As online marketing is different from traditional marketing, content becomes the first point of virtual contact to make the user navigate through different sections on the website and instigate them to take the intended action. Whether it is PPC advertising or search engine optimization strategies to achieve different business goals, content marketing is of prime concern. Similarly, in the e-commerce industry also, you need to focus on content that resonates with the user behavior. E-commerce content marketing can be a great way to draw the target audience’s attention to your products and choose your brand over competitors.
With the internet being accessible to users all across the globe, the e-commerce industry has come a long way. The ongoing digitalization of modern life has made it evident for businesses to have an e-commerce website to showcase their online presence as the number of digital buyers is constantly increasing. Businesses have realized the importance of e-commerce marketing. Those with an e-commerce website scaled their sales with digital marketing during the coronavirus pandemic. E-commerce companies today focus on content marketing to build brand awareness, generate leads, etc., to improve their overall web presence.
The e-commerce marketing business deals with various products, however, products that introduce technological advancement every now and then like electronics, gaming products, etc. benefit essentially. Thus, you need to focus on PPC trends and SEO trends, to write great product page descriptions to increase the user’s trust that they are being provided with the latest products. You need to focus on e-commerce trends and then work on content marketing strategy to move the user down the marketing funnel. The website content should be streamlined with the user’s intent so that the visitor finally gets converted to a customer. Let’s see ahead in the blog how leveraging content marketing strategy can drive traffic, improve ranking on the SERPs, increase sales, etc.
What is e-commerce content marketing?
E-commerce is the buying and selling of products or services over the internet. Users can browse different sections of the online store and finally place orders of their choice. It also involves the transfer of money via electronic modes. These transactions are either related to business-to-business(B2B) marketing, business-to-consumer(B2C) marketing, etc. E-commerce content marketing means that your website content should be unique, have great product descriptions, etc., so that the visitor has a clear idea of the products you are selling.
In the e-commerce industry, you first decide what products you are going to sell, work on creating an e-commerce website, including relevant product images, etc. These are necessary points but are insufficient to improve the e-commerce conversion rate and increase sales. So, you should focus on various other SEO metrics like having relevant website content, improving page load speed, etc., to achieve the desired e-commerce advertising ROI.
‘Content is king’ is the buzzword in the field of any form of marketing as it is a non-interruptive form of conversion to make a sell. Content marketing focuses on creating high-quality and original content that attracts the target audience to make a click on your e-commerce website for the keywords or search queries entered. In an e-commerce content marketing strategy, you need to focus on every minute involving any information to be conveyed to the relevant users. A well-crafted e-commerce marketing strategy subconsciously persuades the user to navigate through different sections of your online store. Even users who are just doing window shopping, enticing content encourages them to choose your brand name and increases the chances of them making a purchase.
Important points to focus in e-commerce content marketing
Content lures the visitor to dig deep into your products or services. The idea behind content marketing is to ensure that the visitor has a crystal-clear idea of your offerings. Many a time, there are chances that the user did not last long and turned up leaving the website. So, you need to get in touch with them again by performing remarketing, e-mail marketing, etc. Whichever method you use to make the user get back to your website, content marketing is important everywhere. Some points to focus on in your e-commerce marketing strategy are discussed below.
- Encourage user generated content – To create e-commerce website content tailored to your users’ needs, you need to know who the buyer is and their interests. The main point of e-commerce marketing is to focus on the users liking your products to make a purchase. Content marketing plays an essential role in this as your brand message is conveyed to the users. So, in SEO content for your e-commerce website, you need to ensure that the content is written, keeping the buyer persona in mind. With e-commerce, you not only attract users to your brand, but if they are satisfied with your products, they attract their peers also to your e-commerce website. So, you need to have user-generated content as it gives authenticity to your website.
While preparing content for your e-commerce website, you need to think from a buyer’s perspective to produce the best content for your website. You should write user-generated content so that they feel that the products they are looking for meet their needs. You can conduct quizzes, webinars, track users’ buying activity, ask for feedback, etc., to know more about your target audience. To build user-generated content, you can focus on some of the below mentioned points.
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- Demographics – You need to know the age, gender, location and many other information to ensure that your products are per the users’ interest. Demographic targeting helps to plan your SEO strategies with users’ interest.
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- User behavior – Another point that you need to focus on is to have your content as per the user behavior. You need to analyze the user behavior, what products they like the most, whether they like images or video-based descriptions, etc.
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- Preferred channels they use – You need to determine the social media channels, online platforms, etc., that the users prefer to reach your e-commerce website. Whether they like to purchase from a desktop or mobile device. As an e-commerce company, you must consider optimizing your website for mobile devices. Also, with the launch of mobile-first indexing, it is necessary to have your website designed for mobile devices to have a slightly added advantage for ranking on the Google search engine result page.
- Avoiding duplicate content – The most important part of online advertising is avoiding using duplicate content. The largest search engine Google penalizes the website with duplicate content and lowers the ranking on the search engine result pages. So, in your e-commerce content marketing strategy, you need to focus on writing unique product descriptions and not copy-pasting them from any other website. Even the target audience does not like to go through the same repeated content over and over again. Some of the examples of duplicate content include:
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- Product descriptions that are copy-pasted from other websites.
- Use of the same page in multiple sections on your e-commerce website.
- Multiple pages on your e-commerce website have the same product images.
Duplicate content is the exact or similar website copy found on multiple pages. It may be present on a single website or across numerous websites offering the same products. You can use tools such as Siteliner, Copyscape website, etc., to determine the duplicate content on your website. You can perform an SEO audit to figure out the duplicate content on your e-commerce website. Once you figure out the duplicate content in your e-commerce content marketing strategy, you need to update it with the original matters about your business. The SEO content that has high chances of duplication are:
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- URL duplicates.
- Copy-paste from another website.
- Product description same as that of the manufacturer
Though there are multiple areas of duplication, here are some ways how you can solve duplicate content issues in your e-commerce marketing strategy.
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- Fixing URL issues – You can use 301 redirects to tell the search engine that the different links on your website are not duplicates. Using this, the search engine would get to know that the domain authority has changed and the status of your page has moved permanently. For temporary redirects, you can use 302 redirects so that after applying the relevant changes, you can again make it live.
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- Applying canonical tags – Another way of removing duplicate content is by using canonical tags. Suppose you have two pages with duplicate content. In that case, you can use canonical tags to let search engines know that specific content is a copy of another page. It will help the search engine understand this in advance and avoid penalties for your e-commerce website.
The canonical tag is a page-level meta tag that is placed in the HTML header of a website. It gives reference to the main page, thus informing the search engine which page is more relevant. Applying the canonical tags will help the main page rank higher than the relevant searches. It is also ideal when you have similar content targeting the same keyword. So, you can inform the search engine which is the right one to be considered for ranking on the result pages.
- Creating product guide – Product guides allow your target audience to easily know what they are going to get after making a purchase. The smoother experience they have with the product description, the higher are the chances of them making a purchase. You can add multiple images about your product or even include a short informative video highlighting the key points of your product.
With a strong e-commerce content marketing strategy, you not only guide the user about the product description but indirectly guide them to make a purchase. You need to provide a detailed description of your products so that the user is fully informed about what you are offering. These in-depth text-based or visual content guides the user about your offerings and what are the necessary steps to perform to make a purchase. Educating the user about the product inculcates a sense of oneness that your brand provides complete details.
- Using photos and videos – E-commerce is an online store where the users see your products virtually until they make a purchase. For an e-commerce website, it is a mandate to show the products images. So, you need to incorporate great product images in your e-commerce content marketing strategy.
Videos are a great way to demonstrate how to use the products and highlight various features and benefits. Videos tend to be more elaborative and are easy to retain for the users. You can use these images on your company’s social media handle. You can add these images with the description in the Facebook Ads, Youtube Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Instagram reels, etc. In your e-commerce PPC advertising strategy, you can even add negative keywords so that your products do not appear for irrelevant search queries. Combining quality images and videos encourages the users to connect with your brand. E.g., If your business deals with clothing services, you must consider adding various photos and videos about your products.
- Include ratings & reviews – The E-commerce industry has users from all over the globe. So, to maximize sales through e-commerce content marketing, you must consider having a rating & reviews section on your website. You can even send a follow-up email to users who did not make a purchase. The more the ratings and reviews about your products are present, your brand loyalty improves.
The more positive reviews you have about your products, the higher your brand awareness, brand loyalty, etc. You must also show negative feedback(if any) on your website. It shows the user that there is room for improvement and your company is continuously working on it to improve the SEO campaign performance. Suppose your business has multiple sellers providing the products so. In that case, you can consider adding seller information to increase users’ trust in your brand. You must consider having a live chatbot and answering the user’s queries with the use of artificial intelligence. If any doubts are still present, you can provide your companies contact information like phone number and email address.
Why e-commerce companies need content marketing
E-commerce marketing deals with various types of products. As the marketing trends keep evolving with time, so need to update the content on the website accordingly. This is important to increase brand loyalty as the users believe in your brand and come again to your website every time a search related to your products is done.
No matter the product you are selling, content marketing plays a crucial role in conveying your business message to the target audience. So, when performing content marketing, you should always focus on the fact that your content is organized in such a way so that the visitor ends up taking the intended action. Your content conveys your product messages and lasts long till the product is active. Thus, you should avoid any type of duplicate content on your e-commerce website. Even search engines like Google, Bing, etc., penalize businesses with duplicate content. It lowers the user’s trust in your brand and the search engine ranking of the e-commerce website goes down.
Ecommerce content marketing means that you should have enticing website content to make the visitor finally take the intended action. Content marketing helps you attract and convert potential business prospects and turn them into loyal customers. The e-commerce companies like Amazon, eBay, etc., use various online platforms to increase leads to the e-commerce website. You should use various SEO metrics to track the user’s interest. Preparing an SEO report would help you determine what elements on the webpage need to be worked on so that they choose your brand name, like optimizing images, adding eye-catching call-to-action, etc. Once the users are satisfied with your products, they share the feedback with friends and family, thus helping in peer-to-peer marketing.
E-commerce content marketing needs to be of prime focus when advertising during the holiday season, during NewYear time, etc. With the increase in social media users, you should consider social media marketing in your e-commerce marketing strategy to increase traffic to your website and increase sales. So, whether you use e-commerce PPC or e-commerce SEO to get in touch with the target audience, your content should engage them to reach your website. You can consider writing ‘how to content’, providing discounts or offers, etc., which creates a sense of urgency among the users for reaching your e-commerce website. Some points on how e-commerce content marketing benefits your business are mentioned below:
- Improves SEO performance – For e-commerce websites, content marketing provides a significant advantage in search engine performance. When you consistently create high-value content, you attract organic traffic to your e-commerce website. You should conduct keyword research and choose the high-traffic relevant keywords.
You should focus on a better SEO strategy to drive quality traffic to your e-commerce website, leading to a greater lifetime value and spending more time on the web page. You can check the user behavior and determine the loyal visitors who prefer your products ahead of your competitors. To keep these users be in touch with your business in the long run, you need to focus on keeping the content relevant to the context displayed to the user. Google or any search engine monitors this and alters the ranking on the SERPs.
- Completes buyer journey – E-commerce companies should span the entire user journey. From the point that the user clicked on the content to reach your website, the time user spent navigating through different web page sections, adding the product to the cart or making a purchase. You should focus on content marketing and finally guide the user to take the intended action. You should also monitor how many times user comes to your website to determine the user engagement with your brand.
There may be chances that the user has some doubts about product description, delivery time, payment methods, etc. So, you need to have a FAQ section to answer the common questions of the user. You need to focus on the customer touchpoints and perform niche marketing so that the relevant audience does not have a second thought to make a purchase. However, to answer the users’ unheard questions, you should include a chatbot so that the user can get in touch with your business and directly ask any doubt related to your business. These virtual assistants should be active every time so that the users’ queries are solved 24/7.
- Helps in conversion funnel optimization – E-commerce companies showcase their product for the relevant keywords on the SERPs. The descriptions include images or short videos of the products. At times, when the user reaches your website, they find the product being offered is different from the one displayed on the search engine. It may be that the product is out of stock for the time being. You can consider saying “the product is out of stock, try similar items’, “currently unavailable- will notify once it is back”, etc. It increases the trust of the user and e-commerce conversion rate ultimately.
On the other hand, you may have visitors on your website that are just going through your products but are not there to really make a purchase. So, it’s crucial to build marketing relationships with these audiences so that they make a purchase. With the use of cookies, you can get in touch with these users by performing remarketing through email marketing, content marketing, messaging directly in their inbox on social media platforms, etc. You can perform a/b testing to determine different forms of your product that have more sales and present that to the customer.
B2C marketers can invite new visitors to become email subscribers to get new deals. As a B2B business, you can encourage users to download your testimonials and go through your case studies to partner with your business and become affiliate marketers. With the help of e-commerce content marketing, you need to write a great call to -action for users who have high chances of making a purchase. This way, you can continuously guide them towards greater engagement, increase purchases for your products and optimize your conversion funnel.
- Amplifies brand loyalty – The E-commerce industry has a wide variety of products. With the massive proliferation of choices to choose from, brand loyalty is difficult to maintain with such huge competition. You need to regularly create content that educates and entertains users with your products. To increase brand loyalty and be ahead of your competitors, you need to have a content marketing strategy to build a relationship with your audience.
You need to provide the user with the latest descriptions for the product in the market. Explaining to the user about your products caters to their interest in your brand name. It improves brand loyalty as they eagerly wait for your website to make the product available whenever a new product comes into the market. As we have attribution reports, similarly, you can also prepare an SEO report to figure out the path users choose to reach your website. You can keep track of the users’ activity of how many times a user purchases with your brand and reward them special offers to amplify brand loyalty.
Closing thoughts
Content marketing has been and will continue to be in demand in the future. Whether it be online marketing, Meta – Facebook world, etc., content marketing will always have a role. There are numerous ways to increase sales and content marketing plays a crucial part in advertising. You need to first gain users’ trust with your brand and then have self-sustaining content on the website to make the user finally take the intended action. E-commerce content marketing may require a lot of time and effort. Getting in touch with a digital marketing company, you get quality experience in e-commerce SEO, keyword research, backlink analysis, link building, etc. and see an increased number of sales for your products.
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