5 eCommerce Blog Topics to Attract More Sales

According to data from the Census Bureau, eCommerce sales in the US will hit $1.3 trillion by the end of 2020. Shopping has moved online, and retailers are following suit.

Now, almost every major retailer in the US has a dedicated eCommerce presence—and they’re all fighting for market share.

One of the best ways to increase sales despite the competition is with content marketing, and in particular, a blog. Still, coming up with eCommerce blog ideas can be a challenge, so we put together this article on eCommerce blogging ideas so you’ll have everything you need to get started outranking the competition with a blog as soon as possible.

Why is blogging important for eCommerce companies?

Recent research shows that 46% of consumers start the buying process through a search engine online.

This means the top spots in search engine results pages are incredibly valuable for increasing sales. One of the best ways to reach those spots is with content marketing or blogging as a part of a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.

Blogging generates additional web traffic from organic search sources, like search engines, by attracting a targeted audience with quality content. In fact, according to data from HubSpot, businesses that blog get 55% more website visitors than companies that don’t.

Not only that, but blogging also helps educate customers about products, share company values, and so much more.

So if you’re looking to increase your online shop’s organic traffic, it all starts with the foundation of search engine optimization, an informative blog.

5 blog topics for eCommerce companies

Blogging can be very effective for increasing sales, but only if you’re writing about the right eCommerce blog topics.

eCommerce blog topics should be both beneficial to your audience and something you can write about at an expert level. The goal is to provide as much valuable information as possible while gently pushing the site visitor towards a specific product or products.

eCommerce for seasonal trends, special events and holidays

eCommerce sales, like all retail sales, are volatile. Seasonality can cause huge changes in sales.

For that reason, blogs about seasonal trends, special events, and holidays help to increase sales. For example, below is a blog on ‘Summer Cocktail Recipes’ from Hickory Farms, an online gift basket seller.

The article details how you can use the company’s gift baskets to make refreshing cocktails for summer evenings. The goal is when someone types in ‘summer cocktail ideas’ into Google, this blog will come up and lead them to buy a gift basket.

Hickory Farms also produces blogs like this about special events. For example, you can see below two blogs about Mother’s and Father’s Day.

If someone is looking for gift ideas during this season, these blogs will help attract them to the site, increasing revenue.

Buying guides

Buying guides are probably the most common blog topic you’ll find on eCommerce websites. It’s because they are natural segways into product sales.

Take this example from the online skate retailer, Warehouse Skateboards, called “How to Choose the Right Skateboard Deck.” Not only is this the perfect gift guide blog for parents or family, but it also helps Warehouse Skateboards increase visibility for important keywords in search engines.

Ranking on a search engine’s first page for a keyword like ‘skateboard deck’ that gets 4,000 monthly searches in the US alone can lead to a solid increase in sales for the company.

Coming soon!

Get customers excited about your upcoming product lines with coming soon blogs.

All you have to do is detail your upcoming product lineup, add in some quality pics, and you have material for your blog and to share on social media or through email marketing.

Take this example from the coffee company, Death Wish Coffee, which sells 100% of its product online. They market the highest caffeine content coffee on the market and will commonly release blog posts about what’s new for the upcoming season.

Social or environmental responsibility

As an eCommerce company, it can be tough to let consumers know about social and environmental responsibility initiatives with social media alone.

If you operate an eCommerce site that sells natural products, green products, or whose company values are rooted in social responsibility, creating blog posts about your values can be a winning strategy.

For example, the natural beauty company, Beautycounter, has a blog where they mostly discuss the actions they are taking to be environmentally and socially responsible.

Here’s a recent post from the company on the sourcing of their ingredients, for example.

And here’s a blog about social responsibility discussing the steps Beautycounter is taking to help ensure equality at their company as well as some organizations to which they donate.

Target audience blogs

If you’re struggling to connect with a certain audience, creating blogs that specifically target the audience in question can be very useful. That may sound confusing, so let us give you an example.

Carhartt is known for its male-dominated audience. They wanted to bring in more women for their online store, so they created a blog dedicated entirely to women. The goal of the blog was to find hardworking women who wear Carhartt around the US and detail their stories.

Carhartt’s blog now features amazing stories of women from all around the country. Like this story about the hardworking Jones sisters in Kansas City, who own one of the most popular Barb-B-Q restaurants in the city.

Plus, the company has created a series of blogs dedicated to detailing the history of women and Carhartt. Even including old images like this one in their blogs.

Carhartt is the perfect example that if you want to capture a certain audience, you need to tailor your blogs to fit.

Brainstorming tip: Finding eCommerce blog topics using Google Trends

After writing dozens of blogs for your online store, it can be difficult to brainstorm new topics. Thankfully, there are free tools like Google Trends that can help. Google Trends uses search data from billions of queries on its platform to provide information about what’s trending on Google.

How do you use Google Trends? Let’s take a look at a few examples for eCommerce companies.

One of the best tools that Google Trends provides is the ability to compare keywords. This can be incredibly valuable in determining what words to target with your blogs.

For example, if you run an eCommerce site that sells shoes, you might want to know which term is searched more, ‘sneakers’ or ‘tennis shoes.’

According to Google Trends, ‘sneakers’ is by far the more commonly used term. So your blogs should probably be targeted more towards sneakers than tennis shoes.

Another cool feature of Google Trends is the geographic interest display that shows you interest by state for the terms you’re comparing.

Sometimes, you’ll find certain parts of the country use one term more than another, so if you have a regional eCommerce site, you’ll know the right term to use.

Finally, there is the related queries and topics section which is perfect for brainstorming eCommerce blog topics. It shows related queries and topics that have had an uptick in traffic recently.

Brainstorming tip: Finding eCommerce blog topics using Google Suggest and People Also Ask

If Google Trends doesn’t help you find blog topics, there are a couple more free options you could try. First, there’s Google Suggest.

Google Suggest works off data from the Google server to finish your sentence with common related queries when you’re typing something into the search bar. This can be incredibly helpful for finding new blog topics that will reach large audiences.

Sticking with our shoe example from above, you can see if we type in something like “Why are my sandals…” into Google, it will automatically suggest queries that complete the sentence.

A shoe store could use these common queries as blog topics to increase organic traffic. For example, you might create a blog about why sandals are squeaky and some possible remedies. Then, at the end of the post, you could have a call-to-action to buy non-squeaky sandals from your company.

Finally, you can use the People Also Ask (PAA) section of Google results to find blog topics as well. The section shows commonly searched questions that relate to your query.

Continuing with the sandal example from above, we can see there are plenty of questions in the PAA section like “Is it bad to wear sandals all the time?” that could be turned into blog topics.

Best practices for using eCommerce blogs as a marketing tool

Now that you have a few eCommerce blog ideas for what to write about, we thought we’d leave you with a few top tips to improve your blogging results. Creating the perfect blog isn’t easy, but if you follow these best practices, your organic traffic and sales numbers will go through the roof.

• Remember your goals. Sometimes when you’re writing a long blog post, it can be easy to forget that the goal of the blog is not only to inform but to convert site visitors into paying customers. Every blog needs to be properly optimized to attract paying customers. That means a strong call-to-action, clear links to product pages, and blog topics that help lead readers to use your product as a solution.

• Use keyword research. Without keyword research, blogs have trouble getting consistent organic traffic. Keywords research helps your blogs reach the right audience in search engines and that leads to more sales.

You don’t need to pay for all the fancy keyword software. Start by exploring several free keyword research tools first.

• Remember your formatting. Formatting blogs for readability is a must. If your blogs aren’t formatted for a human audience, visitors won’t read them. No one likes huge blocks of text without pictures or graphs, so remember to create formatting that is clear and easy to read with plenty of engaging bold sections and photos.

• Mobile matters. Back in November 2016, Google announced its mobile-first indexing strategy. This essentially meant the search engine now gives priority to mobile pages. For eCommerce companies, mobile-first indexing has led to an impressive increase in mobile sales as a percentage of total eCommerce revenue, as you can see from the graph below.

With more than 50% of eCommerce sales going through mobile devices, it is vital to ensure your site is properly optimized for mobile sales. Try Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to see where you stand for a start.

• Remember Internal and external linking. Internal and external linking is critical if you want search engines to properly crawl and index your site. Internal links are links on your site from one page to another. External links point to outside sources that should be as authoritative and relevant to your industry as possible.

• Promote your blog with other marketing tactics. Promoting your blogs with email marketing and social media is critical to improving organic traffic. Blog content is the perfect material for social media posts and email marketing, so don’t be afraid to send out the work you’ve taken so long to research and create.

Next steps to market your eCommerce business

The average blog post in 2019 was 1,151 words. That means blog posts have increased in length by 42% in just the past five years. Unfortunately, not every eCommerce company has the time to create all the eCommerce blog ideas that will draw in organic traffic.

Thankfully, there are digital marketing experts who can help. If you’re struggling with a new blog or want to get started with more eCommerce marketing ideas, contact us for help right away.

We’d be happy to help you get started on your digital marketing journey to increase your sales ASAP!

Markitors is an internet marketing agency with a focus on SEO. We help small businesses rank higher on Google to draw more leads to websites and increase revenue. Explore what’s in our SEO toolbox: audits and keyword research, digital PR, technical SEO, and local SEO.