How To Create An Effective Content Marketing Strategy For Your E-commerce Business

Content marketing for e-commerce is a great way to attract new visitors and convert existing ones into customers.

But what are the best content marketing strategies to skyrocket your sales? How can you kickstart a freshly launched e-commerce store using content marketing? A great content marketing strategy can help you achieve all of your business goals.

Here we will help you learn how you can create an effective content marketing strategy for your brand new e-commerce store. from keyword research to ensure your content ranks, getting backlinks, and optimizing content to drive sales.

What is content marketing? 

Step 1: Analyze your audience and study your niche 

Connecting with your audience is as important as offering a good-quality product. Understanding your market not only helps you improve your value proposition, but also will serve to boost your credibility and trustworthiness in your niche. 

After selecting your niche, your first mission is to study your audience and competitors. Many e-commerce store owners think that continuous interaction is the key to marketing success. While quantity of content might offer some benefit, the idea of shared value is typically more effective. Over 64% of consumers return to an online store because of shared values via products. 

Narrow down all the core features of your ideal audience, i.e., age, gender, preferred products, etc. If you’re just starting out, use Facebook ads to get targeted traffic, and don’t forget to integrate Google Analytics with your Google search console to analyze the interaction. Knowing your audience will help you gain some useful insights which you can use to optimize your shop.

Step 2: Perform keyword research and optimize your content 

Once you know who is on the other end of your marketing efforts, you can find targeted keywords that appeal to them. Your top-performing keywords have high search volumes and low competition. But how do you find these keywords? 

Start by brainstorming to create a list of terms that are relevant to your products. There are many keyword research tools out there designed to help you locate the right keywords for your store. KwFinder is just one example of a powerful tool which can help you select terms from a keyword pool. To start investigating keywords, let’s assume you run XYZ-gifts store. Your keyword suggestions could be: “best Christmas gifts,” “Christmas gift ideas,” and “unique Christmas gifts.” Enter these keyword ideas in your research tool of choice.

You can see that the keyword “best Christmas gifts” will be difficult to rank because the competition is high. While the search rate is good, you could select a better keyword. Check out the suggested terms for more ideas.

The term “unique Christmas gifts” is a better keyword option. This one boasts lower competition, better CPC rates, and will allow you to rank more easily. You can use the keywords you select in product descriptions and blog posts for your e-commerce store. 

In addition to producing keyword-relevant content, you must include the low-competition keywords in your website text to optimize your full site for the most significant benefit. Here are a few quick pointers to boost your on-page SEO.

• Create a compelling landing page using stunning visuals to develop a strong brand aesthetic
• Improve page loading times to provide a better user experience 
• Perform A/B testing to better understand usability and make your pages mobile-friendly 
• Build trust and credibility using high-quality product widgets
• Set up a valuable discount program and promote it with a sign-up box 

Getting every SEO metrics right can be a dauntingly painstaking task. However, with this Shopify SEO app coming to the rescue, you don't need to be an SEO pro to rank higher.

SEO Booster comes with:

• SEO audit and online store optimization checklist
• Keyword optimization and suggestions
• Product Page SEO
• and 100+ other features and toolset waiting for you

Step 3: Improve your SERP using backlinks 

SEO is divided into two levels: on-page and off-page. In the case of the former, you optimize your web-page for users in general. The latter, however, is done specifically for Google’s crawlers. There are many aspects that Google analyses before ranking your site at a particular search position. Backlinks are just one of these features. High-quality backlinks are one of the best ways to make sure your content ranks, especially for new e-commerce stores. Here are a few strategies to help you land some genuine backlinks.

Create and share highly-valuable content with a blog page 

One of the best ways to get backlinks naturally is by creating high-quality, useful content. Create a blog page on your e-commerce store website and add the link in your main menu. The most linked-to content types are stats-based posts, product comparisons, and round-ups. Even if you are writing a “how-to” guide for your marketing, be sure to use targeted traffic and make sure it provides value to your readers. 

Ask for product reviews 

Product reviews are still a great way to get backlinks from high-quality personal blogs. Reach out to the top bloggers in your niche—to find these bloggers, search on Google for “[your niche] bloggers”—and share your giveaway program. Send potential reviewers a product sample for free and ask them to write a review on their blog.  

Publish guest contributions 

Guest posts are the oldest link building technique, but they still work awesomely. Reach out to the websites in your space and offer to submit guest posts. To make your guest contribution stand out, you can include “guest-o-graphics.” These are simply guest-posts with infographics. Visually appealing content is accepted more frequently than regular contributions. To find top blogs in your niche, use this string- Top [your niche] blogs + “write for us”.

Alternatively, you can also publish interesting story-based posts on places like medium.

Use sponsored posts and press releases

Many blogs even offer sponsored-post services for a minimal rate. If you have a decent content marketing budget for your e-commerce store, investing in this type of marketing is a great choice. Similarly, digital magazines publish press releases for a price. Press releases are a great way to give your store a quick interest-boost. 

Read more: How to Handle iOS14 and Keep Your Facebook Ads Running. 

How to promote your e-commerce store

In addition to Google traffic, e-commerce stores have many options for generating views.

Paid ad campaigns: Facebook and Twitter ads are two of the best ways to advertise your products. Create stunning images using tools like Venngage and make eye-catching descriptions for your ad-widget. You can use brand aesthetics- the way your store looks, feels and memorability factors. One great example of awesome brand aesthetics mixed with robust value proposition is Beardbrand.

You can use Beardbrand page to know how a properly done content marketing looks like. They used a CTA on landing page, lighting up the audience’s interest with “What’s your perfect beard style.” It is one of the common ecommerce SEO strategies for boosting user interaction. They have a blog page targeting low competition keywords. Customer support is quick and you can navigate throughout the store easily, I digress. 

Additionally, they aim to connect with their audience on a personal level, building the brand image genuinely, rather they pushing the sales. 

Affiliate marketing: Many new e-commerce businesses use platforms like CJaffiliate to find marketers for their products. In exchange for attracting business, they offer a 5-10% commission on each sale made through the affiliate link. 

To help activate your audience, you can create a referral program. It’s a smart content marketing strategy to help you bring in new customers while retaining the old ones. You can offer your existing customers cash prizes or discounts for helping you engage with new customers via referral marketing. 

Sales emails: Email marketing is for those who already have a few subscribers. If you do have subscribers, you can send your sales copy to them monthly. If you don’t have any subscribers, create your email sign-up form for free using some of the tools available out there.  

Further Reading: 

• eCommerce Best Practices For A Shopify Store That Converts: Read More
• Shopify Pricing - What's Your Investment: Read More
• Shopify Basic Pages and How They Can Help You Build An Online Store Business: Read More
• Top-Grossing Shopify Stores and How To Find Them: Read More

Summing up

Always make sure that the products you are marketing are actually offering value to your users. Create stunning landing pages and a well-structured product catalog. Use compelling copywriting to make your descriptions interesting, and keywords to improve traffic. SERP for each page of your website is decided by many factors, but high-quality backlinks are always relevant. 

Use smart promotion strategies like customer retention techniques to keep your existing customers returning. If you are writing a blog post, break it up into a series of 2-3 line paragraphs. Try to be catchy with your introduction. 

As you delve into the world of content marketing, don’t forget that quality content and genuine engagements are the keys to success.

Side Note: This is the guest post written by Pulkit Bhardwaj is a writer for CandyBar and ReferralCandy.