Eight great blog ideas for your etail website

Blog content is as much at home on an online retail site as it is in a magazine these days. Scores of journalists are jacking in their roles in media companies and joining in-house teams at ecommerce sites as these retailers cry out for magazine quality writing on their platforms.

This isn’t however a viable option for all ecommerce sites and it doesn’t have to be. A simple, well-written blog can do just as much for a site and cost a fraction of the price. It can be used to boost your SEO ranking (Google loves a blogger), drive traffic to the site and engage customers once they are on your site.

You can either designate the blog writing task to one person or create an editorial calendar which spreads the responsibility.

If you have multiple people writing it is a good idea to decide on your company tone and writing style before setting off and make sure there is consistency which will further strengthen your brand. You should make sure updates are regular and as often as possible. Daily is ideal.

Coming up with great blog ideas isn’t everybody’s forte. There are so many ecommerce sites out there that do blogs and do them really well. Start looking around and seeing what others are doing and see if it is relevant to you.

To get you started, here’s our quick easy list of topics which you can regularly feature on your company blog.

1.    News and events in your industry

The chances are, that as a retailer, you keep abreast of news which directly effects your business. Why not share some of this news with your customers? Has an event taken place which is relevant or a new piece of research published?

You can add your company’s position on the news or simply report what has happened.

For example, if you are a fashion retailer – write about the latest trends or news from a recent fashion week. Relevant events like that also lend themselves to image galleries which help to give your site vibrancy.

2.    How To guides

If your products need instructions on their use, why not supplement the instructions which come written with the product with advice guides from you. It gives that extra level of customer service and can be of real help to shoppers who can’t dash into your store to ask for demonstrations.

Video is a fantastic tool for this kind of blog post.

3.    Talk about company news

Tell your customers about what is happening at the company – well, within reason. If you’ve had good news which isn’t confidential then why not shout about it? Have you welcomed more people to your team or moved office to a funky new location?

If your company is involved in any kind of charity or community work, a blog is a great place to share this with your customers.

4.    Interviews with your suppliers

Depending on your products, it might be interesting to give your customers some background knowledge into where the products are coming from, how they are designed, what the process is like etc.

Behind the scenes insight into products can make them more attractive to shoppers.

5.    Product reviews

You could take in-depth looks at some of your products and give them reviews. How do they compare with other similar products? You can really give full descriptions of the products which you might not have been able to provide in the product descriptions.

If you have any new products you could introduce them on the blog and give them that added attention.

6.    Press coverage

Getting the company name into the press is a reason to celebrate and the ultimate marketing tool but don’t let it stop there. Blog about it and some of your customers who might have missed it will get another chance to read it.

7.    Shout about new offers or promotions

If you’ve got a new offer or a big sale coming you should announce it on the blog. There you can give much more detail into what the offer entails and why your customer base should get involved. If you run a competition you can show the entries on on the blog before using it to announce the winner further down the line.

8.    Give your customers some love

With the various social media platforms companies have never been able to engage with their customer base as well as right now. Get customers to send in pictures of them using your products or if you’ve run a competition, introduce the winner. It’s a great way to get people to check the website regularly as they’ll want to see if they have been featured.

You can also use great customer reviews in your blog posts to draw further attention to any good feedback you’ve had. This kind of third party validation is good for your brand.