Why bother blogging? Lisa Sicard tells us how blogging boosts SEO and drives website traffic.
Do you have a blog for your e-commerce business? If not, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to reach potential customers. In today’s digital age, almost everyone researches products and services online before making a purchase.
That’s why it’s so important to have a website that ranks high in the search engines and drives traffic to your site.
But how can you achieve this? One way is by blogging about topics that are relevant to your business.
Why some business owners resist blogging
I have a client named Sarah. She is busy running an e-commerce website and complains she doesn’t make enough sales or generate traffic from the site. Yet, she blogs on and off, skipping months and only blogging before she has a sale.
No matter how much I show her the Google Analytics traffic report is doing well on blog posts, she doesn’t understand the value of her blog yet.
For Sarah, it’s another chore. Oftentimes I can help her write some blog posts and offer her suggestions for others. But to get her consistent even with a calendar has been a major obstacle.
Blog topics for your website
When you blog about topics that are relevant to your e-commerce website, you’re providing valuable information to potential customers. This information can help them make informed decisions about whether or not to purchase from your site.
And by including keywords in your blog posts, you’re also helping improve your website’s SEO ranking. As a result, you’ll see a significant increase in website traffic and potential customers.
This is where I see Sarah’s traffic coming from when we have updated her old blog posts and focused on SEO tactics for her business blog. Of course, we can use an AI tool to help us write the blog posts faster and sometimes even better.
Where can you find ideas for your blogging?
Where can I find ideas to blog about?
- Answer the Republic
- Quora
- Other social media networks and groups
- Search engines
- AI tools
- Niche forums
Another way is read other blog posts in your niche. Oftentimes if you read through comments, they too will help you find topics to blog about. You will find questions others have. If one person has that question, there’s a good chance others will too.
Answer questions in blog posts to increase your website SEO and traffic
Blogging can help boost your e-commerce website in the search engines by increasing website visits as you answer questions potential clients are looking for. When you blog about topics that are relevant to your business, you’re providing valuable information to potential customers.
Your potential customers may be searching online for answers to their questions. Of course, they may only look at the first page of a search engine.
You can see what people are asking when you do a search on Google. Look to the bottom of the page and you will see related questions. Those are the questions you will want to answer in your future or updated blog posts.
Write for people with SEO in mind
When writing your blog post, you have to write for your audience. Answer questions they have with a blog post. You can write a post specifically for one person. Many times, if one person has that question, others will too.
However, you must also do some keyword research for your posts. This will help them rank in the search engines and provide more traffic to you in time. Of course, you can use tools like Ahrefs, SEMRush or Ubersuggest to help guide you with your keyword research.
Oftentimes, it can take up to 6-18 months for this to happen. That’s why Sarah and other small business owners get discouraged writing their blog posts.
How blogging increases your traffic
When your blog posts show up on the first page of Google, you will start to get an increase in traffic. Of course, you may pay for digital ads, social media ads, native ads, etc. to generate traffic, but the traffic will only last as long as you pay for the ads.
Even a good social media account will drive some traffic, but you have to “feed the beast” to keep it going. This takes a lot of time and oftentimes money, as well. With organic reach at an all time low on social media networks you will have to pay for boosts or pure ads.
However, with your blog’s SEO driving traffic, it will last longer and drive more traffic. Of course, you will still have to update your blog posts as others start to outrank you.
I use a tool called Ubersuggest to keep track for me. They send out an email when the ranking drops or goes up. You can use their tool for FREE or upgrade to a pro plan as I have.
Expectations of blogging
So, I set the expectations up for Sarah now. It will take 6-18 months to generate traffic from a blog post. She will have to plan ahead and think long-term. If she wants to think short-term, she will have to buy digital ads until her blog posts answer questions from the search engines.
If you plan on blogging for your online business, be sure to plan ahead and stay consistent with your blogging efforts. Therefore, if you can’t commit to writing these blog posts yourself, either invest in AI tools for writing or hire someone to write for you.
It will be worth the investment when you start showing up on the first page of the search engines when people are looking for answers or to make a purchase.
Conclusion
Blogging, like anything else, is never completely done. It’s an ongoing project that takes time and patience. You have to invest in it. It’s a form of marketing for your business. It can be cheaper and better than the pure digital ads. People trust the search engines more than they do ads today.
Be there when people are searching, and you’ll have more traffic and sales than you would otherwise.
Have your blogging efforts paid off for your business? We would love to hear from you in the comments.
This is a guest post written by Lisa Sicard, the digital marketing genius behind Inspire to Thrive.
