Blogs defined – Better late than neverIf you have been running an ecommerce store for more than half a decade, then I am sure by this time you’d know what a blog is or may have even set-up a blog for your store.
Blog, derived from the term 'Web Log', can simply be defined as a website or an online journal that contains thoughts, messages, trends, or descriptions about an event. It can have content in the form of text, image, graphics, audio, and video presented in a reverse chronological order with links to other important online sources (could be your product page/website). (BTW, where you are now is a blog focusing on retail ecommerce niche :-)) . This medium is highly interactive since visitors can comment or remark on the content posted... Blogs can be used as an internet marketing channel to reach more customers.
Blogs and Web2.0:
I firmly believe that blogs fall under web2.0 category because the very nature of web2.0 is to enable users to interact, and blogs by default allow people to interact and exchange their views in the form of comments, reviews, trackbacks, polling, sharing, and so on.
Blogging Facts:
Technorati, a blog search engine tracked over…
70 Millions Blogs in 2007
35.5 Million Blogs in 2006
14.2 Million Blogs in 2005
4 Million Blogs in 2004
Why online retailers’ should blog?
Blogging is not restricted to journalists, analysts, or techno geeks. Anybody and everybody can blog on any niche vertical, and I personally feel online retailers should definitely blog with an intention to provide better online services to the online consumers. It doesn’t matter how big or small your online retail business is or what type of storefront you run (ecommerce storefront, an affiliate store or any other web site), blogging is one of the best mediums to increase online visibility, traffic and sales to sustain in the long run.
I can point out lots of reasons on why online retailers should blog, but I’ll restrict myself to the
5R – Ready, Reach, Realize, Research, Retain
Ready: Blogs are search engine ready. A blog, by its definition is an online journal with frequent content updates. Search engines love fresh and appropriate content. And moreover, blogs have sufficient SEO’ed parameters than a normal website. If blog content is fortified with unique keywords, the search engine visibility and traffic will see a definite rise.
Reach: Online consumers are seeking information from you and are ready to interact with your business. According to buzz logic study, people who read blogs at least once a month have grown 300% in the past 4 years. Since blogs are search engine ready, they will help you reach out to more and more potential customers when they rank well for given keyword(s). Also, blogs get a lot of publicity in the entire blogosphere.
Realize: To get customers to trust an online retail business is no mean task. Online consumers won’t believe you unless you appear more humane. Blogging is one of the best ways to humanize your online business. Blogs fundamentally act as an online face for your consumers. They realize that you are a real business, and not out to cheat them.
Research: The secret to attain success in an online business is to research your target audiences. Merchants usually use traditional channels to be in tune with their customers’ expectations and communicate with them. Most of the times, it ends up as a costly campaign that fails to achieve its objective. With blogs you can reach more audience, as said above, not just to talk about your business, but also to explore your customers’ wants, expectations, reviews and so on. (Positives and negatives) If you know the pulse of your customers, you can offer them better online service.
Retain: With blogs you get a chance to interact and retain your target community as they allow visitors to explore your products and services, find product alternatives, reviews about your products and business. All this boils down to a greater and stronger customer relationship. On the whole, blogs build new audiences but also help retain your target community audience.
Overall Blogging Benefit for Online Retailers:
Build strong brand
Gain competitive edge
Get Search engine rankings
Inexpensive online marketing campaign
Get new ideas to improve your online business
Build good customer relationship
Provide better online shopping experience to your audience
Get quick exposure
Reach new audience
Gain authenticity
I have hardly seen many online retailers run blogs very successfully. Of 100 top retailers only 44 online retailers own ecommerce blog.
What’s stopping you from blogging?
Is it insufficient time?
Is it lack of resources ?
Is it lack of know-how?
Or Any other reason?
1 comments:
Great post and an important summary for specialty retailers seeking to further differentiate their brands, and improve the social currency thru relationships with their customer base..
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