Are you eager to embark on your blogging journey and wondering how to begin blogging on Shopify?
You’re in the right place! This comprehensive, step-by-step guide is your key to unraveling the world of blogging on one of the most popular e-commerce platforms.
Whether you’re a novice or a seasoned blogger, we’ve got you covered. Let’s kickstart your Shopify blogging adventure together.
Blogging on Shopify vs. WordPress
- Keeping it simple: if you’re on Shopify, just run your blog there.
Putting your blog in a subfolder on Shopify’s domain, rather than a separate subdomain using another platform, can boost your traffic by up to 40%.
Here’s the bottom line:
- If your business revolves around blogging, consider WordPress.
- Already on Shopify? Don’t overthink it; use Shopify’s built-in blogging system.
- Start by creating your first 100 blog posts on Shopify. If you need to switch to WordPress later, you can.
While there are rare cases where using WordPress on a subdomain might make sense, for most, Shopify’s simplicity wins.
Is Blogging on Shopify Worth the Investment?
In straightforward terms, having a blog is beneficial for most Shopify stores in the long run. Here are four situations and suggestions; ideally, one of these fits your needs.
1. New Shopify Store with No Budget for Ads
If you’re just starting and can’t afford paid ads, focus on blogging. While products like yours often benefit from visuals in paid ads, without a budget, your best options are free social media, word of mouth, and blogging. Start writing content to gain traction.
2. Growing Shopify Store with Ad Budget
In case your store is booming with paid ads, keep the momentum. Blogging takes time to show results, making it less suitable for rapid growth phases.
While blogging is great for customer communication, announcements, and showcasing your brand’s personality, for significant traffic, focus on your successful ad strategies. However, plan for blogging as ad costs rise, preparing for future scaling.
3. Complex or High-Value Products
If your store products are intricate or costly, blogging is crucial. Inbound marketing and SEO work best for such items.
While luxury products might not need extensive blogging, if your products require explanation (like innovative exercise machines), blogging becomes vital. Detailed content helps customers understand your unique offerings.
4. Established Brand in a Competitive Market
If your brand has grown and your market is competitive, invest in blogging and content marketing.
Consider Casper, the mattress company. As the market matured and ad prices soared, Casper intensified blogging efforts.
By creating engaging content and building backlinks, they gained organic traffic, ensuring a lasting online presence with high ROI.
Blogging on Shopify: Create Your First Blog Post
If you’ve set up your Shopify store, just write your first blog post. For new stores, adding a blog is part of the setup.
Your store has a default blog called “News,” but you can customize it to “blog” or anything else you prefer. You can even run multiple blogs on the same store. Use tags to organize posts effectively.
Here’s how to create your first blog post:
Step 1: Navigate to Online Store > Blog Posts in your Shopify admin.
Step 2: Click on “Create Blog Post.”
Step 3: Provide a title in the Title field.
Step 4: Add your content in the Content field.
Step 5: In the Organization section, select “Blog” from the dropdown menu and opt to create a new blog if desired (this step can be skipped if you’re using the default “News” option).
Step 6: Enter the blog post title in the “Blog title” field.
Step 7: Click “Save.”
Add the Blog Link to Your Navigational Menu
Once you’ve created blog posts, it’s essential to make them easy to find. To add your blog to the navigation menu, follow these steps in your Shopify admin:
Step 1: Go to Online Store > Navigation.
Step 2: Select the menu you want to modify – the Main menu or Footer menu.
Step 3: Click “Add menu item.”
Step 4: Access the “Link” field.
Step 5: Choose the “Blogs” link type.
Step 6: Pick the specific blog you want to include.
If you’re adding multiple blogs, repeat these steps for each one in the navigation menu.
Shopify Blogging Best Practices
Here’s a concise guide to blogging on Shopify. While there’s more to explore, these tips offer a solid starting point. Remember, start now and adjust as you go.
1. Set Clear Goals
What do you want your blog to do? Bring in new visitors? Connect with current customers? Showcase new products?
Be honest about your goals. It takes time – at least 6 months to a year – for a new blog to gain traction. Clear goals will guide your content strategy.
2. Plan Your Content
Plan your blog’s content strategy according to your goals.
If you aim to attract new organic traffic, focus on keyword-based blogging. However, if your goal is to use blog posts as landing pages for social media contests, your approach will be different.
Typically, websites use a mix of blog post types with various goals, aligning them with broader marketing campaigns and initiatives on different channels.
3. Focus on Clusters
Generate a list of blog post ideas and categorize them based on keyword research or your insights.
Arrange these categories according to your goals. For SEO purposes, focus on clusters with easy yet high-volume keywords for quicker results.
Initially, aim for around five posts per cluster, but this isn’t a fixed rule. These clusters can expand to 10-20+ posts, naturally forming sub-clusters as your content grows.
Source: HubSpot
4. Map to Buyer’s Journey
Consider how each piece of content in your cluster aligns with the buyer’s journey and fits into your sales and marketing funnel.
Source: CMI
5. Expert Authored Content
Resist the temptation to outsource writing to the cheapest bidder; it’s a road that leads to frustration.
Instead, consider working with a content writing or marketing agency. However, ensure they engage your team members as subject matter experts.
Conduct interviews to tap into their industry knowledge and use industry-specific language. Readers can easily spot authenticity.
6. Craft Compelling Headlines
Similar to paid ads, you aim to captivate readers with brilliant, catchy headlines and intros. If they’re intrigued, they’ll click to read the article. Engaging headlines are the gateway to meaningful content.
7. Visual Appeal
While it might sound cliché, it’s true: many people learn best visually. When visitors arrive on your page, enhance the text with abundant visuals, examples, and assets that clarify and illustrate points.
A bonus is that other websites might use your custom visuals, linking back to you.
8. Strategic Linking
When you link internally to other pages on your site, especially product and category pages (which can boost revenue), you’re informing Google about the connection between your pages and their semantic relevance.
Internal linking is a high-return, straightforward strategy. Aim to include 3-5 internal links per 1,000 words in every post.
Surprisingly, external linking also holds power. When you link to trusted sources, you’re signaling to algorithms that you’re a valuable node in their link graph.
9. On-Page SEO
Essential on-page SEO elements comprise:
- Conduct keyword research for SEO-centered posts.
- Incorporate keywords into the page title (HTML page title).
- Craft engaging meta descriptions; while keywords help, they’re not vital.
- Use subheaders to direct readers, integrating keywords when feasible.
- Check for significant technical SEO problems hindering your progress.
Source: Moz
Conclusion
Possibly. The choice depends on your specific requirements and content strategy. For most situations, Shopify’s blogging platform suffices for your online store.
If you lack technical expertise with WordPress, Shopify offers everything you need for a successful online business.
The right long-term blogging strategy involves monitoring analytics, and engagement, and making necessary adjustments. Through trial and error, you’ll find the optimal approach.
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