Many of the store owners I talk to want to do a blog but don’t really know where to start to get setup and add content that people will actually want to read. Today I am going to give you 10 topic ideas that you can easily use to generate content for your ecommerce blog for the next year.
New Product Announcements
Whenever you release a new product or a brand you sell releases a new product make an announcement on your blog and include as much detail as possible such as MSRP, release date, the day you expect to have stock of the product and the day you will start shipping the new product out. You might even create a product page to link to such as a coming soon or pre-order page for the product.
Sales Announcements
Whenever you have a sale whether it is 1 hour or 1 month make sure and announce the sale on your blog. This will help get the word out to both existing customers and other websites since blogs automatically notify people & web sites. You might even post a single item sale that you exclusively offer to blog readers. This helps build reciprocity with your blog readers and customers by making them feel exclusive. On a side note, twitter is a great place for sale announcements too.
Contests
A contest is a great way to bring interaction to your blog whether you need to breathe new life into your existing readers to make them excited again or start the momentum for a new blog you just launched. You can give away one of your own products when appealing to your specific customer base or if you want to reach a more general crowd then consider giving away a hot product such as an iPod Touch, Kindle or work with your partners to offer a bundled prize. The entertainment industry has mastered bundling contests so look there for inspiration.
Product Reviews
Giving an honest and open opinion about an item you sell can work wonders for selling a specific product. You must give some downsides / cons because nothing is all sunshine all the time. An even more powerful approach is to turn a customer’s product review into a blog post. This works so great because customers trust their peers more (i.e. other customers) and usually the customer who wrote the product review becomes a raving fan who tells everyone since they were published on your site.
Customer Testimonials
Expanding from the last concept of turning a customers product review into a blog post consider creating blog posts for some of those great testimonials you get every week. You probably cannot fit them all on your site anyways so may as well put them to good use on your blog. I have to give credit for this idea to a Miva Merchant conference attendee but I can’t quite remember which one.
Product Comparison
Do you sell two or more very similar products? Do you get customer support calls asking the difference between two items you sell? Consider taking that information you reiterate every day and adding it as a blog post. Writing the blog post might even give you some ideas on improving the product descriptions for the products compared.
Common Questions
Similar to product comparisons answering common questions (even if they are a part of your FAQ) about a certain product or category is an easy way to write a quick post. You will find there is valuable information you want to share and a formal FAQ doesn’t seem the right place. This is a great opportunity for a blog post. As an example, let’s say you sell Snuggies you might have a post on “Best Ways To Clean Your Snuggie”
Share An Experience
Sometimes sharing a piece of everyday life is an excellent way to add a blog post and mix up the content you’ve been sharing a bit. This helps show the human side of your business and can be lighter reading. Maybe your dog decided to use the Snuggie so you snap a quick picture and write a blog post on how your puppy curled up to sleep on your Snuggie.
Uncommon Product Uses
Just about anyone who has sold the same product over several years will find that customers are very creative at using your items for things you never would have been able to imagine. Do you think the makers of WD-40 ever thought people would find all these interesting uses for their famous lubricant? Anytime you see or hear of a strange use of your product consider turning it into an entertaining blog post.
Uncommon Product Questions
Ever get an off the wall question about your products that you never thought someone would ask? Will this survive re-entry from space? My example may be a little extreme but anyone who has worked in customer service can relate to strange questions being asked by customers. Take the question along with a witty answer mix in technology and you have a blog post.
So there you have it, ten brainstorming ideas to get you started on plenty of blog content for the next year and beyond. Here is a quick recap of the 10 ecommerce blog post ideas covered:
- New Product Announcements
- Sales
- Contests
- Product Reviews
- Customer Testimonials
- Product Comparison
- Common Questions
- Share an Experience
- Uncommon Product Uses
- Uncommon Product Questions
On a final note, when brainstorming blog post topics I really like to use Wordtracker; it is great for pulling out long tail search terms (3 or more words) that are perfect for a blog entry. Don’t concern yourself too much with the counts provided; focus more on the actual phrases. Usually I find if it is showing up in Wordtracker then it is being searched for all over the internet.
Miva