3 Article Types to Boost Your Store’s Organic Traffic
It’s a well-established fact that a business that blogs can bring in two-thirds more qualified leads than one that doesn’t.
In fact, content marketing in general is no longer an afterthought of your marketing endeavors. Instead, it needs to be at the forefront, as more and more businesses turn to it as a major source of leads and sales.
eCommerce is no exception to the rule. What works for the brick-and-mortar guy down the street can work for your online store just as well.
Today, we’ll be looking at the types of blog articles you need to boost your eCommerce business’s organic traffic. We’ll also show you examples from real-live bloggers so you can see just what blogging can do for you, too.
1: Evergreen Blog Articles for eCommerce
Evergreen content is defined as content that stays relevant and “fresh” over a long period of time. It is more consumer or user focused than product-oriented. It can include:
- Research or stats collected by the business itself
- “What went wrong” or “when things go wrong”
- How-to information, and not just for beginners but consumers at all levels
- Checklists—product use or care instructions, know before you buy info, other products you can or should use
- Influencers or social media profiles to follow
- History of product, business, or industry
- Glossary or dictionary of topic-specific terms
Evergreen content can take almost any form, too. From long-form blog posts of over 2000 words to videos or infographics. It scores well in the SERPs, and keeps on scoring for a long time because it’s the basic info your customers and potential customers are looking for.
An eCommerce blog that does evergreen content very well is BioLite Energy’s BioLite.
BioLite specializes in outdoor and off-grid products like firepits, camp stoves, portable solar panels, and charging units. Their blog, however, tends to focus on more timeless topics for people interested in their products.
For example, the screenshot below shows one of their highest rated blog posts of 2022.
Source: bioliteenergy.com
Notice the “What Gear Should I Bring” section of the article? Part of that is a list of gear that includes some of BioLite’s products. You can see several of their product links in blue in the screenshot below.
Source: bioliteenergy.com
When an evergreen article mentions a product, it is either a classic, standard product that the company is known for OR is a product type that can be easily updated by making small changes to the content.
For example, this guide to National Parks could simply be updated by changing the links to any new products BioLite may develop or want to promote in the future in place of the ones currently in use. That’s possible since no specific product info is given in the article.
2: Actionable Informational Blog Articles for eCommerce
You really don’t need a “1001 Things to Know About Our Product” list type blog post to score high with your readers.
Despite the fact that HubSpot’s survey showed that the highest ranking blog posts all contain 2,100 to 2,500 words, shorter posts can work well when combined with longer content.
In effect, your reader doesn’t always have time to wade through 2K+ words to find the info they need. Shorter, actionable, info-packed blog content can score high when its information is highly relevant to your audience.
One eCommerce blog that does this type of post very well is run by Consider the Wldflwrs, a fine jewelry shop. Their Journal blog is full of short, often less than 1000 words, articles that contain useful, actionable information.
Let’s look at a section from the article, “Get Your Fine Jewelry Squeaky Clean“.
Source: considerthewldflwrs.com
The article is a mere 718 words, and yet it is one of their highest ranked. The information in it is simple, personable, and usable. You could take off your engagement ring and soak it while you finish reading the rest of the article. They’ve made it that simple and easy to follow.
The Journal does have nice long meaty content, too. Their “year in review” piece is over 2000 words. By combining longer, interesting content with short useful pieces, they’ve got a winning combination of content types that make their blog a hit.
3: Storytelling Content for eCommerce Blogs
Not every article you post on your eCommerce blog has to be informative. You can simply tell interesting stories and offer your readers something unique in the process.
Story telling blog posts can feature the following:
- Interviews with experts, authors, and or influencers
- Testimonials and user-generated stories from readers and customers
- Behind-the-scenes looks at the business and how it’s run
- Employee-generated content
- Business origins, such as how you became who you are, why youre here, and your mission
Story telling puts human faces behind your eCommerce business and blog. It gives your audience a chance to get to know you as well as your brand. It creates a sense of community with your customers and readers.
You aren’t just a store, but a bunch of interesting people, too.
Great Jones is an eCommerce brand devoted to selling cookware and kitchen goodies for home chefs. Their blog, Digest, tells some of the best stories you’ll find on an eComm blog.
The Digest has two categories. The one, “Recipes”, is expected in a foodie-oriented blog. The other, “The Great Ones”, is a bit different.
“The Great Ones” is a collection of bios and interviews with professional chefs, celebrities who cook, food bloggers, and others who have made cooking their profession and a passion.
Each segment in “The Great Ones” starts with the text in the screenshot below.
Source: greatjonesgoods.com
As the text says, the articles celebrate foodies the Great Jones folks admire, and why they do what they do.
Even their recipe collection tells stories, as each one begins with a bit of background on the chef or a background story by the chef on why or how they were inspired to create the dish.
What Type of Blog Article Does Your eCommerce Blog Need?
Let’s face it; your eComm blog needs all sorts of content to keep readers and customers coming back. However, certain types of content meet certain business goals better than others.
The typical buyers’ journey can supply enough goals to last your blog’s lifetime.
Your buyers need to first be aware of your business, its products, or services. Then, they need time to consider whether or not your products or services are the right solution to their needs. After that, they need justification for their decision to make a purchase.
Lastly, you need to keep them coming back for more after you’ve made the sale. Customer retention is more valuable and less costly than customer acquisition, after all.
The table below outlines a few content types for each of these stages in their journey, including after-sale and that all-important customer retention.
| Business Goal | Type of Blog Article |
| Awareness |
|
| Consideration |
|
| Decision |
|
| Retention |
|
One thing to note is that many of these article types can be made evergreen. Some can be formatted as actionable content. And still others can tell stories.
Your blog doesn’t have to be restricted to just one type of the articles we’ve discussed here, but an interesting, unique mix to please readers and meet your business needs, too.
Let CopySmiths Create Your eCommerce Blog Content
At CopySmiths, textual blog content is what we do. It’s in our DNA and our team of professionals has already created thousands of blog posts for businesses large and small. Maybe even for some of your competitors, who knows?
A digital marketing executive had this to say about working with the CopySmiths’ team:
CopySmiths is as good as it gets – which means they are better than the vast majority of what is out there.
Contact us to see what we can do for you and your eCommerce business. Don’t wait too long to get started, or to get your blog back on its feet if it’s not living up to its full potential. An effective blog is a business essential you can’t afford to do without.
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I'm Katrina McKinnon, founder of CopySmiths and Small Revolution. In my 20 years of experience, I have helped online businesses create high-performing content specifically on an eCommerce store's blog. Find me on LinkedIn and Twitter.
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