Business Blog Ideas: How to Blog for Your Ecommerce Business in 2021

Find Better Topics for Your Brand's Content

Business owners often get stuck staring at a blank page and come to me with comments like "I know content is important for growing our e-com business, but I don't know what to write about." When it comes to finding ideas, look far and wide. This is the stage where you want to keep your mind wide open. 

This isn't one of those 500 ideas for your next blog post kind of articles. This is a framework for you to find ideas specific to your business and your readers. 

Here's what you're looking for

Here are examples for an imaginary sugar-free rice cereal treat brand from last week:

1. New trends related to your product

• Hot cocoa bombs (do you cell your marshmallows separately?

2. Seasonal themes that your product can star in

• Easter basket treats

• Christmas stocking stuffers

• Kids' birthday party favors

3. Problems you're product solves

• New stats on sugar consumption in America

• The hassle of having to send along treats for the whole class

• The disappointment when your gluten free child has to have separate treats from his gluten-eating classmates

• The oft-planned, rarely executed goal of packing lunches for work (and/or making them at home rather than ordering delivery)

• The FOMO that comes with new healthy eating plans about missing sweet snacks

4. Questions you can answer

• Answering your most frequently asked questions from customers about: 

• Shelf-stability, age suitability, flavorings, use in sculpting on top of cakes, allergens, supply-chain/sourcing, etc. 

Where to look for blog ideas

Now that you know what you're looking for, here are five places you're likely to find great ideas - but don't limit yourself! You might find the best new content ideas on a Zoom call with a client, in a Slack comment from a coworker, or in the carpool lane at school. To start though, set aside some time to browse:

• Your customer service emails

• Your customer reviews

• Your competitors' reviews

• Google Search Console (Set this up if you haven't already!)

• Trend-monitoring sites like Google Trends

• Your best-performing pages, emails, and posts to date

• A calendar of upcoming minor holidays

*Note: I did not say look at your competitors' content. Partly because I don't think I have to tell you, I bet you're already aware that they just published a super cool infographic, or a new video series. Probably they have more time and resources, right? Admiring their content won't get you anywhere good. So it's usually best to ignore it. Doing your own research will yield plenty of great ideas. 

Store 'em all! Don't let your blog ideas slip away

Keep all your new-found ideas in a big list. Ideally, it'll be a spreadsheet, and you'll tag each idea into a few big buckets. Suggested tags are:

• Product Education

• Problem Solvin

• Trends

• Lifestyle

You might also want a column for notes, where you can record where/how/when you thought of this idea, and why you think you're community will like it. You'd think this is unnecessary, but you'll be surprised how much you forget when you revisit the list in a year. Finally, add a column to record if you've used this idea and add the date there. 

Voila. Now you have a full library of content ideas to draw from.

Before you start writing any content for your business...

Content marketing can quickly suck up huge amounts of time and effort, and before you know it you can have blog posts, articles, landing pages, and lead magnets galore... floating around with little to no traction. 

In fact, unorganized content can confuse and overwhelm your site visitors, making it less likely they'll purchase. 

Don't let a lack of focus defeat all your efforts. Here are three key guidelines that'll save you from creating excess content that never gets seen: 

1. Intentionally match your content to the stages of awareness

There are five main stages of awareness that usually track from the top of your marketing funnel, to the bottom, were people actually get to checkout. 

Unaware: this is when we're completely unaware that your product category exists. For example, if you're selling vegan pesto sauce mixes, the unaware person might be a vegan who's just given up on ever enjoying pesto again. 

Problem aware: this is the stage when we realize we have a problem we might want to solve or a desire we might want to fulfill. Here's when we start thinking "you know, I really miss pesto pasta dishes." 

Solution aware: this is when you know solutions are out there, but you don't know what your exact options are yet. If you've just moved from Florida to Vermont, you know there are things you can get to clear your driveway of snow, but you're not really familiar with the different kinds of shovels, plows, and snow blowers yet. As a pesto-missing vegan, this is the stage when we realize there are vegan substitutes for parmesan - vegan pesto must be a possibility!

Product aware: this is when you're aware of a specific category. So, you know you can get a walk-behind snow blower for your driveway. Or a vegan pesto mix. Hurrah, we're getting closer to a place where we can purchase with confidence!

Most aware: this is where I know the features I most want in a snow blower, and where I know what you pesto ingredient list and price points are. This is where it's time to make a decision to purchase.

Along this path, different types of content will be more helpful than others. Articles on vegan Italian cooking will fit an unaware or problem aware reader, while an email advertising a bulk-order discount on pesto sauce will fit a most aware reader. 

As you put together your content, make sure you've got content for each stage of awareness. 

2.  Make sure your blog posts gets seen

This is one of the biggest missed opportunities in content marketing, and really all startup marketing. You put a lot of time and effort into creating lots of great content, only to have it languish on your site, completely ignored. 

Traffic does not magically appear. 

Sure, there are stories of blogs taking off and videos going viral, but you shouldn't be counting on that. 

​​​​​​​This is where your paid acquisition strategy comes into play. Usually, the quickest way to get eyes on your content is with paid ads. Be sure you're measuring how they perform though, because ads can also become a money pit very quickly. 

A robust organic social media strategy can also be effective here. As can persistent PR efforts. 

3. More content is not always better

Since your content needs readers, and readers can be hard to come by, creating a mass amount of blog posts and Pinterest infographics may not get you far. 

But this news should come as a relief, because now you don't have to publish fresh content every day, or even every week necessarily.

Instead, start by focusing on a few key articles that are SEO-optimized and geared toward moving your readers through the stages of awareness toward purchase.