5 Tips for Effective Blogging on Shopify
Running a successful blog on Shopify might seem like it will take a lot of resources.
You need to write, edit and publish the content—and that doesn’t even take into account the time spent promoting the content.
This can seem daunting for marketers who are just getting started ramping up their content.
However, blogging on Shopify doesn’t need to be a hassle. In fact, it’s necessary for driving traffic and converting new customers on your site.
Marketers need to focus on how to efficiently create relevant content that is optimized for search and matches what their prospects are seeking.
In this post, we’ll highlight five tips that you can use to launch and manage your blog effectively.
Before we dive right in, let’s refresh why it is so important to launch a blog on your Shopify site.
Why You Need a Blog on Your Shopify Site
Without a blog, your Shopify site won’t feel complete.
Blogs give customers a reason to continuously come to your site and “hang out” while browsing content, watching videos and engaging with other customers.
When you market your online store, you don’t want to be continuously publishing social media posts or email campaigns that focus on direct product promotion. If they follow your accounts and are already subscribed, they likely know those products already exist.
Instead, you should focus on promoting complementary content. This content shows your products in action, while highlighting other product-related and lifestyle topics in an indirect way. Your complementary content will drive interested shoppers back to your site on a routine basis.
These posts should add value in different ways that aid customers in the search for products like yours.
For example, if you’re a skincare company, you might write an article about how to stay safe in the sun while you’re at the beach. Your customers will be interested in that information and others may find your site through that article and wish to purchase your skincare products.
Your blog content should vary in both topic and style. Some of the most popular blog types include how to articles, news articles, guides, opinion pieces and interviews.
By publishing a mix of different types of articles, you will provide your audience with relevant content that is varied and interesting.
Let’s take a look at some of the most effective tips that you can implement to ensure that your Shopify blog will deliver the results you want.
1. Perform Keyword Research
An effective Shopify Blog has content that prospective customers want to consume.
Marketers may think they understand their customers and their reading habits, but they should consult data when determining what to write. One of the worst things they could do is to write an article that their audience simply does not wish to read.
This data can be gathered in a variety of ways.
First, you can ask your existing customers. You can send out a survey and publish it to your social media channels to understand what type of content your audience is interested in.
This is an easy and effective way to gauge interest levels and understand more about the consumption habits of your target customers.
Next, you should do keyword research. This will show you what topics and articles consumers are searching for on Google and other popular search engines.
Search volumes will also provide you with insight into what keywords your competitors are ranking for and how your site compares.
Keyword research can also indicate how your intended topic and focus keywords should evolve based on search inquiries and even SERP features (there are 19 distinct SERP features right now).
For example, LastObject likely did keyword research to understand what topics to write about for their Shopify blog. Knowing that their audience is likely interested in minimalist living, they decided to write a post about decluttering your life.
With further research, you can see that the keyword phrase “how to declutter your life” has the same search volume as “declutter your life,” yet is substantially less competitive.
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It makes sense to go after keywords that are less competitive but have high levels of search volumes. That’s why LastObject published a post entitled ”How to Declutter Your Life.”
By performing keyword research, you can target topics that your audience is actively searching for and publish a well-rounded, comprehensive blog post.
2. Optimize for SEO
Keyword research is only half the battle for relevant, high-ranking content. Your blog posts need to be written for search engines with a variety of optimization techniques.
If your blog isn’t optimized for SEO, then you’re missing out on the captive audience that is searching for related content. This includes ensuring that the content addresses search intent, keeps the reader on the page and includes relevant keywords, headings and internal links.
The Shopify company Flourist publishes cooking guides on their blog that are optimized for search engines. These cooking guides are comprehensive and provide readers with instructions, insight and links for relevant products that can help improve their dishes.
Each cooking guide is similar in format and style. All of them have:
- One specific keyword phrase
- 750-1,000 words
- Subheadings (H2’s and H3’s)
- Internal links to other related content
- A direct call to action
- Fast loading content (2-5 seconds max)
Take a look at this cooking guide for split red lentils.
For all their cooking guides, the topics they cover are targeted. The people that are searching for these niche keywords will likely quickly find their Shopify store and these articles.
Due to their optimization, Flourist’s cooking guides typically rank towards the top of the first search engine results page for their focus keyword.
They even outrank other big players in their industry such as Lentils.org.
By taking the time to correctly optimize your page, you will increase your chances of ranking high on search engines and extend the life of your content for years to come.
3. Outsource Administrative Tasks
If publishing frequent quality content is taking too much of your time, you need to find ways to automate and outsource basic administrative logging tasks.
What good is it to produce great blog articles if it takes that valuable time away from other aspects of your business?
When people think about blogging, they mostly think about writing an article.
However, there are so many other aspects of the blogging process that are quickly overlooked but take up a lot of time. These include research, optimization, image sourcing, editing, uploading and promoting.
If you’re selling internationally, you might even need to consider hiring a tutor to learn new languages to produce content in.
It might feel like the list of tasks for a single blog post constantly grows, but it’s easy to manage.
Evaluate your process and find out what you enjoy doing. From there, consider what you can automate. There are plenty of plugins and software for you to integrate into your tech stack to eliminate some of the time you spend on these steps.
For example, Wordable is a software that will take the uploading and formatting off your plate. All you need to do is connect the software to your Google Drive and Shopify store, and you’ll be able to import your content into the backend of your site in just one click.
For anything you can’t automate, consider outsourcing it. This can include hiring a part-time employee, freelancer or using an online marketplace like Fiverr to execute tasks.
If you use a freelancer, you should consider automating how you manage that freelancer. Using invoice software to remit payments and keep track of all of the invoices you receive is an effective way to easily manage the process.
When you automate and outsource basic blogging tasks, you can begin to focus on growing your blog to reach an even bigger audience.
4. Integrate original multimedia content.
Some of the most successful blogs give their readers something more to engage with on the page than simply text and a static image.
This can include videos, audio, podcast, or other interactive elements that they can share with their own communities.
For example, JoyOrganics uses quizzes on site to generate engagement:
Meanwhile, Verve published Brewtorials, or quick 60-second videos that walk the viewer through how to brew different types of coffee.
These types of short videos are a great way to present relevant content in a new way, while also making the content digestible and easy-to-grasp.
It might seem daunting to have to produce a product video on top of writing an entire blog post. However, there are many ways to make cost-effective videos on your own if you don’t outsource.
Software like Canva, Magisto and Biteable offer web-based solutions and support to produce high-quality video content.
With video content embedded in your blogs, you will intrigue the reader and invite them to spend more time on your website.
Time will pass as visitors watch your videos and continue to read other content on the page. This will increase your visitors’ “dwell time,” which is a contributing factor to your search engine ranking.
Videos can also show your product in action in ways that are harder to articulate through text. Instead of describing your products features, you can bring them to life through an interesting story that unfolds on screen.
This will engage with consumers and resume on a deeper level, leaving them thinking about your brand bar after they engage with your content.
5. Start conversations and build community.
Blogs are a great way to facilitate community between you and your prospective customers. If you don’t have any place on your site where customers can go and interact with you or other customers, a blog is a great place to start.
Community is something that many companies try to create. However, it isn’t something that can be easily replicated.
In order to have community, you need to facilitate open lines of communication between your company and your customers.
Everyone wants to be a part of something bigger.
By making your company more accessible, you invite your customers to become more involved on a deeper level. When you do this, they feel more attached to your company and feel like they are a part of the company’s mission in a stronger way.
This type of community is a valuable asset to any company. It is an organic, owned channel that you can easily tap into to understand more about your customers and how they view and use your products. This can be useful for evolving your messaging and even sourcing new ideas for product development.
When writing for your blog, try to find ways to connect with your customers. One way to accomplish this is to be transparent with your company, story, and process.
Hiut Denim Company uses their blog to tell personal stories about the founding team and members of their community.
They highlight ways in which the company gives back and how they are contributing to the small town where their company was founded.
This puts a face on the business, making the entire operation more personal and human.
Customers will learn about the operation behind the business, how their products are produced, and most importantly, how the founders and company are contributing to a larger purpose.
Blogs are a great way to facilitate community and provide a channel for customers to leave comments and learn about the company.
Blogging on Shopify Made Easy
A big advantage of blogging on Shopify is that there’s plenty of help at hand from the various tools and apps available on the Shopify app store.
We’ve reviewed some of the best Shopify blog apps here and you’ll find that top of the heap is DropInBlog.
DropInBlog is a complete blogging solution that is light and flexible and has more features than the in-built Shopify blog. It seamlessly integrates with Shopify (and therefore requires no hosting, unlike a WordPress blog) but is an independent, SEO-friendly solution that makes your content visible in the search engines.
Another of its strengths is that it allows you to insert products into your blog posts, making content shoppable.
These reasons and its ease of use make DropInBlog one of our favorites.
Blogging on Shopify
Blogging on Shopify is an essential marketing function that business owners should not overlook.
There are so many benefits for launching a blog on your site. Consumers will further engage with your business, learn more about your company and return to your website even if they aren’t actively shopping for a product.
Thankfully, managing your blog doesn’t have to cost a lot or take up a ton of your time. There are a variety of tips you can deploy to ensure your content is accessible and not distracting you from concentrating on other aspects of your business.
To run an effective blog on Shopify, you should perform keyword research, optimize your content, outsource administrative tasks, integrate multimedia, and build community within your audience.
By implementing these tips, you’ll create a resourceful blog and a tight-knit community. With both of those assets, prospective customers will start to look at your business as a source of engaging content and great products that they need to buy.
