A blogshop is, as the name suggests, an ecommerce website which is run through a platform that was originally crafted for blogging. They are all the rage at the moment for a multitude of different reasons. On this page I am going to talk you through how you can start a successful online blogshop. For the purposes of this content it does not matter what blogging platform you are using as your ‘base’. The strategies are very much the same.
Before you dive into setting up your blogshop it is important that you know exactly what you want to sell through it. The most important component of your success will be the products that you sell. After all; there is no sense building up an epic online store and then trying to shift a product which is not going to sell in a million years. Sure; any marketer could look at a product and try and spin it in a way in which people may wish to purchase it even if they had never contemplated it in the past. This is an incredibly difficult task and it is not always successful though. Think about what you want to sell. Check that there is actually an interest out there for that particular product or think about whether there could be a potential interest if it was ‘spun’ in the right way. If not; go back to the drawing board.
Once you have a product in mind it is time to start preparing your content. Since you are running a blogshop things are going to be ever so slightly different from a normal ecommerce website here. Sure; you are going to have an individual store where people can purchase your product. You are also going to have a blog too. This is where you are going to bring in the majority of your sales. Let me give you a couple of tips on creating brilliant content for your blogshop:
• Do not push a product at every given opportunity. This is without a doubt one of the worst things that you could possibly do. People hate being sold to….even when they browse an online store. Your main focus of your blogshop will be to provide a solution to people. To provide them with the help that they need. Create content which is absolutely fantastic and helpful. Do not put a product for sale in every post. This will scare people away.
- Create brilliant content that people are willing to share. Remember; people are much more likely to share helpful posts with their friends and family than products.
- Use decent images for your products. Studies have shown time and time again that better quality images result in more sales.
- Post to your blog regularly. Do it at exactly the same time too. You want people to know when to expect new content.
After this is it is very much a case of marketing your blogshop. You want to spread word that you actually exist. There are a couple of things you want to do here. I will not go into depth on every point because you could probably write a whole book on blog marketing. This is not a complete list either. There are little hundreds of ideas that you can use. This will give you a nice push in the right direction however:
- Search Engine Optimization: This is probably going to be your main focus. Most of your traffic is going to come through the search engines.
- Social Media Marketing (Facebook and Twitter at the very minimum)
- Guest Posting
- Directories (if you can find one in your niche)
- Forum Marketing
I am not going to lie to you here. Creating a successful blogshop is going to take a whole lot of work. If you have the right product and the drive to succeed however then you WILL be successful. I promise.
