Posts by Lauren Wagn

6 Questions to Ask Yourself When Creating an eCommerce Content Strategy

- by Lauren Wagn

Chances are you’ve been part of an eCommerce sales funnel. 

You see a new brand on Instagram. Their product catches your eye as you scroll your feed and soon you’re looking at a post on their page from 52 weeks ago. They’ve convinced you! Next thing you know you’ve ordered from their website and are eagerly awaiting the package in the mail.

Does this sound familiar? This isn’t by accident. That brand probably had a killer eCommerce content strategy. 

The most successful businesses don’t just post on the fly. Everything they do is perfectly curated to help consumers along their sales funnel and one step closer to purchasing their product.

Want to learn how to do it, too? Well then keep reading!

Why is content strategy important for eCommerce?

With an estimated 12 million to 24 million eCommerce businesses on the internet, setting yourself apart from the pack is crucial. While your brand may be unique, you need to convey this to consumers.

Luckily, you’re marketing in the same space you’re selling in.

This is where content creation and strategy comes in. 

Posting consistently just isn’t enough. You need a good strategy to guide your decisions and get the results you want. This is where content strategy comes in.

By auditing your process, you can see where exactly you need to improve. This isn’t a one-time action, however. To keep reaching your goals, you’ll need to continue to edit and improve your strategy.

What are your brand’s goals?

The first step is looking at where your business is currently and where you would like it to be in the future. This will vary from organization to organization.

What would you like your business to achieve?

Here are some potential goals to consider:

  • Higher conversion rate
  • Better return on investment (ROI)
  • Increased sales
  • More engagement on social media

Take this time to compile data on your brand’s current position. Without knowing where you are, it’s hard to determine where you’re going. This will also act as your starting point when comparing future data.

Once you understand where you’d like to see your business it’s time to figure out how you’re going to get there. 

Who is your ideal audience?

Your ideal audience is who is going to help you reach your goals. But first, you need to figure out who they are and how to reach them. 

They’re also known as buyer personas. Don’t limit yourself to a single buyer persona as this can constrict your growth. Get creative and determine an array of people that can be helped by your product.

These personas are made up of several components:

  • Demographic: This is quantitative information about your ideal audiences such as age, location, income, and gender.
  • Psychographic: As the name implies, this focuses more on the psychological characteristics of your clientele. Personality, interests, attitudes, and views are all covered under this.
  • Buying habits: This is a reflection of both the product you sell and the audience’s psychographics. Will they need a lot of information and time before making a purchase or will they impulsively buy?
  • Pain points and goals: Look at what problem your potential customers may be having or, alternatively, look at where your customer aspires to be and how you can help them get there. 

Now write it down!

Create profiles of who may be consuming your content. Give them names, backgrounds, behaviours, and desires. This will help you formulate how you’re going to address them through your content strategy. 

We have a whole guide on creating these buyer personas in case you get stuck!

How does your audience consume content?

Once you know who you’re making content for, you’ll need to determine where they’ll be most likely to consume it. Otherwise, all your hard work copywriting is for naught. 

Your buyer persona profiles will come in handy here. With the information you’ve gathered on who you want to be your audience, you can research where this particular audience is. 

If you’ve determined that your ideal customer is a Baby Boomer, then TikTok probably isn’t the channel to reach them as only 5% of Boomers have a TikTok account. 

That doesn’t mean using a single channel, however. While one channel may be the most successful based on your research, it is still important to spread your content strategy across multiple channels to increase its reach.  

This is also the time to consider what hashtags will help land your content in front of your ideal customers. 

For example, if your ideal audience is health-conscious, the hashtag #friesbeforeguys will not be the best route to their Explore page. 

What kind of content will help move your customers through the sales funnel?

This is where the “strategy” in content strategy starts to shine. 

If your marketing terminology is a little rusty, a sales funnel is a visual representation of the journey that the customer takes that begins with awareness of the brand and ends in a sale. (P.S. we have a blog post with 20+ useful marketing terms here.)

Each step of the funnel requires different content to keep the momentum moving. 

The steps are:

  • Awareness: This is when the consumer first hears about your brand. Types of content that can help you hit this first step are promoted or hashtagged social media posts, evergreen content like blogs that have ended up on their search engine results page (SERP), or easy to produce content such as quizzes.
  • Interest: This is when potential customers begin to look into how to solve their pain points. Content that promotes what you offer and the benefits of your product can help facilitate this step.
  • Discovery: This happens when your potential customer is aware of your brand and begin seeing it as a solution to their pain points. Use content that helps finalize your product as the solution to their problems such as guides and pros and con lists.
  • Action: This is when the decision is made and your potential customer converts to an actual customer. Even though they have purchased your product, there is still content strategy at play. Reinforce their decision through FAQ pages and testimonials to ensure they are repeat customers.

A content calendar can help you organize your strategy to make sure you’re posting everything you need to for customers at every stage of the sales funnel. This will help you to create consistent and high-quality content. 

Start developing your eCommerce content strategy today! Click here to drop us a line and let's chat.

How well is your content working?

Content strategy is never over! Trends and algorithms are always changing and to stay at the top of your game, you need to continuously evaluate your strategy.

Create a list of key performance indicators (KPIs) and monitor how your strategy aligns with your goals. For example, if your goal is to increase traffic to your website, what types of posts have the best clickthrough rate (CTR)? 

You can also look for blockages in your sales funnel. If customers are making it to your website and stopping short of purchasing, consider what type of content you can make to address this. Maybe grabbing the attention of consumers is your strong suit but you need to work on converting them. Add this to your list of goals and audit your content.

This can also be a time to compare yourself to the competition. Research your competitor’s strategy and results and see how yours lines up. If you’ve reached your first round of goals, try using other brands as a benchmark and heighten your aspirations. 

Conclusion

A brand is only as good as its customers think it is. Having an amazing product is only the first step. With a strong eCommerce content strategy, your brand can increase its reach and get its products in the right hands. 

By knowing who your audience is and why they need your product, you can tailor your approach specifically to them. Set goals, research your ideal audience, and continuously audit your strategy to grow your business.

If you’re ready to find out why we say process equals success, then reach out and let’s chat!

Tags: Content Strategy ECommerce Buyer Personas
 

​How to Permanently Increase Your SEO with Evergreen Content

- by Lauren Wagn

By: Lauren Wagn, Social Media Manager

We’ve all heard the phrase “content is king”, and while this is true, some kings reign longer than others. 

Content is a prime tool in your business’ toolbox to drive online traffic to your website. This can increase brand awareness, brand loyalty, and sales. However, not all content is created equally. Some content will create a flash-in-the-pan of interest while others will organically build traffic over time.

This is the difference between content and evergreen content.

Evergreen content can also go hand-in-hand with SEO techniques for even more return-on-investment (ROI).

 Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about how to make content that keeps on giving. 

What is evergreen content?

When you hear the term “evergreen” you probably think of lush pine trees lining a snow-covered street; A tree that is thriving all year long.

That’s exactly what evergreen content is! 

It’s content that no matter the time of year, or what year it is for that matter, it’ is always relevant. Evergreen content is not time-sensitive, even in a world where trends move in a blink of an eye.  

The difference between evergreen content and regular content is like the difference between Wikipedia and TikTok. Wikipedia is steady and consistent, while TikTok is fast-paced and ever-changing. 

Examples of evergreen content

Evergreen content can come in a variety of formats including how-to guides, testimonials, case studies, and listicles. 

While the format of evergreen content can be diverse, it’s the topic that is the real distinguishing feature. 

Here are some examples of evergreen content:

  • How to Bake a Cake. Originally posted in 2010, this evergreen article has been updated to maintain its freshness.
  • The article you’re reading right now! Informational articles about industry-specific concepts make great evergreen content.

What these topics have in common is that none of them are tied to current events, news cycles, or trends. This allows them to sustain growth over long periods of time.  

Evergreen content is built to last. News posts, announcements, statistics, and seasonal content will all age rather quickly. While there is a time and place for this type of content, evergreen content can build a strong foundation for your business’ online presence.

To compare, here are the Google Trends results for an evergreen topic next to a trendy topic.

Here are the results for “How to bake a cake”: 

 

 

Versus the results for “Brangelina”: 

“How to bake a cake”, while having some spikes, is generally consistent. “Brangelina”, however, was a hot topic following their break-up then flatlines into relative obscurity. This illustrates the life expectancy of these two types of content.

Why evergreen content matters

So now you know what evergreen content is, but why should you be interested? 

 1.)   It consistently brings potential customers to your website

As evergreen content is always relevant, people will always be searching for this information. This creates a steady stream of viewers that may have never found your website before.  

2.)   It can drive traffic through different parts of your website

Once the evergreen content has brought the lead to the page, internal links can help boost time spent on your website. The more time they spend engaged with your content, the more likely they are to convert. 

3.)   It conveys information to your audience that will solidify you as an authority in their eyes

By using your content to address your audience’s problems and solve them, you can begin to build a relationship of trust with them. 

How to make evergreen content with SEO in mind

 When creating evergreen content, strategy and quality are equally important. 

Evergreen content relies heavily on the topic it is based on. This will be different depending on what industry your business is in. We suggest picking something that you can position yourself as an authority in. What does your business know best?

When considering what topics to write about, look at frequently asked questions about your business or information that beginners may want to know. 

Once you’ve determined an overarching theme, research what keywords may help your content find the right audience. Choosing a popular and heavily used keyword may lead to too much competition. Through your keyword research, you can begin to narrow down the scope of your content to form a concept that your audience will want to read. 

 These keywords can be used in various places in your content, such as:

  • Title of the page
  • URL
  • Copywriting
  • Meta tags
  • Image file paths
  • Anchor text

This will help optimize your content and help it land on search engine result pages (SERPs).

With the topic fully fleshed out, it’s time to research the competition. Put your keywords into Google and see what comes up. This is what you’ll be competing with when people are looking for information on your chosen topic.

Pay attention to the headlines, format, and depth of information in these high-ranking results.

To rank well, you’ll want to produce content that is as good, and ideally better, than what is already out there. Use your competition as a benchmark for your content.

Not only is the quality of the content valuable to the reader, but it is also valuable for SEO. By building authority and creating high-calibre content, your page can attract backlinks, which is when another website “links back” to your post. 

Having other websites link you as a resource not only drives traffic from their site to yours, it also factors heavily into Google's ranking algorithm. 

At this point, you can begin to outline and draft your evergreen content

Need help developing an evergreen content strategy for your business' blog? Click here to get in touch!

How to keep your evergreen content alive

Researching and creating your evergreen content makes up the bulk of the work, but maintenance of your content is still important! Just like pruning a tree, evergreen content will need to be checked on and updated periodically. 

While the majority of your copy may not need any tweaks, smaller aspects may need to be adjusted. Click on any links to make sure that they are still working correctly or review any statistics that may have changed. It is also worthwhile to check the effectiveness of your keywords and edit as needed. 

This maintenance will keep your content fresh, useful, and accessible to your audience.

Evergreen content tips

When creating evergreen content, here are some extra tips to keep in mind:  

  • Write for your audience. If you’re speaking to beginners, don’t go too heavy on industry jargon so it is accessible to everyone.
  • Break it up into “smaller” pieces of content. Use your evergreen content to create smaller, bite-sized social media posts that can drive traffic back to the original content.
  • Don’t rely exclusively on evergreen content. Use timely content to capitalize on trends and increased searches on certain keywords too. 

Conclusion: start writing evergreen content today!

Evergreen content can be an effective way to get your business on SERPs, drive traffic, connect with your audience and convert leads. It’s also a great ROI as the returns just keep on coming.  

When using evergreen content, just remember to thoroughly research your topics, keywords, and competition before writing so you can create the best possible content for your audience. This will ensure that your content has the desired outcome. 

Ready to create evergreen content and don’t have the resources to do it the way you want it done? Reach out and let’s talk about how we can help you create content that’s right for your audience. 

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Tags: Content Marketing Content Strategy