eCommerce Made Easy - Growing your Online Business

How to know what to Blog about to Create more Sales

Carrie Saunders Episode 75

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Ever find yourself paralyzed by the blank page, unsure of what to blog about that will actually engage your audience and boost your business? Learn how to identify and tap into your audience's pain points and questions, turning their needs into valuable content that builds trust and drives traffic. From researching your audience's paint points and needs to creating valuable content that will help users for years to come, the episode will help you craft blog posts that are not only engaging but also actionable.


Mentioned Resources:

-> Tools to Research Your Audience's Needs

Answer the Public

Quora

-> Tools to Research Keywords:

Google Keyword Planner

ahrefs

SemRush


-> Write Blogs With the Help of AI

Episode 61: How to Write a Blog in Minutes Versus Hours Using AI


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Speaker 1:

blogging is one of the most effective ways to bring in more traffic to your website, build trust with your audience and ultimately grow your business. And, as a bonus, it really helps your search engine optimization to stay relevant and have fresh new content. But let's be real. Sometimes figuring out what to write about is so daunting and it can be such a roadblock to many people on writing a blog, especially when you're trying to strike a balance between providing value and generating sales on your website. And if you've ever found yourself staring at a blank screen wondering what topics will actually bring in more business than this episode is for you, or even if you've been putting off blogging forever and knowing that you should do it, then I encourage you to listen, as we're going to break this down into some nice and easy steps. Welcome to the e-commerce made easy podcast. I'm your host, keri Saunders. When we started this business, all I had was a couch, a laptop and a nine month old my main goal To help others. Now, with over 20 years in the e-commerce building industry and even more than that in web development, I have seen a lot. I love breaking down the hard tech into easily understandable bits to help others be successful in their online business. Whether you're a seasoned e-commerce veteran or just starting out, you've come to the right place, so sit back, relax and let's dive into the world of e-commerce together. Welcome back to the e-commerce made easy podcast.

Speaker 1:

Today, we're talking about how to know what to blog about in order to bring in more business. Whether you're an e-commerce business, a service provider or a coach, blogging is a great way to attract more customers, build authority and grow your brand, and it even helps with search engine optimization. But the key is knowing what topics will resonate with your audience and bring in the right kind of traffic, because we want to make sure that what we're doing is fruitful and bringing in more business and not just a waste of our time. I completely get that. As a business owner myself, I want to make sure that the things I'm working on is actionable and it is worthwhile doing so. Let's break down how you can generate blog topics that not only engage your readers but also leads to business growth. And, as a side note, if you haven't already listened to it, we will link to the episode in our show notes about how to use AI to really help you write blog posts much easier and much faster.

Speaker 1:

But before you are writing those blog posts even if you do use AI to help you out we need to get some fundamentals down, and that's what we're going to cover here in this episode. So, first off, we want to identify our target audience's pain points and the questions that they may be having. This is one of the biggest first steps that we need to do, because we want to make sure we're writing relevant content that's going to help draw in the right customers and keep them engaged and make them want to learn more from you. So, first off, you can do some research, go over to your audiences, find where they are on social media forums, industry-related groups or even comment sections of other blogs that are related to what you do and pay attention to the questions that these people are asking. You can also go to Answer the Public or Cura to see what common concerns or questions that your audience might have. Those are some free tools you can use if you'd like.

Speaker 1:

Another one and a lot of people don't even think about this is you can ask directly. If you already have customers and clients, ask them directly. Don't be afraid to ask them. Many times, people would love to help, especially if they're engaged and love your product or services. So ask them what challenge do they face? What questions do they have? You could send a quick survey, like a three, four, five question survey something nice and fast and easy for them to do. You can even make a contest out of it too and have a contest and draw a winner from the people who answer the survey for you. So when you're writing blogs that directly address the issues that your customers and your consumers are facing or have questions about, your audience will feel like you're speaking directly to them and it really helps build that trust. So for an e-commerce business, this could mean writing blog posts about how to choose the best products for specific needs, and for coaches, it could be offering tips on common obstacles that your clients face. So those are some just general overview examples of what you could be writing about for the different types of business segments.

Speaker 1:

Now, when you're writing these blog posts and we talk about search engine optimization a decent amount on this podcast we want to make sure that we're doing some keyword research to drive the traffic. So when you make a blog post, you not only want to make sure it's content that people are engaged with, but you need to be using keywords that they're going to use to search to find that content. So you need to be speaking their language. So keyword research can really help with this. So when you're doing these blog posts and using these keywords, that's going to boost your search engine optimization. You're going to get more traffic and things like that.

Speaker 1:

So you want to use tools to do this keyword research. If you already haven't done it yourself and gotten a nice set of keywords for your business and for your topics, you can use a Google keyword planner, which is free. Ah refs will link to these in the show notes and SEMrush are also popular ones that people use to help find relevant keywords. Or you can even go to Google and start typing your question or what your subject is for your blog post in Google and it's going to suggest some common questions around it and other words around it. And if you do a search at the bottom, it's also going to give you some related search terms as well. So you can even just use searching on Google. That's hard to say fast Searching on Google to find some other keywords you might not be thinking about around your topic that you're talking about.

Speaker 1:

And then there's this thing called short tail and long tail keywords. So short tail keywords are one or two usually words combined together to create a keyword phrase, and the long tail keyword is like three, four or five words connected together. If you're new to business and haven't established your website for very long, I highly recommend focusing more on long tail keywords, as that is much easier to attain good rankings for, and then once your domain is much higher in search engine rankings and much more established, then those shorter keywords can be attained and you can get a higher ranking on that too. So, for example, instead of targeting something as simple as skincare products, you might target instead best skincare routine for sensitive skin. See how many more words that was. In the original one was skincare products. Now that is three words, but it's a very common and generic set of words. So make sure that you're doing the right number of words whenever you're doing these keyword search based upon how established you are in a search engine optimization. So let me give you a few more examples too. To give you a few more examples too, you could target phrases for service providers or coaches, like how to improve time management for entrepreneurs or best life coaching techniques for career growth. That's a decent amount of words and that's going to be a lot easier to rank well for and focus on than if you were to do a much shorter version of that, and the goal is to attract readers who are searching for solutions that align with what you offer.

Speaker 1:

And then number three is showcase your expertise with how-to, guides and tutorials, and you can do this in your blog post writing, and sometimes these are the easier articles to write about, because it's something you're an expert in and something you can really write about pretty quickly, and so these types of posts showcase your expertise while providing value that directly helped your audience solve a problem. It not only builds trust, but also establishes you as an authority in your business, especially if it's a really well-written article that they can follow step by step. So, for example, for e-commerce, if you sell physical products and let's say you sell fitness equipment, you could write a blog post titled how to set up a home gym in a small space or best workout routines for beginners using minimal equipment. So this type of posts will really attract readers looking for actionable advice, and it can really lead to product sales, especially if you link to those products within that blog article and link to them, naturally, of course. And then if you're a service provider or coach, you can write blog articles such as how to create a business plan that actually works or how to overcome imposter syndrome as an entrepreneur. So if you offer actual steps to solve a pain point within these articles, you can naturally lead readers to want to work with you for more personalized guidance, and this can really help build your authority and your trust. These how-to contents are so easily shared by other people too, and so these are great ones to put on social media, and people are more likely to share these how-tos as well, so that can help double-fold and keep you going and getting more traffic to your website.

Speaker 1:

Number four is you can share success stories and case studies, so this is another option for a blog post. People love seeing real life examples of how your products or services have helped others, and this is why success stories and case studies make excellent blog topics. They not only provide social proof, but they also demonstrate the tangible results people can expect when they work with you or buy products from your business. So a few ways you can do this is you can share client success stories. So for service-based providers or coaches success stories about clients who've achieved significant results by working with you. Highlight the challenges they faced, the steps you took to help them and the outcomes they achieved. Now, if you sell physical products, you can write product-based case studies so you can showcase how your products have solved specific problems for customers. For example, if you sell eco-friendly products, write a case study about a customer who switched to your brand and reduced their environmental footprint, for example. It's a great way to do it and they build credibility, like I've talked about before, and really inspire potential clients or customers to take action, because they can see real world benefit of the things that you are offering.

Speaker 1:

And then number five is create evergreen content for long term value. So what I mean by this is evergreen content is content that doesn't ever quite go out of style. It's going to be relevant a year or two or three or even more later, and it can really help boost your long-term longevity in search engine optimization and search engine rankings. When you build great content that's going to service people for a long time to come. So trending topics may drive traffic to your website right away, but putting a mix of this evergreen topics in it is also going to really help create that long-term effect. So choose topics that aren't time sensitive and offer timeless value.

Speaker 1:

So here are some examples of some evergreen content ideas. So, for e-commerce, you could write an article about ultimate guide to choosing the best hiking gear. So let's say, you sell hiking gear. This is relevant all year round, people hike in all different types of weather and it's not really time sensitive as far as it's going to service people for years to come. And then, if you're a service provider or coach, something like the complete guide to personal development for entrepreneurs, that can remain useful for many years to come.

Speaker 1:

Also, frequently asked questions are a great evergreen content. Take the most common questions your customers or clients ask and turn them into a blog post. These FAQ posts not only address the needs of your audience, but also improve your chances of ranking for specific search queries in search engines. So this all comes around full circle can really help you in many ways and by constantly creating this evergreen content, as well as the more on-trend topics, you're going to ensure that your blog remains a valuable resource for your audience over the long term, which is going to drive consistent traffic to your website.

Speaker 1:

So, in summary, there are several different ways you can approach writing blog post content. You can do it from many different aspects to keep it nice and fresh and fun for you. And make sure you check out our other podcast episode that we're going to link to in the show notes about how to use AI to really write these blog posts even faster and still have them sound like you. All right, that's all we have for this week's episode of the e-commerce made easy podcast. I hope you greatly enjoyed it. If you have any questions, you can find us on social media via our website, e-commerceeasypodcastcom. That's also where you can find more in-depth show notes as well, and you can always email us at podcast, at bcsengineeringcom, for any questions or suggestions to have on our podcast, and we will see you next week.