Blogging
Blogging Best Practices: Integrating a blog into your website.
On 29, May 2012 | No Comments | In Blogging | By Karri Hill
When yellow and blue don’t make green.
I’ve been working with the owner of an e-commerce website, exploring ways to drive traffic to his website without pay-per-click or banner advertising. We’ve talked about organic SEO, social media and blogging. He has been using keywords on his site, he’s got a Facebook Fan page for his business, and he has a blog.
There’s one big problem, however: his blog is not integrated into his website.
What does that mean?
The platform/service he’s using to power his e-commerce website doesn’t currently give him the ability to blog as a part of his core website. His blog is in WordPress, but it is a stand-alone entity. The diagram below will help to illustrate (please forgive the stick drawings!):
It’s great that he has a blog, but other than a link from the website to his blog and vice versa, there’s no connection. He’s figured out how to get blog posts to automatically post to his Facebook fan page, but users who click through to read the entire post are only going to his blog. Because it stands on it’s own, viewers aren’t seeing any of the products he offers. Unless they click the link to his website, they don’t even know what he sells, so he’s not realizing many, if any sales due to his blogging efforts.
Another problem is that his e-commerce site isn’t benefiting from the relevant keyword content contained in his blog. People who might well be customers, using search terms, may get to his blog, but again, it takes extra effort to get to his website, because the search queries are not leading to the internet presence that pays his bills!
The final large problem is that he’s not taking advantage of turning the prospects on his e-commerce into loyal fans. One of the best ways to use a blog or news section on your website is to provide regular articles of interest and information that will keep people coming back for more.
While it’s true that the equipment he sells is available on other websites, he is an expert in his field. He can answer questions, give advice, help people choose exactly what they need without over-spending. He has a huge potential to earn customers that value his expertise and would buy from him because they know they’re getting the best advice, and because he is a regular blogger, they’ll keep coming back. Every time they come back is another opportunity to sell products.