency takes the reins on your search visibility.
Learn more about how Victorious’ ecommerce SEO services power growth or schedule a free SEO consultation to learn more about how we can support your business goals.
