Making it easy for Google and other search engines to find your website and standing out from all of the clutter requires more than a compelling design or fully-fledged features. With more and more businesses providing their products and services on the full-blown e-commerce websites and apps, there’s a pressing need to drive traffic to their online store and increase the conversion rate for the success of your business. As you grapple between adopting your potential customers’ evolving media consumption habits and cultivating brand value and leads, you’ve likely heard the catchphrase “Content is King” or of content marketing - may be in an article, blog, or perhaps your marketer has suggested it to you.

Content Marketing…What is it, exactly?

Content marketing, a critical part of a productive, successful marketing strategy, is the process of creating creative, informative, and compelling content and then sharing it passively to attract the targeted audience with the intent of converting that traffic to potential leads and eventually into paying customers. Every article, landing page, infographic, tutorial video, product description, and even every tweet or Facebook post are examples of content.

According to Ian Lurie, an internet marketer, content is not ‘stuff we write to rank higher’ or ‘infographics’ or ‘long-term articles.’ Content is anything that communicates a message to the audience. Anything.

Okay, But Why this Buzzword is Important for my Business, Anyways?

“Content is the reason search began in the first place,” says Lee Odden, CEO of Toprank Marketing agency. It’s no secret that even before the PPC and paid ads rolled up in the world of digital marketing, content was the composition used to drive traffic, generate brand equity, and boost conversions by leaps and bounds. Ironically, after the invention of modern technology and digital marketing techniques, content is still taking centre stage and has become more vital than ever rather than fading away.

5 Reasons to Get Started with E-Commerce Content Marketing ASAP

1. Target Audience & increase site traffic

More and more e-commerce businesses now have started to understand the value of content marketing to improve every aspect of their brand. The beauty of content is that it allows you to reach potential markets as well as customers around the world. Creating compelling, interactive content in alignment with the interests and values of your target audience will drive them to your site. With quality, keyword-optimized content and blogs, you create a clear pathway for organic traffic searching for that particular keywords to reach your business.

2. Generate new leads

Compared to outbound marketing, content marketing costs 62 percent less and is commendably proven to generate leads by almost three times. Today’s consumers only interact with the brand that offers appealing and valuable content to solve their problems and accomplish tasks. As a matter of fact, 81 percent of buyers conduct online research before making a purchase, while 60 percent of customers seek out a brand and its services after reading about it. E-commerce brands that create content in various formats including articles, blogs, taglines, product descriptions produce the most highly qualified leads. Nurturing those crude leads allows you to turn them into sales qualified leads and also boost each stage of the funnel.

3. Build trust and brand reputation

Overwhelmingly, content marketing is the most effective brand-building activity. In the digital world, great content is the fuel that helps you drive site visits, establish brand value, and build trust with your leads and existing customers. When you provide your consumers with the required information they need to make a smart, educated purchase decision, they start to trust your brand and develop a constructive opinion of your store. The process of building brand reputation depends upon customers’ confidence in your brand, and quality content can help you achieve that.

Since the customers communicate with content directly, it becomes easier to build trust with your target market and audience by offering valuable and engaging content. Content like purchasing guides, blogs, and product reviews helps you establish yourself as a leader and authority in the market and generate repeat visits frequently.

4. Improve SEO efforts

Whether you put a PCC campaign or a display ad campaign into place, neither of those will boost your traffic by ten times and give your store a 6x lift in conversion rate without content marketing.

Let’s say you have an e-commerce website with captivating design, mobile-ready version, ultimate hosting, and proactive security, but no content. So, how can you optimize the site for long-term results? Well, you can’t! A website without quality content is like a car with no fuel; it’s just there but you can’t acquire any substantial yield.

Publishing textual content on topics and keywords people are more prone to search will boost your SEO effort significantly and also rank your website higher on search engines. A proper keyword planning enables you to cast your net wider to generate organic traffic, procure more potential customers, and let browsers find you easily. However, it doesn’t mean you should cram your content with keywords as it can cause an adverse effect on your rankings and brand reputation.

5. Influence conversion rate

Marketers are using content marketing as a viable lead generation technique and conversion channel for their e-commerce brands.  An effective content marketing motivates your audience to nurture deeper engagement with your brand and build confidence in you, which result in more conversions. Below are some stats that speak volume about the importance of content marketing for your e-commerce business:

• Content can increase your conversion rates as about six times higher than any other digital marketing strategy.
• 62 percent of online users are more likely to purchase a product or services upon reading about it in a blog.
• Over 90 percent of consumers find relevant and custom content useful when making an online purchasing decision.
• According to 72% of businesses, embedding authentic videos in their websites helped to achieve an outstanding ROI and increase conversion rate (from 6% to 12%).

Providing information about conversion elements like shipping options and product guarantee improves your conversion rate extensively. For e-commerce sites, content marketing can be extremely useful to guide and move users through the buying process successfully with relevant and accurate information at each stage. That enhances the shopping experience and comfort at different levels –not just during the transaction, but all at all touchpoints across the customer journey.