When you deliver consistent and quality content, you have started a successful journey towards increased sales and a return on your investment.
However, in order to create educational, entertaining, and inspiring blog content that brings positive results to your eCommerce store, you need plenty of time, which can be scarce.
Applying time-saving hacks will help you maximize your business’s productivity by making sure your blog always has new content. This will leave room for you to focus on other areas of your business.
4 simple time-saving hacks that will help you create fresh and engaging content include:
- Brainstorming ideas in advance
- Inviting writers to guest post
- Refreshing older blog posts
- Outsourcing your content
Today, we’ll also provide real-world examples of how other eCommerce stores are using blogging to maximize their sales and Return on Investment (ROI)
Hack 1 – Brainstorm Topic Ideas in Advance
Sometimes, topic ideas are not easy to come by. Therefore, it helps to brainstorm content ideas instead of hurriedly looking for a topic at the last minute.
There are various ways to generate topic ideas:
- Turning consumers’ questions into interesting topics
- Using your most read blogs as themes for other topics
- Finding inspiration from other blogs in your industry
- Sending out a customer survey to learn what they want
- Using content tools like BuzzSumo to generate ideas
- Using random ideas inspired by everyday activities
Generating topic ideas ahead of time will leave ample time to research, write, edit and complete any revisions. The result? Quality content for your audience.
Expert Tip: Use an editorial calendar to keep track of content creation, from outlining content themes for your blog to publishing it.
Hack 2 – Invite Writers to Guest Post
Inviting other writers to post on your blog is an easy way to generate content.
There are several advantages to featuring guest posts on your blog:
Your Schedule Becomes More Flexible
As an eCommerce store owner, you’re probably focused on other business aspects, which means you publish content less often.
Consumers need consistent content in order to stay on your site, and Google also needs consistent content to improve your SEO ranking.
Inviting other writers to submit guest posts means you’ll have an easy, steady stream of content for your audience.
You can find guest bloggers for your site by using two approaches:
- Inbound approach: Include a page on your site that says you accept quality guest post submissions.
- Outbound approach: Search for writers on popular freelancing sites like Upwork, ProBlogger, and Flexjobs.
You Attract More Site Visitors
Guest posters are likely to share their guest posts on their social media sites, meaning you’ll get more visitors.
According to Hubspot, if you keep feeding visitors with consistent, quality content, some will convert into customers. This will increase your sales at very little cost and effort on your part.
Your Audience Will Enjoy a Variety of Content
Each writer is unique. They will bring different writing styles to your blog, such as:
- Expository writing – Used when explaining statistics and facts
- Descriptive writing – Used when describing products and services
- Narrative writing – Used when penning customer testimonials
- Persuasive writing – Used when calling readers to action
These different writing styles, coupled with knowledge on different topics, will keep your readers engaged and improve your chances of making sales.
Have a look at the following example. It’s an eCommerce store with a “write for us” section to show that they accept guest posts.
Hack 3 – Update Older Blog Posts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8JUF0bNIo4
Updating older blog posts will help you create content faster.
However, saving time is not the only reason to update older blog posts. Outdated blog posts will lose organic search traffic and Google search rankings, thus sabotaging your marketing strategy.
There are several steps to updating older blog posts:
- Check for and remove broken links
- Replace outdated statistics
- Add expert quotes and testimonials
- Update product photos and videos
- Answer newer reader questions
Creating new content takes time, and having it rank on Google might take even longer. A refreshed blog has a better chance to be indexed by Google because Google web crawlers will take note of any quality changes you’ve made.
Hack 4 – Outsource Your Content Creation
“People don’t outsource content because of fear. You can’t do everything. You can’t be a video producer, a copywriter, and a content strategist in one.” — Maximilian Hoppe | Customer Success Manager, Content Bird
If your in-house content creators cannot handle all the work, it’s time to outsource to a team of professional writers, editors, and publishers.
Apart from saving you time and money, outsourcing will give you access to these other benefits:
- Better topic brainstorming. Outsourcing to a team of experts will ensure there are new ideas even when you are stuck.
- Reach a wider audience. You may not be trained in SEO, but professional content creators know the SEO tricks to use to help your potential customers find your products or services.
- Consistent publishing. Your audience wants regular engaging content. A professional team will publish regularly, and your readers will not have to miss a single post.
Expert Tip: You don’t have to outsource permanently. You can hire for one post or part-time, depending on the needs of your business.
How to Maximize Your Content’s Return on Investment
Write Longer Content
Longer content that has 1,200 to 1,600 words gives you room to accomplish a lot in a single blog post.
- There is room to go deeper into a subject
- You can place a call-to-action in several places
- Readers are exposed to more links to your posts
Longer content encourages readers to stay on your site, which Google takes into consideration when ranking your site.
Use Internal Linking
Apart from longer content, internal links are another way of keeping readers on your site for longer. For each post, aim for 2 to 3 internal links.
Internal links are a means to showcase that you are an information guru in your industry.
Whenever you are discussing a subject and another sub-topic emerges, link to it if you have written about it so that your audience can follow up.
You never know—your sales could come from that one internal link.
Optimize Your Call-To-Action
All your blog posts should have a call-to-action. This is what will convert users into customers, and this is where the return on investment is.
The call-to-action should point the reader to a product, service, or landing page.
Instead of using only one call-to-action in the text, incorporate sidebars and floating call-to-action buttons to catch the reader’s attention.
These are buttons that appear on top of the text and instruct the reader to take a certain action (like subscribing to your services).
Blogging Statistics That Will Interest You
Below are statistics from Hubspot that highlight the percentage of marketers who leverage blogging and the percentage that finds it effective.
- 48% of companies that have a marketing strategy leverage blogging.
- 56% of marketers who leverage blogging say it is effective and 10% say it generates the biggest return on investment.
Expert Tip: To keep up with the ever-changing world of marketing trends, tactics, and tech, keep an eye on marketing statistics such as the ones mentioned.
We Take Content Creation to Another Level
At CopySmiths, we create blog content at scale for businesses that need a reliable and regular frequency of articles.
CopySmiths will do everything for you, including brainstorming topics, writing, graphics, quality control, and publishing on your blog. Reach out and let us handle your content.
“ We’ve used many content writing services. Copysmiths was the most organized. They uploaded the posts to our CMS, which was of help.” – Eric Thomas, CRD Design Build
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