Experts panel

This article has been written and edited by SEO & content specialists and reviewed by field experts.

Jelle van Santen (Article author)

Data Analyst and Content Marketing Specialist

 

 

Jairo Guerrero (Content reviewer)

Helping CEOs With Their SEO | Growing Websites Traffic x10 With 90-Day Content Sprints | Achieved +5M Revenue With SaaS & eCommerce SEO Campaigns | Trained +100 Companies | SEO Capitan & Founder @ Phanum

 

Scale easily the impact of your eCommerce Content Marketing

Content-driven eCommerce marketing is the best way for small and medium-sized webshops to compete with larger webshops for SEO.

While improving your webshop structure or building up the number of backlinks your site has isn’t bad, you should seriously consider upgrading your content too.

In this article, I will explain to you what content-driven eCommerce is, what the main benefits are, and how other eCommerce businesses are benefiting from content-driven eCommerce.

 

What is eCommerce Content Marketing?

Content-driven eCommerce is a marketing strategy for webshops to attract more visitors by producing quality content. Possible types of content to produce as part of this strategy include different types of blogs and on-page content on product and category pages.

The idea is that by publishing additional quality content, more people will be able to find and browse around your webshop, which will ultimately improve your number of sales. Also by providing quality content, people will perceive your webshop as more trustworthy or authoritative.

This strategy is especially useful and important for small- to medium-sized eCommerce businesses which are currently not at the top of the search results.

 

Why is eCommerce Content Marketing important?

Content-driven eCommerce is important and will become only more critical in the future as well because the competition in eCommerce will only become more intense. In the past there were only a handful of competitors in each eCommerce niche, however, nowadays there are more and more eCommerce businesses year after year.

The more competition there is the more you need to distinguish your webshop from the competitors. The best way to do this (without dropping prices significantly) is to use content-driven eCommerce marketing strategies. There are many benefits of this strategy that will help you to grow your webshop tremendously.

 

Benefits of eCommerce Content Marketing

Content-driven eCommerce can have many different benefits for your eCommerce site but it mainly aims to improve awareness and conversions. If done correctly content-drive eCommerce helps you with:

• Increasing your impressions in search engines
• Increasing your engagement with customers
• Increasing your conversion rate
• Increasing the number of indexed pages (if you add blogs to your site)
• Increasing the number of keywords your eCommerce site ranks for
• Helping you become the expert in your industry and establishing your site as an authority

“But why do large eCommerce businesses not make use of content-driven eCommerce that much?”

For many of the big eCommerce brands such as Amazon, it is not necessary to produce additional content such as blogs because they have millions of pages. The more unique pages a webshop has, the higher it usually ranks in the search results. This happens because Google wants to satisfy users’ search intent, and if a webshop offers many products, it is probably able to satisfy the users’ demand.

Therefore, webshops with a lot of pages are more likely to rank higher and get more site visitors, without having too much additional content in the form of blog pages.

Small- to medium-sized eCommerce websites have typically fewer pages than these mega eCommerce sites and are thus at a disadvantage. However, by using a content-driven eCommerce marketing strategy, they are better able to compete with the larger webshops. This is because they then provide value to users in the form of content, instead of relying on a large number of pages.

The 2 best types of content to start making for your content-driven eCommerce marketing are providing informational copy on category pages and publishing blogs for the right search intent. They are mentioned from most important to improve first to least important to improve. This is based on the ideal eCommerce site structure and how much time and effort it takes to finish the improvements.

1. Providing quality content on category pages

The content on your category pages should be upgraded first because for most webshops these are the most important pages in the site’s hierarchy. This strategy will have the biggest impact with the least amount of effort out of the three strategies.

By adding informational copy to your category pages, you will be able to provide more value and add additional keywords to the page than most other competitors. For example, you can add extra content in the form of an FAQ, which answers the most common questions for your product category.

A real-world example of an eCommerce site that does this is AllegroMedical, which sells medical supplies such as first aid kits. By adding more content and internal links, they are able to improve their chances of ranking higher in search engines.

 

2. Focus your content with the right search intent

After you have updated the content of your category pages, you should consider writing specific blogs to target potential customers that need more information before they are able to make a purchase.

By providing the right information users need in a blog, you will be able to make potential customers go from a state wherein they are not ready to purchase to a state wherein they are maybe ready to purchase. By providing this information, they are more likely to trust you and ultimately buy from you.

I see many eCommerce businesses publish blogs without them targeting the right search intent of users. The blogs they then publish are not being found by users or not helping webshops reach commercial objectives. However, there are some types of blogs and articles that can help you increase relevant traffic.

Here are some of the best types of blogs to post as an eCommerce business with relevant titles for a sports apparel webshop. Also, I included which type of eCommerce marketing funnel it targets since you don’t want to have blogs that target people in the direct buying phase. If you want to know more about eCommerce blogging, or what users to target with blogs, you should read our article on eCommerce blogging!

The best type of blogs for eCommerce sites –  to increase awareness and conversions
Type of blog	Potential blog title	The phase of the funnel
Comparison blog	The differences between Nike and Adidas sports apparel?	Consideration
Buying guide	What to look for when buying sports apparel for football/basketball/hockey?	Awareness/consideration
List article	Most popular sport apparel brands in 2022	Awareness/retention
How-to article	How to run faster? (-> including a section about buying better running shoes)	Awareness/retention
Trend articles	The latest sport apparel trends for this fall	Awareness/retention

 

How Cablestogo.com has 1 blog  that attracts 80.000 visitors per month

Cablestogo.com is an online store that is specialized in selling all kinds of different cables and attracts an estimated 500.000 visitors each month. They have more than 3800 pages in organic search results, however, the page that attracts most visitors is not a product page nor a category page.

 

Their best-performing page in organic search is a blog page called the “USB Connector Guide” with an estimated monthly organic traffic of almost 80.000 visitors! This page is 2x more likely to be found organically by users than their homepage and almost 4x more likely to be found organically than their best-performing category page.

 

 

3. Apply advanced content features

Content is not only about keywords. Some of the most visited websites are simple applications with a particular feature: a calendar, color scheme maker, pdf editor online, logo maker online, etc. Thos pages have almost ZERO content yet they provide a value to users and that is rewarded with high SERP positions.

You should try to do the same for your website.

If you are running a webshop think for example on improving the filter options on the category page or improve the usability and features of the product page: pictures, videos or interactive images. Videos are especially effective in providing customers with a more immersive experience, allowing them to visualize products in action. To create compelling and professional-looking videos without hassle, you can try a free video editor, ensuring your content stands out and drives engagement.

Product pages are most likely the least important type of pages in your site’s hierarchy and content optimizations on these pages will have less impact on SEO than on other pages. However, content optimizations on product pages can be important for improving the conversion rate.

Potential buyers are curious, they will want to buy something that satisfies their needs and they need to know it as soon as possible. Therefore, you should always include all the relevant information that buyers want to know.

What information to include ultimately depends on the product you sell and possible regulations. A good rule of thumb is to have the same level of information as your competitors at a minimum for each product.

However, if you have time and resources left you can always add more such as:

• FAQs
• Different use cases
• Extra visuals
• or something unique which will make your product page stand out from competitors

Adding these will probably not make your page more likely to rank higher in search engines, but this is good for user experience and conversion rate optimization. The better your product page explains how it can solve someone’s need, the more likely users are to buy from you.

A good example of an advanced product page content upgrade is the product page of Leesa. Leesa shows an interactive mattress with information next to all other important matters for buyers. This is very unique and adds more to the product page than just written content. This can help people better understand what their mattresses are made of and how this product is better than competitors.

Conclusion

Content-driven eCommerce is an excellent marketing strategy for smaller and medium-sized eCommerce businesses to outcompete the competition. This is especially the case when the competition for eCommerce businesses increases and consumers may start to spend less because of rising prices.

However, content-driven eCommerce is not the end all be all. You should carefully consider if investing in content is the best step to take, it if other steps should be taken first. The ideal way to find this out is to read our blog on performing an eCommerce SEO audit – to find out what steps you need to take in order to improve your SEO.

 

If you have made it this far through the blog…

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