Blogging is a great way to boost products, particularly for niche products where users all share a common interest.
For instance, if you sell works, spatulas or special ingredients, an Asian cooking blog could really put some spice into your sales. Blogs for drinkers of gourmet tea, for cat owners, model-makers, crafters – you can surely think of a blog that could get potential buyers reading regularly. And every time they read, they’ll see your brand and your products.
To make the effect even stronger, try to build a community around your blog. Be present on forums, answer questions on Quora, or even start your own Facebook group or Instagram feed. Link them all back to the blog (software tools like Hootsuite or Loomly can really help with this job).
Get to know your readers. A good way to do this is ask a question at the end of each blog post. “What’s the best restaurant meal you ever had?” “What was the most difficult room of your house to renovate?” “What vegetable dish can you never seem to get right?”
Get a feel for where they live and what their lives are like. Find out what problems they have that you could solve. You might even invite them to mail in questions for the blog, or posts they would like to see. For instance, you might find a common question runs along the lines of ‘My Pad Thai never comes out right, the noodles are always too soggy’. That’s certainly a blog post; there might even be a new product suggestion right there!
When you’re writing a blog, provide content that’s specific and actionable. AI programs and bad copywriters can deliver “Here are ten kinds of cake you can bake”.
What they can’t deliver is something as specific “The ten worst cakes I ever baked… and the lessons I learned,” or a review of ten different kinds of sprinkles for cupcakes with your score for each of them. Or something as actionable as “Learning the all-important wrist flick for stir frying in a traditional wok.”
Do keyword research to focus yourself. But don’t think about search engine optimization when you’re writing. Focus on providing that specific and actionable content. That’s what will keep your readers on the page, and get them sharing your blog with their friends.
Look at the related questions people ask in Google. If I enter “How to cook pad thai” or “How to cook Thai food” all of these questions pop up;
• How do I cook pad thai without the noodles sticking?
• What Thai food is good for beginners?
• What are the six cooking methods of Thai cuisine?
• What do you need to cook Thai food?
You can then look those questions up in turn, and you’ll know what your readers really want to know about how to cook. Each of those questions can be a follow-up blog post.
Make sure your articles link internally. For instance, if you have a “favorite spices” page, link each spice to a recipe in which it’s the star flavor.
Internal linking really helps you with search machines, but it also lets people see the depth of content on your blog, and they’ll quite likely fall down the rabbit-hole of reading another blog post, and then another one…
Once you’ve attracted your readers, ask them to sign up to an email list. Tell them how often they’ll get news from you, and maybe give them a small present for doing so (a coupon, or an entry in a competition). Amazon doesn’t let you get and keep customer data – but now you’ll be able to collect emails and let people know when you have new product or a special offer that could interest them.
And don’t forget, writing your blog is only half the job. You also need to promote it wherever you can; on social media, in your email signature, through other bloggers, through your email list, on your printed packaging.
