Is traffic and content really important for an e-commerce site???

[BeytzNet]

Hi All,

I'm maintaining an e-commerce website and I've encountered some related keywords that I know will not convert to sales but are related to the subject and might help becoming an "authority".

I'll give an example...

If a car dealership wrote an amazing article about cleaning a car.
Obviously it is related but the chances of someone looking to clean his car will go ahead and buy one now are quite low. Also, he will probably bounce out of this page after reading the piece.

To conclude, Would such an article do GOOD (helping to become an authority and having more visitors) or BAD (low conversion rate and high bounce rate)?

Thanks

[activitysuper]

Nice little thread here, read all of it :).

I would be inclined to attach a signup form for a newsletter as the content is good.

Then I would include the latest informative article, tutorial in the newsletter connected with car accessories, link to facebook, plus 1, twitter page.

First to get some social engagement which in turn should help out with SEO but then an added benefit of flogging some accessories (although you would need to sell a lot of smelly trees to make anything) but you get the idea, I would site down and draw it out, give it some serious thought.

[EGOL]

Philipp makes good points that ads can divert attention from your brand and your sales products.    I agree with him.

However, my site is still selling a lot of merchandise.  I don't have ads in people's face on merchandise pages.  If there is an ad on a merchandise page it is at the bottom - most don't have ads.  My ads focus on article pages.

Finally, you can block certain types of ads and also ads from competing domains.  Adsense, tribalfusion and most other ad networks have a variety of ad blocking methods.

[zeepartner]

1. Yes, I would put it in a blog section. You might want to call it "tips" or something instead of blog, which is more appealing and - depending on the content - a more precise description. Important is that you have your articles on the same subdomain as the shop (or the same domain in the least).

2. Not that I'm Egol... but personally, I wouldn't put any ads on my ecommerce sites: as I am aiming at high conversions I don't want users to click on ads (unless those ads pay me more than my own sales).
And yes, the ads can potentially hurt your brand, so if you do have them, you must keep a close eye on those in order to make sure they're not out-of-context. But if you don't overdo it with the ads, most users won't even notice.

And another word about content: IMO that's the only way to push your ecommerce site and open it up for the longtail - with articles that are helpful but not directly linked to a product you sell.

[BeytzNet]

Thank you both for the answers.
In my case the site is more like Egol's first example.

I will then add two related questions -

1. Should such related articles that I will use mostly for branding, likes and basically authority be posted in my Blog or Article section?

2. Egol - Don't you feel that putting ads in such article "hurts" your brand?
(making it appear to be smaller - you won't see ads on GAP etc.)

Thanks again

[Aran_Smithson]

I Agree with EGOL, however to answer our point on Articles Good or Bad. They're most definitely a good thing.

Attracting clicks, links, likes and bookmarks are great for your seo and attracting mor visitors in. I find for every 100 visitors that visit  my article pages around 6% will share the content one way or another and thus drag in more visitors.

If nothing else it builds a bit of brand recognition in my niche and build my SEO.

[EGOL]

Lots of retail sites have extensive article libraries that attract traffic, likes, links and make the site popular.  These articles often describe how the products are used and are especially valuable on sites in do-it-yourself, personal improvement and hobby niches.  I have a retail site with a lot of how-to-do-it, historical and review content and those articles account for about 1/2 of the traffic.  They also produce some sales.  In addition, I monetize them with ads.

On a more powerful scale is an information site with a store.  These can be really popular and be monetized with house ads that funnel traffic into the store and third party ads that produce income.  I have one of these that is supported by ad revenue and a store that sees revenue growth in proportion to the traffic - as most of the purchases are impulse.  In addition, your sales will be tied the the effectiveness of your ads and their placement - experimentation is essential if you want to get the most out of them.