When we say “Shopify blogging,” we mean more than just writing content. We mean an effective strategy for improving Google rankings, sales, and reputation.
A blog on a Shopify store could be a precious source of traffic and customers. So, taking care of content publication and optimization could help your business hit those new marketing goals you’ve set.
In this article, you’ll learn:
- Benefits of ecommerce blogging on Shopify
- Instructions on how to start a blog on a Shopify store
Let’s begin.
Benefits of eCommerce Blogging for Shopify Stores
Blogging has become a common and beneficial online strategy for driving traffic and building trust with potential customers. Most successful Shopify stores—including your favorite ones—have blogs full of good content.
Here’s why you should follow their suit.
Enhance Authority
Customers tend to trust experienced businesses that have superior knowledge about their products. For people, this knowledge also means that a business knows their needs and problems better.
Having a content-rich blog is a good way to demonstrate expertise. For example, Shopify stores can post stories of their customers and how their products helped them. Such content can greatly increase customer trust because readers will feel more secure buying from a knowledgeable brand.
Generate Leads
More website visitors thanks to a blog means more opportunities to build an impressive email list. A business can generate leads by adding call-to-action buttons or lead magnets to pages on the blog. Visitors would click those buttons and convert, which means lead generation could happen almost on autopilot.
A Shopify store selling kitchen products could offer visitors to sign up for a newsletter. You can use a Shopify email marketing app to “nurture” the collected leads with more blog content and promotional offers.
Increase Google Rankings
“If you have a website but don't have a blog, consider creating one.”
That’s what Google recommends to website owners. It makes perfect sense: a blog adds more pages to a website, which means it gives the search engine more opportunities to rank. The more content there is, the more chances it has to attract potential customers.
Get More Visitors
The higher your Shopify’s store Google position is, the more potential customers it gets. Research says that if a website publishes around 20 blog articles every month, the traffic should increase by up to 30%.
Just imagine: if your monthly traffic now is around 2,000 potential customers, blogging can get this number up to 2,600 in just a month! That’s 600 extra visitors and more opportunities for sales. If your blog stays active, that figure can increase by thousands.
Create Brand and Product Awareness
A blog is one of the best ideas to promote a Shopify store because it’s a way to break through the noise. With so many businesses popping up everywhere, sharing content with online audiences helps introduce them to your company, its products, values, mission, and projects.
Content marketing research found that 81% of online stores that create blog content managed to create brand awareness. This was a result of a strategic approach that included various types of content related to both brands’ values and customers’ needs.
Source: Content Marketing Institute
How to Start a Blog for a Shopify Store
The benefits of starting a blog are too good to pass on, agree? So, there’s no reason to delay blogging for your store—the sooner you start, the sooner you’ll be able to benefit from this strategy.
But—
Starting a blog should be a strategic, well-thought-out project.
This means we’re going to start with planning rather than writing content for the sake of it. Being strategic will pay nice dividends in the long term because it’ll help us cover more topics and attract more potential customers.
Step 1: Create a List of Topics
Our first task is to think about what to write about. We need to come up with topics—ideally, a few dozen of them, so you can keep yourself busy for a while. These topics should reflect the most common goals, problems, and needs of your target customers.
Let’s demonstrate with an example.
Imagine you’re running a Shopify store selling delicious snacks.
Your research tells you that customers buy your products to soothe and comfort themselves while on the road, at work, or at get-togethers with friends (in fact, 55% of people say the food is the top reason to gather to watch the Super Bowl).
Those are great ideas for content.
We can easily make some right away based on that information:
- 5 good road trip snacks for kids and adults
- Snack ideas for the Super Bowl party
- 10 easy and nutritious lunch ideas (including healthy options)
Your ideas might not be that specific, but it’s okay. The main goal at this point is to come up with an idea that can be expanded and made into something customers can read.
So, try coming up with about 10 ideas for content. Ensure that each one is backed up by your customer research, therefore, makes sense for your target audience.
Step 2: Find Keywords
Keywords help Google find and rank our blog content, so we need to include them. This means taking the ideas and adding keywords in a relevant and organic way.
Example:
“Good road trip snacks” will be one of the keywords required for the blog post called “5 good road trip snacks for kids and adults.”
To help that post rank, we’ll need to include that keyword in:
- Title of the future post
- Meta data (meta title and description)
- Multiple times throughout the body of the text
The first step towards SEO is taken!
Once added, this keyword will help Google understand how to rank the post. So, your content will rank faster and, ideally, high in search results.
“Wait a sec, where did you find that keyword?”
Good question.
You’ll need to use keyword research tools for that. I used one called Ahrefs to find that one. In the screenshot below, the tool shows that around 370 people search for it every month.
Author’s screenshot
Ahrefs is great, but it’s a paid tool. If you’d rather use a free one for now, no problem. Check out your site’s Google Search Console or Ubersuggest—both are 100% free and super useful in keyword research.
Add at least a few keywords for every content idea. This means that your blog posts will have keywords to rank for, which is already a step towards higher rankings on Google.
For more detailed tips on SEO blog article optimization, read this useful post: 7 SEO Fixes for Better Blog Posts.
Step 3: Create a Content Calendar
A content calendar is a simple but extremely important thing. Simply explained, it’s a list of content ideas with publishing dates that you’ll use to ensure a regular and consistent publishing process.
Since Google sees regular publishing as a sign of a reliable content provider, it’s a good idea to be consistent. Besides, you might save yourself the trouble of planning by doing everything beforehand.
A content calendar looks like this. As you can see below, this doc could be as simple as a spreadsheet with a few columns with information.
Author’s screenshot
Consider creating a content calendar with ideas for at least a couple of months.
It’ll help you be more strategic and organized about content publishing, and your marketing team will also appreciate that all the info is in one place.
Step 4: Activate the Blog Feature on Shopify
Now that we have our content plan ready, we can turn to Shopify to activate the blog function to start our content marketing.
Follow these tips if you haven’t added it to your store:
- Log into your Shopify panel
- Go to the Online Store section in the main menu
- Click Blog posts in the submenu
- Choose the Add blog post button
Author’s screenshot
Once you've entered the new blog window, Shopify will ask you to choose a template and a name. Choose a template to your liking and add a name—that will be the last step in creating your Shopify blog.
From this post, you’re able to add the content you planned. If you follow the tips we’ve been talking about here, your first pieces should be pretty good!
Step 5: Publish Consistently
We really can’t stress this one well enough. Sticking to a consistent publishing schedule is a major step to getting the benefits of ecommerce blogging, so successful Shopify stores prepare at least a few content pieces in advance before launching.
That’s why we strongly recommend following the same strategy. Make several content pieces in advance to win yourself some time. It’s okay if you publish once a week at first: what matters is content value for readers and how consistent your website is with blogging.
How to Start a Shopify Blog: Final Thoughts
Having a blog on your Shopify store gives you a great channel to engage potential customers and improve your business’s position in Google results.
Content creation is something you’ll have to invest some time in, but the benefits are totally worth it. I mean, who wouldn’t love to have their website at the top of Google results, generating thousands of daily visits?