Blogging for ecommerce

To blog or not to blog…
Cartoons from kmonadollaraday.wordpress.com

Outline
3 Questions to talk about:
1. What is a blog?
2. Why sellers should have one?
3. How to implement a blog in Magento?

Who is speaking?
 Alexander Haiser
 Projektleiter eCommerce & Marketing
@openstream
 Bachelor of Business Administration (BA)
 Over 10 years experience in marketing
 More than 6 years online marketing focus
 Seller & Blogger
 Google Adwords Certified

What is a blog?
 Blog is short for W E B L O G
 Kind of a public diary
 Posts with reverse chronological order
(most recent entries first)
 Blogs started in mid 90s
 Mainstream since 2004

What is a blog?
Different kind of blogs today
 Personal Blog (diary)
 Microblog (e.g. Twitter, Tumblr)
 Corporate Blog (marketing, branding, pr)
 Special genre blogs like Vlog (= Video Blog)

WHY SELLERS SHOULD
HAVE A BLOG?

Why sellers should have a blog?
Reasons why…
 Marketing benefits (customer journey, acquisition)
 Customer relation (social media, feedback)
 Branding (credibility, trust)
 SEO / SEM (traffic, content is king)
Proof (yes, it works!)

Marketing benefits
 What users expect => Customer Journey
Customers are searching for information, not only products
 What search engines expect => SEO
Content is getting more and more important (content is king)
Target longtail keywords, improve inner linking structure,…

Further possibilities with a blog
 Connect to Social Media (customer relation)
e.g. Blogposts are published on your FB fanpage, show activities in
social media channels, communicate with audience
 Instant Feedback (customer relation)
comment functions and interactive elements (e.g. Like Button) drive
direct feedback from users
 Credibility (trust)
You know, what you are selling, expert status

Use synergy effects:
Same blog content can be
used for
Landingpages
SEO/SEM
• Improve
quality of
Adwords
campaigns
• Target longtail
keywords
Customer
relationship
• Get instant
Feedback
• Discussion
with
customers
Customer
experience
improvement
• Background
information
• Expert status
Branding
• Build a
community of
customers
and readers
that spread
the word

Proof
Hubspot.com/soim 2012 Inbound Marketing

Proof
HubSpot State of Inbound Marketing, 2012

Proof
TOP ecommerce websites in Europe use – guess what…

Magento merchants with a blog:

Facts about blogs
Companies that blog have far better marketing results
 55% more visits
 97% more inbound links
 434% more indexed pages
 61% of US customers have made a purchase based on a
blog post
 81% of US consumers trust advice and information from
blogs
It’s worth blogging, isn’t it?!
Hubspot.com case study 2009

HOW TO IMPLEMENT A
BLOG IN MAGENTO?

How to implement a blog?
Several possibilities… as always
 Magento Blog Extension
 3rd Party CMS like WordPress

Magento Blog Extensions
Blog – Community Edition by aheadworks
Blog Pro by MagPleasure (paid)
nBlog by Neotheme

How to find a good one?
Magentoconnect.com
Magekarma.com
Write your review / experience

Magento Blog Integration Example

Advantages of blog extensions
 One backend
 No separate design needed
 Consistent user experience
 Quite economic

WordPress as 3rd Party CMS
+

 Use as subdomain
blog.my-magentoshop.com/
 Use in subfolder
my-magentoshop.com/blog

Advantages of WordPress
 Easy to use
 Huge and active community (extensions)
 Several extensions for easy integration in
Magento
 Best blogging tool out there

Further Integration with extensions

Magento blog extension WordPress 3rd Party
 No extra design needed
 One backend
 Small to midsize blogs
 Limited functionality
 Dynamic product widgets
 Separate design needed
 Backend synch via extension
 Blogsize doesnt matter
 Additional plugins: Related
Posts, Featured Post Slider…
 Manual product link

Conclusion
 Every merchant needs a blog
 Collect topic ideas
 Set up a content strategy
 Plan your resources for content writing
 Decide which blog integration fits your needs
 Start blogging – Enjoy selling!

Don‘t know what to blog about?
Topic Finding Quick Tips
 Research other blogs (competitors, suppliers, etc.)
 Think out of the box
 Brainstorming (with employees)
 Use user content:
 tschigi.com – dog stories
 weinmayer.de – wine stories

Blogging for ecommerce

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