Blog content practices for e-commerce sites

[MEldridge]

What is the best practice in regards to content for e-commerce blogs on the same domain as the web-store (blog.storename.com)? What balance of content should be on the blog vs. the item & section pages or doesn't it matter?

[JerDoggMckoy]

By the way, fantastic information EGOL. You make it very easy to break down what sort of content is best to put on a blog post. Thumbs up for sure!

[JerDoggMckoy]

Reference this SEOMoz post here: Great Content for SEO - Once you find out exactly what content your customers need to have before making a purchase, then you make sure your product pages provide that on your pages. I would suggest providing the same content in possibly a different format for your blog posts, as well as any additional user-valued fluff content, and then provide the blog post with a call to action directing them to the product purchase page.

[EGOL]

I would place the blog at storename.com/blog/ instead of blog.storename.com.

Why?  Google seems to treat subdomains as separate websites and links that hit your blog will not empower the main site as strongly.   If the blog is on the main site then all of the links that hit the blog will transfer trust, authority and linkjuice into your main website.

I recently did a 301 redirect (page-by-page) of a subdomain to a folder on the main site and my rankings are now up nicely everywhere.

I would use the blog on a retail site to review products, give product use information and provide supplemental information about what I am selling.  All of these posts can be linked to your product pages to pass some power to them.

And, if you have product information, reviews, usage tips, etc. you might be able to get links from the manufacturer's blog, consumer websites and how-to-do-it sites.

The more content you can put on the blog the better - as long as it is high quality and linkworthy.