There are very few features that you can add to a website that will garner more traffic, interest, and appreciation from visitors than a simple blog. Adding this feature can, and often will, lead your online store into a rapid growth cycle the likes of which you might not expect, or be prepared for. So let’s preface the rest of this post by saying that the growth potential for your online store can expand exponentially after implementing a regularly updated blog.

With that optimistic warning out of the way, let’s try to understand the power of blogging and what you can do to harness it for the successful expansion of your business. First of all, why is blogging such a popular and powerful method of exposure? The simple answer is that the most powerful element of blogging is its proclivity. By maintaining a consistently updated blog, you manage the creation of authentic content that’s completely unique to your web store.

This is important for two reasons:

1. Having fresh and authentic content attracts the attention of mainstream search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. These search giants work specifically to hunt for relevant new content that matches popular search queries entered in by users. This means that for every new post you publish, you increase the free and natural attention you get from search engines. There are specific ways to approach the process that will maximize the attention your blog receives. In general these techniques are called Keyword Optimization. 
2. You'll capture more LTV (Long-Term-Value) from your customers. And this is very much the goal. It’s relatively easy to find hundreds of one-time customers that come and go like tumbleweeds in the wind. However, the acquisition of regular customers is far more challenging, though only because many ecommerce business owners don't understand the value of blogging and online engagement. Once the misunderstandings have been cleared up, it's easy to see that blogging is one of the most effective ways to encourage customers to subscribe to your content and return to your store again and again.

 

Building brand loyalty and setting your company up to be an educational resource within your niche is the best way to improve LTV. Maintaining a useful and informative blog is by far the most expedient method to do just that. Not only that, but keeping your site stocked with that fresh and highly readable content sends a clear message to search engines that you’re providing rich, intelligent, and effective content that will be highly sought by your visitors. It’s a two pronged attack designed to improve your profitability at every level of your sales funnel.

So get a pen and start scratching out some ideas!

It’s also worth noting that blog posts give you, your company, and your website a much needed infusion of personality. In the virtual world where everything boils down to a mathematical equation, it’s important to leave some room for actual thought and intelligent improvisation. You’ve got to clue your visitors in to the fact that they aren’t buying from mechanically thinking robots with no concept of human emotion, and only a cold steel hardened respect for the unblinking face of their logic-God, always marching forward in their pursuit of the almighty dollar, performing cost-benefit analyses on human lives, and devaluing them against the precious metals that they can harvest using our spines as picks and our skulls as shovels. FEAR THEM. 

See what I just did there? Personality, imagination, improvisation, and the art of building interest. Put it into your work, and people are sure to respond. Perhaps not always positively, but you know what they say about bad press still being press.

With a company blog in the spotlight, those dreary and foreboding online business pages suddenly seem to have their own expressive voice and humanity. These virtues are what will attract your ideal customers - the people who want, love, and will be able to afford everything you have to offer to them.

That personality and carefully cultivated charisma is what builds a productive rapport with your store’s visitors. If you build trust with them, you can then confidently send them down your sales funnel, where you can help them meet their needs. There are other ways to craft this same sort of human expression within your website, and I do suggest you seek them out as well. Though for now it's important to focus on utilizing the power of blogging, as it is the most effective way to quickly build connections with your online community and turn those connections into conversations and sustainable momentum.