[intro]Before you begin this Guide, you should have opened up a blog for your EKM online shop and populated it with a handful of blog posts so anyone new who visits your blog has a decent amount of content to digest when they arrive. When you have finished this Guide, you will know how to best write your future blog posts with the aim of organically increasing your blog traffic.
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Search engines love blogs as they give them exactly what they want - original, human-generated content presented in a natural, authentic way. Blogs, therefore, are an excellent way to increase the visibility of your EKM online shop within search engine results as they create backlinks to your content organically.

Blogs are an invaluable tool for your search engine optimisation campaign as when used correctly they allow you to rank higher in search engine results, increase organic traffic and create a deeper level of content. They’re also an excellent place for you to advertise your industry and product knowledge - blogs are a place where you’re encouraged to let the passion for your company shine through! It’s that enthusiasm which helps attract and grow and community of readers around your blog content.

Identify your Keywords

Open a Google Ads account and use the Google Ads keyword tool to help you create a list of keywords that you would like your EKM online shop to rank highly for and attempt to use these ‘naturally’ (don’t force them into existing blog posts if they don’t read well to visitors as a result).

Create your content

When trying to work out what topic you should write in your blog post, use Google for suggestions as to the kind of things your ideal customer is looking for. Type the name or type of Product you sell into Google, but don’t press enter, and instead note the searches that other users have entered previously to look for the kind of topics your target customers are interested in and want to know about.

For example, if I own a website that sells argan oil, I type ‘argan oil’ into Google:

The results I see from my search could all potentially be blog posts, as people interested in argan oil are also interested using argan oil on their face, on their hair and quite a few people want to know the benefits of using argan oil. Replicate this exercise yourself with some of your most popular products and you should be able to make a list of potential blog topics to add to your existing notes.

As well as the results of your Google search, you could also blog about future product lines, offers and discounts - tease your readers with ‘sneak peek’ style posts about upcoming items and promotions, tagging your posts with the relevant keywords so you can start being associated with them before the launch day of the product line or offer. You can then, of course, write a whole new blog post when the product line or offer has launched incorporating links directly to the relevant Product Pages and Webpages of your EKM online shop.

Consider your Blog Post Title

The title of your blog post is relevant too, as on most, if not all blogging platforms, the title of the blog post becomes the name of the webpage that that single post is published to. With that in mind, remember that the colon is your friend and incorporate those oh-so-vital keywords into titles where you can.

For example, if I was writing a blog post about a new line of yoga mats for example, then instead of a generic blog post title like:

New in! Yoga Mats

I’d use some of my keywords and set my blog post title as:

Yoga for Beginners: Yoga Mats for your first asanas

My version is more descriptive and includes more keywords: 'Yoga for beginners', 'yoga mats' and 'asanas'. A blog post with this title would attract more traffic than 'New in! Yoga Mats'.

Publish and Share

When you’ve finished your blog post and published it, you then need to share it on the social media for your EKM online shop. Ensure that each post which links to your new blog post has an accompanying image and if need be, recycle the post more than once to ensure the greatest amount of exposure.

Answer questions!

If the topic of your blog post answers a question, such as how a product should be used, worn, consumed or prepared for example, then you need to scour websites such as Quora, Yahoo Answers, Wikihow, active industry forums and newsgroups to find users who are asking the question which is answered in your blog post. You then need to post a link to your blog post within your comment to answer the question.

If you’re not sure how to forums and newsgroups related to your product or industry, use the following terms in a Google search:

[keyword]+”newsgroups”
[keyword]+”forum”
[keyword]+”blog”
[keyword]+”questions”

Replace the word in [keyword] in each example with the product name or keyword of your choice, and get researching. Save the best and busiest websites, blogs and forums that you find for future use - there may be many of them you can join in with in the future.

[tips]

  1. Write your posts for human visitors, and not specifically for search engines. It’s essential that they’re legible, on-topic and above all, interesting to read.
  2. Don’t be tempted to just stuff keywords into blog posts without rhyme or reason; keywords should be used when the content can still be read comfortably and above all, naturally.
  3. The search engines are smart and realise when articles have been created to manipulate them. Avoid this by creating quality content written for humans always.
  4. The main goal of your blog posts is for readers to link to and share your articles across their own network of social media, thus creating a wealth of backlinks which point to your content. The higher quality posts you create, the better chance you have of this happening.
  5. Include images and if possible, video content to some of your blog posts to add interest.
    When linking to different pages of your EKM online shop within blog post content, try not to link to the same page across several posts and aim to link one page of your shop to one specific blog post if you can. This will encourage organic traffic to your EKM online shop.
  6. You can encourage traffic from blogs who share an interest with your target customer demographic by simply popping by to leave comments on their existing posts as and when you can. This will increase your exposure further and allow you to create new relationships with others in your industry or interested in your products.
  7. Equally, if you see a post on another blog that you feel your followers and potential customers may be interested in, feel free to share it - this can encourage other bloggers to share your posts too.
  8. Don’t underestimate relevance! Keep your blog posts content rich and relevant to your business to ensure that each post attracts inbound links. Don’t forget that Google’s goal is to provide users useful and highly relevant search results - the more quality content you can provide, the more traffic you will attract. [/tips]

Ultimately, the more high-quality blog posts that you create and publish, the more search engines will recognise your blog as being relevant to your EKM online shop, and additionally, they can perceive you to be an expert in your industry.

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[contact] If you need our help with your EKM online shop, contact your Account Manager or Customer Support, who will be able to point you in the right direction. We're open from 8am-6pm weekdays and 9am-5.30pm on the weekends. If you'd like to suggest a feature or an upgrade on any of the EKM platforms, please let us know on the EKM Suggestions board. If you have a non-account specific question ask the EKM Team, join us in EKM Community.  [/contact]