How To Use Content To Increase Sales On Your Ecommerce Store
Needless to say, the primary goal of any eCommerce store is to sell your products, while the website serves as a platform where you can display your goods. But you need a driving force to convince users to buy your products.
For example, a small-time business owner can drive their product’s visibility using media and written content. Whereas a creative essay writer can help them choose perfect words to resonate with their audience.
So, let’s check out the key considerations when creating content for your online store. We’ll go through the core principles of traffic generation using consumer-oriented content.
Content creation is a crucial part of online marketing because it lends the product a voice. Without content creation, users cannot ‘interact’ with your product, hence decreasing your website’s conversion rates.
For your online marketing campaign to bear instant fruit, you need to identify your audience, as well as a clear brand message and tone. Therefore, you must consider the following indicators when creating an eCommerce store:
These four metrics will help you develop a winning strategy and to create traffic-generating content. Now let’s get right to the tips you’ll need to boost your sales.
#1. Focus on your core audience’s needs
#2. Set a brand tone
#3. Create a blog for your store
#4. Write informative content of varying lengths
#5. Implement visual imagery
#6. Use effective SEO methods to optimize your site
#7. Outfox the competition
#8. Improve the mobile user experience
#9. Tailor your content to focus on top products
#10. Offer as much detail as possible
#11. Use email marketing to engage your customers
#12. Allow customers to comment and interact with you
#13. Build trust with the customers
Sounds good? Let’s dive in!
One of the essential sales tips to remember is that the audience always comes first. If you have an eCommerce website, identifying the interest of your consumers should be your primary focus.
Make no mistake; the internet allows you to sell anything you want without so many restrictions. However, you must tailor your content to maximize conversion rates.
Lead generation graph based on different content types. (Source)
Your main goal is to create a hitch-free channel of communication for sharing ideas between potential consumers and your business. Surveys and questionnaires are the most effective means of engaging your old and new customers since they allow users to share their thoughts and provide feedback on your services.
These reactions will essentially serve as your company’s North star and help you improve traffic and sales as well.
Any brand needs a voice and wings to fly. Well-crafted content gives your brand a special tone and sets it free. Therefore, after identifying your core demographics, you need to choose a tone of voice befitting your audience.
Are my users young or old? Should I use a formal or informal tone? Is the style reflective of the brand identity?
Obviously, your content should mirror the brand’s identity. For example, if your eCommerce store focuses on gaming gear, the brand tone should reflect the industry’s playful nature. Alternatively, an online store for medical equipment should have a more stoic and formal style.
Every online store needs a secure website and a dedicated blog. Blog posts on eCommerce websites provide users with information about the store itself.
What is the company about? What are its core values? These are the questions that need precise answers.
Without a blog, the task of portraying the business as a viable entity becomes a massive challenge. Users who are interested in learning more about the store simply won’t have access to this valuable information.
Although blogs on Medium, Blogger, and other platforms can drive traffic to your store, they are not as effective as blogs on the store’s website. That’s because people are reluctant to follow third-party links. Therefore, you should always dedicate enough resources to running an on-site blog.
If you lack time and writing skills, you can hire a qualified pro from any write my essay service to run the blog for you. Alternatively, you can invite industry experts to publish product-related guest posts in your blogs.
The term ‘content’ covers everything on your website, from images to texts.
Every menu and button must deliver a message through color and accompanying text. This practice should also be extended to other forms of media, like images, illustrations, and video content.
Similarly, focus the written content on providing valuable information to the user. Always bear in mind that every visitor spends an average of 15 seconds on a page before closing it. So, don’t waste time on long descriptions. Keep everything concise and relevant to the central idea of the product on the page.
Content pyramid showing the hierarchy of different content variations. (Source)
Moreover, don’t limit your blog posts and articles to short-form content.
Sounds ironic, right? How can users go through the content if they spend such a short amount of time on the website?
But here is the catch: users are attracted to long-form content if it provides additional value more than short articles. A detailed post describing a new product will attract more readers than a generic one. Similarly, articles addressing frequently asked questions and customer complaints attract more eyes to your eCommerce store.
Visual content provides context; written content provides meaning. In conjunction, visual and written content offer peak value to customers. So don’t limit your content creation strategy only to written texts; add some context using other media forms.
For example, a blog post describing a product can impact the user if animated or illustrated guides are attached in the post.
SEO (search engine optimization) is the universal technique of improving your website’s ranking in search results.
How many times have you clicked on ‘Page 2’ in Google search? Not many often, apparently.
Graph showing the CTR value based on website position in search results. (Source)
The reality is that Google’s ranking algorithm prioritizes the most useful resources for customers by pushing them to the top search results. So, your eCommerce website will remain in obscurity if you don’t use a proper SEO strategy.
The most common SEO technique is keyword optimization.
Every search term on Google starts with a keyword or phrase. Google bots then arrange the results based on site authority, keyword density, and other ever-changing metrics. As a result, you can boost your website’s ranking by working only with the keywords relevant to your niche.
Furthermore, your landing page should also receive the same SEO attention as your blog. Landing page optimization involves finding the most relevant keywords for your products and including them in different sections.
Most importantly, your content can only rank higher if you provide value and optimize the right keywords. Use keyword tools to strategize your content creation process.
Another core tenet of sales strategies is to outperform the opposition.
Let’s assume you want to open a lemonade business on the same street as your neighbor.
What’s the first thing to address?
Competitive advantage. You want to identify strong and weak points of your neighbor’s lemonade business.
Are they using too much sugar? Can I sell lemonade to a different crowd?
This same logic applies to content creation for eCommerce sites. The strategies you employ should focus on outperforming those services ahead of you. Hence, the need for competitor analysis.
Always start by going through their entire website to find the most common keywords. Another option is to analyze every page individually.
In essence, you need to identify content strategies employed by competitors and incorporate those findings in your approach.
User experience is vital for ease of eCommerce stores navigation. Users want to buy stuff from sites that don’t cause any additional stress. They pay attention to color schemes, site structure, and ease of use. Also, fast loading pages are magnets for customers.
However, most businesses are obsessed with content creation for websites so much that they forget one crucial point: most users surf the internet on their phones. And what looks marvelous on a desktop might appear out of whack on a smartphone.
Mobile User Chart (Source)
Furthermore, a recent study by Statista has shown that over 40% of Amazon and eBay users purchase their goods on smartphones.
Therefore, you should always work on your store’s mobile interface alongside the desktop one. Otherwise, you will risk losing almost half of your potential customer base.
Notably, most open-source platforms for eCommerce website creation provide the option of intuitive themes and designs that might help you improve your content.
Programs like Google Console provide in-depth insights into the performance of all kinds of websites. They also help you monitor the parameters of your store’s usage in real-time.
Sample data from Google Console Dashboard. (Source)
Based on the information gathered from these insights, strategize your content approach to address possible issues. Find out the most relevant posts (through organic search) and focus on optimizing them further.
Similarly, use these tools to identify the best-selling products in your online store and make them the epicenter of your content strategy. Conduct extensive keyword research to discover relevant SEO techniques and to push those products to the top.
Customers want to get the maximum amount of information before they proceed to checkout. And if there is no text description for your content, the user will need extra persuasion to buy the product.
Therefore, provide details about the products in your store. Talk about specifics, use high-quality media content, and the right keywords.
Email marketing is a content strategy used by any business interested in selling things online. Marketing via email is also a multipurpose approach focused on negating the OSOM (out of sight; out of mind) principle.
Here are the standard email chains you can use for marketing your eCommerce store:
Ecommerce marketing thrives on customer engagement and feedback. Provide a platform for users to review products and services on your website. These testimonials give your site an extra level of credibility.
Customer engagement and satisfaction metrics as of 2020 (Source)
You also need to let your audience read comments and interact with them regularly. Ultimately, answer their questions and tailor your content strategy to address their concerns.
Every customer is in search of a website they can trust. Think about it; you always check a website’s credibility before buying products. This explains why customers prefer to buy their goods and services from established brands.
But irrespective of your brand’s level of exposure, you can still garner your audience’s trust. All you need is transparency and reliability.
Here are the most effective tips on how to increase sales by establishing trust:
The FOMO technique is a standard marketing approach used to create a sense of urgency in a user’s mind.
For example, “This one-time offer ends at midnight!” is one of those catchy phrases that evoke an immediate reaction.
However, if you push too hard, the customer will assume that you have an ulterior motive, making them abandon the product. Similarly, every call-to-action on your website must do what it states. If the button says ‘Order Now,’ it should lead to the order page.
Your content can visibly increase sales on your eCommerce site if you follow the right strategy. Focus on brand identity and user demographics when creating content. Tailor it to your users for a more significant impact and then combine media and written content to create better stories. Finally, employ advanced SEO strategies by analyzing competitors, and don’t forget to optimize the mobile experience alongside the desktop one.
James Baxter is a professional writer and blogger, who loves sharing his experience and knowledge with readers. He is especially interested in marketing, blogging and IT. James is always happy to visit different places and meet new people there.
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