Top 5 tips you would give for an ecommerce blog

[BobGW]

Hello,

What are the top 5 tips or resources you would give to an ecommerce site that is starting a blog?

If EGOL could share, too, that would be great. He's the best.

So far we are doing:

1. Around 1000 words per blog post, but varying depending on the topic

2. New product and best product reviews for some of the posts.

3. I'm doing my best to have the writer make them best-of-the-web

4. After we've got a track record, I'll analyze the statistics to see what's working.

5. There's very little blogging in our industry

Thanks!

[BobGW]

Thanks Laurean, I appreciate the response.

It's actually EGOL who stated that you can get double listings with long tail keywords.

[Laurean]

...is you will not have much trouble with it and get lots of double listings in the SERPs even when lots of people say that ain't possible any more.

Long tail keywords... especially when used the way BobGW is wanting,  can get double listings.  We see it every day from the clients who take this advice!   Whoever is saying it ain't possible anymore isn't putting in the elbow grease that BobGW obviously is.  Which is fine for the rest of us, we'll pick up those opps!

[EGOL]

Yep...  you got it.

[KeriMorgret]

Believe me, I'd love to find the magic bribe to get EGOL to write on YouMoz again! I'm the same way, however, in that I can dash out a response in Q&A or an individual email to someone in 20 minutes, but take two months to turn that into a blog post.

[BobGW]

Thanks EGOL. Awesome as usual

[PaddyDisplays]

Can't blame you for that.  Just have to keep checking out your posts in the forum

[EGOL]

Thanks Paddy,  I appreciate that.

I can write answers here as a break from other writing work.  I just type them and toss them up and enjoy doing it.   If I was going to write a post for the moz blog I would have to spend about 20x more time on it and that would make it hard work instead of fun.   I gotta save my "finished product" writing bullets for my own site.   I don't have enough of them.

[PaddyDisplays]

Great Answer EGOL.  You should write a blog post on moz, your insight  would be very helpful to a lot of people (including me).

[EGOL]

Pick one product.  Write posts about....

1. How to use it with photos or video.

2. How to do the typical maintenance with photos or video (link to your spare parts sales page) .

3. Better assembly instructions in the language of your customers with photos.   #*@^!

4. A big list of questions that people ask you on the phone before they buy (post a link to this on the sales page, will save you phone calls).  <title>Know before you buy BobGW's Widget</title>

5. A big list of noob questions that people ask you after buying. Will keep noobs from bugging you by phone and email after the sale.

After you got these on your blog, make a package insert that has the top banner of your website across the top of the page so it looks like your website.   Tell them you got great info at the URLs of  #2, #3 and #5 above.   Print on paper of a screamin' color so they don't miss it and use it as a package insert when you sell the item.   Add discount coupons with distant future expiration dates so they don't throw it away or use it as a shitcatcher on the floor of their canary cage.

Optimize all five of the above blog posts for product-related terms and link then to each other and to the sales page, accessory pages, etc.

After you got all of the pages above and a couple others make a category page just for this product.  It will have everything that everybody everywhere wanted to know about BobGW's Widgets and some stuff that they never thought about, post links to it all across your website.   Lots of people will buy from you, even at higher price, because they know you know everything there is about these products.

Warning... this will also draw lots of questions from people who bought their stuff on Amazon and know that Amazon doesn't give a two craps about helping the customer.   You will almost become a profit center for  competitors whose customers come to you after buyin' because the competitors are too lazy to help their customers or don't answer the phone until after a long lunch.

But you will also pull traffic from all of the long tail keywords that amazon and your customers and even the manufacturer never even thought of.  Some people say you will get in trouble for KW cannibalization but if you use wordtracker to target these pages to stuff that people are askin' about my experience is you will not have much trouble with it and get lots of double listings in the SERPs even when lots of people say that ain't possible any more.