How do you set up your blog on Shopify? How do you create blog posts that will effectively promote your products and services? And how do you optimize your blog posts to boost your website’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) score and consequently increase your traffic?
If the prospect of blogging on Shopify has got you scratching your head – we’ve got you covered in this ultimate guide.
Why You Should Start a Blog on Shopify
First things first, why should you launch a Shopify blog page as part of your online store? There are several benefits to having a Shopify blog. Let’s explore them one by one.
- It’s a Free Marketing Tool: If you’re a brand new startup, you may not have the budget to dedicate to social media ads, Google Shopping listings, and other paid marketing tools. Blogging is a free way to reach your target audience and build a community of like-minded consumers that may someday turn into customers.
- It Makes Your Brand Stand Out: Approximately more than 4.4 million blog posts are written every day in the current content marketing era. Blogging, when done well, helps your business to stay competitive and enhances your brand visibility.
- It Keeps Potential Customers in One Place: Shopify has embedded capabilities that can meet all your blogging needs, from its visual editor to automatic SEO for the title and description. It’s easy to maintain a cohesive feel between your shop and blog, and you can manage it all from your Shopify dashboard.
Many store owners don’t realize that every Shopify site includes a blog from the start. If you already host a blog on WordPress or Blogger, we’re sorry to tell you that these platforms weren’t designed to be integrated with Shopify.
You can keep your original blog and then direct your readers to your Shopify eCommerce site. However, featuring Shopify products on another website and driving readers to convert to a Shopify store won’t be a seamless process.
Another option is to download the Shopify WordPress plugin, which allows you to add a Shopify eCommerce store to any WordPress theme. It all depends on what makes sense for you and your business.
How to Add a Blog to Shopify
Those who already have their store up and running may be wondering how you can blog on Shopify?
The truth is, setting up a blog is straightforward in this instance. Shopify naturally comes with a built-in blogging engine to help you build your audience and generate more sales for your Shopify store.
All you have to do to activate your Shopify site’s blog is follow the below steps:
- Go to your admin area.
- Once you’ve selected “Online Store” in the left-hand menu, click “Blog Posts.”
- At the top, select “Manage Blogs.”
- In the top right, click the “Add Blog” button.
- Give your blog a name and add it to your site’s navigation menu.
You can then choose between the many Shopify blog themes and pick a Shopify blog template that aligns with your visual brand identity.
How to Integrate an Existing Blog With Shopify
What happens if you already have an existing blog with a different host? The good news is that you can import content from that platform to your Shopify blog.
Having your blog on the same domain as your blog (and not as a Shopify subdomain) is worth doing. Blogging on Shopify doesn’t just make sense from a management perspective, but it will also improve your store’s SEO and accelerate your growth over time.
One of the best blog apps for Shopify is “BlogFeeder”. This Shopify blog app makes it quick and effortless to migrate existing posts into Shopify.
You can even import WordPress to Shopify in terms of your whole site, including the blog posts and pages, with the help of the “All Export” and “Matrixify” apps. Look for them on the Shopify App Store.
Blogging Best Practices on Shopify to Boost SEO
If you’re a blogging beginner, there are some best practices for blogging on Shopify that you should know about.
Update Your Blog Often
Firstly, try not to set up your blog and then completely forget about it. You need to be consistent to reap the rewards of blogging on Shopify.
Plus, Google and other search engines favor fresh content. If you’re regularly producing blog posts that are laden with relevant keywords that people are searching for, this increases the chances of website click-throughs and conversions.
Blogging daily may feel overwhelming to start with, but you could start with once per week and build it up from there.
Mix Up Your Content
The digital consumer has a short attention span. According to The Guardian, we check our phones every 12 minutes after waking up.
In other words, blog readers like variety. Publish different types of posts and media on your blog to provoke interest and keep your readers coming back for more.
One of the best Shopify blog examples for this is the activewear brand Gymshark. They call their blog “Central” It has a mix of how-to guides, product announcements, and interviews with influential sports and fitness industry figures.
Every topic is relevant and timely for their target audience, which is why this blog gets thousands of visitors per month.
Pick Your Keywords Wisely
Keyword research is an essential part of the blog post creation process. You need to educate yourself on what your target audience is searching the internet for to produce blog posts that answer their questions and solve their problems.
A brand that nails keyword research for blogging purposes is Beardbrand. Instead of wasting time writing for the masses, they focus their efforts on generating engagement from those who are most likely to make a purchase.
By selecting the right keywords, such as “stages of beard growth” and “beard oil vs. beard balm,” their associated blog posts rank in the number one spot on Google.
Become a Source of Authority
Creating blog posts that speak to the pain points of your target audience is vital for building long-lasting relationships.
By teaching your reader something new and being helpful, you develop trust. This trust then leads to loyalty.
One of the best Shopify blogs for adding value is by health and nutrition brand Bulletproof. They’ve built an impactful brand by publishing content that introduces unique and complex topics and explains them well.
Perhaps this is why 75% of all organic traffic to their Shopify store comes through their blog.
Create an SEO-Friendly Structure
As we mentioned earlier, the digital consumer is busy. They want to be able to find the information they need in the shortest possible time.
As a result, search engines are more likely to push your content to the top of their Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) if it’s easy to scan. You can make a blog post SEO-friendly by following these top tips:
- Use H1, H2, and H3 subheadings to allow the information in each section to be accessed quickly.
- Use short sentences and paragraphs that are simple to read.
- Include bullet points, images, videos, infographics, and lists to break up giant walls of text that look overwhelming to a reader.
Essentially, make your blog post simple to digest so that the reader sticks around for longer. This will then lead to a lower bounce rate, another metric that search engines use to rank your content higher on their SERPs.
Include Plenty of Links
Another blogging best practice to improve the SEO of your Shopify store is including internal and external links.
This involves redirecting your reader to another highly authoritative blog post wherever relevant, whether it’s on your website or someone else’s, so they can find out more about a subject.
The idea is to be as helpful as possible so that your reader trusts your brand and wants to interact with it further.
You could even use a plugin to create a “You might also enjoy” widget at the bottom of each blog post. This will provide links to other related posts, increasing your reader’s time on the site and page-views.
Define Your Brand Voice
Lastly, you can use your blog on Shopify to define your brand voice and personality.
After all, establishing an emotional connection with your target audience is more likely to inspire action, whether this is a blog comment or a product sale.
One of the Shopify example sites with a blog with character is BarkBox, a monthly subscription service for your dog.
BarkPost has content that spans various categories based on engaging topics that dog owners would want to see.
In addition to posting helpful Shopify blog posts, they feature entertaining content in their witty and relatable brand voice. This effectively captures a feel-good emotion that they want their readers to associate with their brand, which boosts the chances of people purchasing from them.
The Takeaway
Blogging on Shopify is a great way to boost your blog readership, website SEO and increase sales of your products. Just be sure to follow our best blog practices for Shopify to minimize stress and maximize your chances of success, and don’t forget that consistency is the key to success in blogging on Shopify.
