How a Blog Can Boost an ECommerce Website

It wasn't too long ago that blogs were the 'new big thing' but nowadays they're simply an integral part of the Web 2.0 landscape. Some businesses caught on immediately to the idea that blogs can be used to enhance their business marketing efforts. They realized that blogs can give websites a constant stream of fresh content - something that's beneficial for both website visitors and search engines.

Oddly enough, blogs have been slow to catch on with eCommerce websites - sites that sell physical products online. Perhaps eCommerce website owners don't realize how blogs can effectively be used to enhance their site. Blogs are all about providing a steady flow of fresh content and they automatically overcome the problem of content getting stale. So let's have a look at some of the ways blogs can be used in an eCommerce website setting.

New Product Announcements - When selling products online, there are always new products coming onboard. An eCommerce website will probably have a 'new product' area on their site. But these new products can also provide topics for extended information presented in a series of blog posts.

Discontinued Products - Similarly, products will be discontinued accordingly to product life cycles. These cycles differ between industries but what better way to announce discontinued products than with a series of blog posts?

Product Usage - The various ways products are used can be the basis for blog posts. For example, if your website is selling scrapbooking supplies, your blog post might discuss how to start a journal project using "Brand X" Journal along with a particular style of die cuts and other scrapbooking elements (all of which can be purchased on the site of course).

Product Reviews - Consumers love to read reviews so write a review on a product and post it in the blog. Even though a review written as a blog post may not be seen as completely impartial, it can be written in an informative fashion to highlight the benefits and features of a product as well as any information that might not be found in the product description.

Industry Buzz - Products sold on eCommerce sites are part of an 'industry' or product market. As such, there are always news stories and press releases being generated that can be of interest to your site visitors. Simply re-form the stories into your own words, add some of your own insight and publish blog posts on them. Using your site's keywords, you can find industry and market stories by searching Google News (which also has a 'news alerts' features), Yahoo News or other news sources.

Consumer Buzz - Consumers also love to talk about products; good or bad. Everyone has an opinion and the best places to find these opinions are on web forums or review sites. Look at what the consumers are saying about the products you sell and spin your own yarn in a blog post.

There is really an endless supply of potential blog topics for an eCommerce website. Adding a blog to an eCommerce site and updating it regularly can give your site visitors a reason to keep returning. And that means more sales and more revenue.

Also it will give the search engine spiders a reason to keep returning to your site and can help your search engine positioning. If you're an ecommerce site owner or principle, consider giving this a try. Chances are your competition isn't doing this and even if they are, they won't be doing it in exactly the same way.