Online Retailers Need To Blog

The landscape for online retailers has changed dramatically over the last few years. The internet is becoming increasingly popular as a starting point for buying decisions, and online retailers who are not making an effort to expand their presence on the internet are falling behind. The primary source of quality traffic is still undoubtedly the major search engines, Yahoo, Google, AOL and MSN. It is on one of these engines where the buying process begins for over 78% of all internet users, but e-tailers run into a real problem in positioning their websites so that they get in front of these highly qualified visitors. Paid search advertising is becoming very expensive and it is accepted that over 20% of clicks generated by paid search are fraudulent. Search Engine Optimization is also extremely expensive, and shows for the most part very little return. Retailers are looking for a cost effective method of ranking on the first page of search engines, and that method is blog marketing.

Blog Marketing Outperforms PPC and SEO

Retail Blog Marketing Programs have proven to be more effective in increasing organic or natural search engine rankings than SEO and more cost effective in the long term than PPC. This will have a dramatic effect on the entire internet marketing industry. Retailers no longer need lengthy, bloated SEO contracts for hundreds of thousands of dollars. They just need a blog, and the time to write about what they do. They no longer have to rely on the short term pay as you go mindset of paid search advertising, where their traffic disappears as soon as the budget dries up. They just need to promote themselves better through blog writing and access to the blogosphere.

Retail Blog Marketing Benefits

Blog marketing helps the retailers’ main website rank higher in the search results of the major search engines under highly specific search terms. This results in increased traffic and conversions from the website.
Blog marketing establishes the online retailer as a leader in their field. Consumers value sites that provide information, and will buy from them at a higher rate. Search engines value sites that provide information to consumers and rank them higher in natural search results.
Blog marketing provides retailers with another way to reach their customers. Whether the message delivered is of a commercial or an informational nature, RSS and blog subscription makes it easy to communicate with clients without resorting to intrusive email or direct mail.

As with the advent or email and the fax machine, it is not a question of whether online retailers should use blogs, it is more a question of when they start. Blogging is becoming an essential marketing tool, and the early adopters are seeing a substantial competitive advantage. Retailers who are not prepared to write about what they do, and provide information to their customers will be left behind.

Contact us and one of our representatives will design a successful blog marketing campaign for your company.