Are you trying to learn content writing for eCommerce websites?
Content marketing can be one of the best ways to bring new leads and attract potential customers. But let’s be honest: it can also be time-intensive and exhausting.
That’s why every type of content you write needs to have a clear purpose for both your AND your business.
So, in today’s post, we’re going to share 5 content writing tips specifically for eCommerce websites.
Before we do, though, let’s get clear on why even eCommerce sites should have a solid content marketing strategy in place.
Content marketing is one of the best ways to create an evergreen strategy to bring consumers to your business. You’ve likely heard of the term “SEO” (search engine optimization). That’s when you create content that is designed to rank on search engines like Google.
But content marketing paints with a broader stroke than just SEO.
In fact, you can use content to generate business for your brand in all forms and fashions, including:
So before we dive into our content writing for eCommerce website tips, let’s get clear on 3 things:
1) First, content marketing is NOT just about blogging about your products.
Content writing is more than just “blogging.” You should be creating and distributing content in a variety of ways and on a variety of platforms.
For example, you might create an infographic to share on LinkedIn or promote a long-form eBook on popups around your site. If you assume “content writing” exclusively refers to “blogging,” then you’ll be leaving lots of great opportunities on the table.
2) Second, content marketing allows you connect with other thought leaders in your space.
One of the cool things about creating content is that you’re also building authority in your niche. If you have a website with LOADS of valuable content aimed to help consumers in your niche, you’ll be in a better position to build partnerships with other thought leaders.
Before long, you can leverage those partnerships to create win-win situations (like sharing each other’s products on email lists, getting invited to podcasts for more exposure, and so on).
And if the thought of creating lots of content seems daunting, remember that it’s a marathon–not a sprint.
In 10 years, you’ll either have a decade’s worth of content to set you hobnobbing with the top experts in your field, or you’ll still be wondering why no one comes to your site to buy products.
3) Finally, content marketing helps build brand recognition
One thing that you need to remember when it comes to eCommerce is that brand recognition is very important. It usually takes consumers several times to hear your brand’s message before taking any action (hence the famous “Rule of 7“).
By creating and updating your online store’s content, you’ll be in a better position to put yourself in front of your target audience more frequently.
Now that we know why every eCommerce needs a solid content marketing strategy in place, let’s look at 5 tips on how to improve your eCommerce copywriting skills.
The first thing you need to do is understand your audience.
The biggest mistake that I see eCommerce content creators make is that they create campaigns they “think” their audience will love. Instead, why not let the data do the hard work for you?
Start by identifying the top selling products in your store. Then head off and read the reviews customers have left, along with reviews for similar products from competitors.
You’re looking for descriptive terms about why a consumer bought a product and what problem they were trying to solve when doing so. As you conduct this audience research, try looking for trends in pain-points and benefits for each of your products, along with the type of language consumers use to describe it.
Here’s a great example from UndersunFitness:
It talks about various aspects concerning their product’s quality, shipping times, how it’s used, and more. Plus it gives valuable demographic information in the form of age range, gender, and fitness goals.
Next, you can start creating content around those benefits/pain-points.
An easy way to start is by posting on social media (mostly Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Reddit). Don’t try to post on every platform at once because it will get overwhelming. Start with the one you think will get the most traction, and go from there.
When doing this, track the engagement for each of your posts. Which ones are getting the most likes, shares, and comments?
Engagement rates show you which topics or ideas are most interesting to your clients. You can use posts with high engagement to begin crafting new content for different platforms or creating lead magnets.
The point is that you shouldn’t start building a content marketing strategy until you’ve looked more closely at your audience and identified who they are/what they struggle with. Then you can create content to solve those problems and bring new customers to your eCommerce store.
Earlier we said that content marketing didn’t exclusively mean “SEO.” And it doesn’t.
But SEO does play a major role, especially if you plan on driving organic content to your store through search engines like Google.
For that, you’ll want to conduct some basic keyword research for popular phrases in your niche.
Keyword research is an important step for eCommerce blogs because it gives you a chance to target people actively searching for your products online. But not all keywords are created equally.
Some keywords get more search traffic each month than others, often making those terms harder to rank for. While there are a lot of exceptions in the world of SEO, here’s a general rule of thumb:
This is the difference between TOFU (top of the funnel) and BOFU (bottom of the funnel) posts.
For example, imagine you have an eCommerce shop that sells dog clothes. So you write a post and target the keyword “dog clothes” because it gets 21.7k searches per month:
But notice that this keyword has a difficulty ranking of 73%. That means if you’re site isn’t a top brand in the field, it likely won’t be able to get on page 1 of the SERPs (this isn’t always true, but is applicable more often than not). Hence why the first article to appear is from the international brand PetSmart.
Let’s say, though, that you decide to break down your blog posts into more specific items. You could target something like “dog sweaters for pugs”:
Here’s the trade-off…
Search volume is significantly lower. But your chances for ranking are significantly higher.
Plus, people who are typing this term in have a very specific idea of what they want to buy (rather than the generic “dog clothes” which might simply have thousands of window shoppers).
So the question becomes “Would you rather have A LOT of people visit your online store each month and buy nothing or have a few hundred visit who become repeat customers?”
If you can rank for high-volume words that bring people to your store, AWESOME. But you need to be realistic about what you’re shop can rank for to build the most strategic content calendar possible.
And for the record, keyword research isn’t just for blog posts. You should also use it to rank/optimize specific product pages.
While you can do very basic keyword research for free, you’ll likely want an SEO tool like Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush to find the right keywords for your eCommerce store.
Whenever you’re writing copy for any brand, you need to make sure your messaging is benefit-driven. That means immediately showing the reader “what’s in it for them.”
And this is 100% the case when it comes to content writing for eCommerce websites.
In all of your eCommerce copy (blog posts, social posts, emails, landing pages, etc.), you’ll want to get clear on how it will benefit the person reading that piece of content.
This is hard for many writers who tend to confuse “features” with “benefits.” So let’s break those concepts down really quickly:
Let’s say that you sell clothing online, and you want to write a social media post for a new line of jeans in your store.
Things like “strong denim,” “large back pockets,” or “hip hugging” are all features of those jeans. These are all noteworthy qualities of the jeans, but they haven’t yet mentioned “what’s in it for the reader,” have they?
When you focus on benefits, you get personal with the pain-point your customers are trying to solve.
To continue with the example for a pair of jeans, benefits might be something like, “Look great for any occasion” or “Pay 20 bucks to feel like a million.”
The idea of “looking great” or “feeling like a million bucks” are benefits the consumer can sink their teeth into.
If you’re writing headlines, subject lines, or benefit-driven bullet points for a blog post, here’s a good formula for packing both features and benefits into your writing:
X benefit gets accomplished by Y feature.
This immediately explains why someone should care (because you lead with the benefit), but adds more information on how you will deliver on that promise (by mentioning the specific feature).
So if we wanted to write a headline in a product page for that pair of jeans, it might read something like, “Never lose your phone in the toilet again with our extra deep denim back pockets.”
(Ok, so that example is a bit clunky, but you get the idea).
A common pain-point for people who keep phones in their back pocket is losing it in the toilet when they sit to use the restroom. This is immediately dressed with, “Never lose your phone in the toilet again” and quickly explains how you’ll accomplish this (“with our extra deep denim back pockets”).
This is just one example of how you can create benefit-driven content for your eCommerce store, but the context will change depending on the type of campaign you’re writing.
But one rule is the same across the board: you’ll want to keep all of your writing focused on a concrete benefit for your target audience.
Social proof and testimonials are key to improving conversions in every business. But in eCommerce, social proof is an absolute must.
Most eCommerce stores aren’t working in a vacuum. That means you’ve got some competition. And if your competition is displaying more “in your face” social proof, you’re going to have some problems.
Just consider a few of these social proof statistics:
(Seriously, you should check out that entire resource linked above. It’ll be hard to argue against the value of going “all-in” on social proof once you do.)
As you approach content writing for eCommerce websites, look for places to collect customer feedback and testimonials. And look for places to display social proof across your store. Here’s a great example by Tesalate:
You should at least have a few automated emails ready to go at key touchpoints with a customer survey or a CTA to leave your store a review. If you can afford it, try to incentivize your customers with a discount or free gift.
And don’t worry, the money you spend on discounts will pay off BIG when you see a boost in conversions as you gather more social proof.
This is something that I’ve always been (and will likely always be) very outspoken about. The winning formula for content marketing and copywriting is this:
Test. Track. Tweak. Repeat.
Test. Track. Tweak. Repeat.
Test. Track. Tweak. Repeat.
And so on and so on ad infinitum.
Seriously, the best copywriting comes down to how well you can track the results of your campaign, understand what went well (or wrong), and adapt your messaging to fix those problems. Unfortunately there aren’t many copywriters who get to do this because so many companies outsource copy but keep results in-house only.
If you want to stand apart as a freelance eCommerce copywriter OR you simply want to boost sales for your own store, then you need to get this tattooed across your chest: Test. Track. Tweak. Repeat.
And that’s all for today! These have been 5 tips on content writing for eCommerce websites.
I hope you enjoyed the post and, if you did, you’ll definitely want to check out the following resources:
These resources will have even more information that you can use to produce better copy that leads to higher sales for your eCommerce store!
Are you trying to understand the copywriting process in advertising, but not sure how to…
Are you looking for the best performance goals for copywriters to track? Being a great…
Have you been told to use bullet points in copywriting, but you're not totally sure…
Are you trying to write better lead generation copy? Getting new and highly qualified leads…
Are you trying to learn about B2B copywriting, but not sure where to start? If…
Are you looking for the best copywriting questions to ask yourself before sitting down to…