Ecommerce is comprising a larger share of the consumer market with each passing year. Businesses are no longer limiting their products or services to their local areas or cities. Instead, they are expanding their range to include the entire country, region, or even the whole world. Long gone are the days where you need a bank loan to get a business up and running.
Though the barrier to entry is much lower, running a successful e-commerce business is never easy. In fact, research estimates that 90 percent of e-commerce businesses fail within the first 4 months—and there are many reasons why To achieve success as an e-commerce brand, you need to come up with innovative ways to attract and retain customers through your website. That means focusing on elements such as content creation and content strategy.
The content you create should help educate, inform, and engage your target audience. It should not only be relevant and valuable but also subtly sell what you offer without sounding like a sales pitch. So, how do you make this possible? Here are five tips to help you make your e-commerce content better.
Focus on Your Target Audience First, Search Engines Second
Google rewards high-quality, relevant content with higher search engine rankings. It’s not about getting yourself stuck in the SEO chaos of keywords, link building, and other tactics to improve your rankings on SERPs. But making your target audience the primary focus. This requires you to clearly define the authentic voice for your brand.
Search engines are constantly improving and trying their best to provide users with the best possible experience. As such, you need to provide your customers with as much pertinent information about your products or services as possible. Your product descriptions should be clear, yet thorough. Be sure to use keywords in your content, as these keywords can ultimately help your on-page and off page SEO and digital merchandising efforts (you can learn more about ecommerce merchandising here: https://www.instantsearchplus.com/merchandising-with-search-for-shopify-stores/).
Your customers don’t have the advantage of seeing your products in real life before they buy them. That means you have to provide them with accurate and thorough descriptions so they know they’re getting the best product from the market. This will help you become an authority on the products you offer, thereby establishing trust with online shoppers.
Optimize Your Content
Want to keep traffic coming your way? Then it’s time to utilize SEO tactics to make sure your content is optimized for search engines. Search Engine Optimization is very important for e-commerce as it can help boost your sales and revenue. Here’s what you can do to ensure your content is well-optimized:
- Create unique content with a clear structure
- Target specific keywords in your content
- Link to related product categories
- Include a meta description
- Use alt tags on all your images
- Use natural anchor text for your internal links
- Optimize your calls to action
Tell Your Brand Story
Who doesn’t love listening to stories that entertain and inspire them? Chances are you’ve been listening to such stories since when you were a child. Now, it’s time for you to connect with your target audience on a deeper level through storytelling. It’s all about using content to ‘humanize’ your e-commerce brand.
Brand stories help your target audience and customers understand your business—who you are, what you stand for, where you’re headed, and why you do what you do. Keep in mind that online consumers are looking for businesses with the same values as their own and they’re also looking for worthy causes to support. Their search isn’t limited to finding the right products and services to buy.
Here’s what you can do:
- Create content that encourages your prospective customers to share their experiences with your products or services.
- Share the struggles your e-commerce business has been through and how you’ve achieved the level of success you have as a brand.
- Use compassion, empathy, and humor to tell your audience about an issue you might have come across and how you resolved it.
Use Multiple Content Types
Your content creation strategy needs to adapt to changing consumer behaviors as well as new search engine algorithms. For instance, did you know that 91% of people prefer interactive and visual content over written content? In fact, written content with high-quality, relevant images gets 94% more views than text content without images.
If you’re looking to maximize the number of prospective customers that you need to reach, consider using multiple content types. Blend your written content with videos, infographics, GIFs, and high-quality photos. This will help your content stand out and attract your target audience.
Incorporate Customer Testimonials
Nothing assures your prospective customers of the quality of your products or services as much as customer experience. Ninety percent of customers search for and read product reviews online before deciding whether or not to buy a product. More than 50 percent of the customers make their purchasing decision based on the reviews they read online.
Prospective customers are more likely to buy from your e-commerce business if they can see that other customers are happy and satisfied. Why not incorporate as many real customer reviews and testimonials into your content to bolster your online visitors’ trust? Just make sure you don’t overdo it.
