Content marketing is an essential tool for ecommerce businesses. Content marketing builds brand awareness, attracts visitors, and converts them into loyal customers. With the right strategy, ecommerce brands can leverage content to create meaningful customer experiences, improve search engine visibility, and ultimately drive sales.
I have created a content marketing guide to explore effective content marketing strategies tailored for ecommerce businesses in 2024, covering key tactics, types of content to create, and best practices for success.
What is Content Marketing for Ecommerce?
SourceContent marketing for ecommerce differs somewhat from content marketing for general business, in that the focus lies on creating valuable, relevant content in order to drive engagement and conversion rates. In ecommerce, content marketing is the sole workhorse to bring in potential customers, as no brick and mortar exists to draw customers in. As such, organic traffic is essential, and valuable content is a must to drive that traffic.
There are specific goals most content marketing professionals have in mind when developing content for ecommerce businesses. These include:
- Driving traffic. Traffic is important for ecommerce businesses, because it is the primary way you are discovered. Blog posts, social media posts, and other pieces of content can all be used to bring in traffic.
- Increasing conversions. Conversions are the next step after driving traffic; you bring in your target audience, and then complete the sale. Content can help drive that sale.
- Building customer loyalty. Finally, continued content can help build customer loyalty by providing valuable information for existing customers.
From user-generated content, to blog posts, to social media marketing, high-quality content is a significant driver of conversions and continued loyalty.
Core Benefits of Content Marketing for Ecommerce
The core benefits of ecommerce content marketing efforts include enhanced brand awareness, improved visibility and search engine optimization, and improved customer retention.
- Enhanced Brand Awareness: Content can help build a recognizable brand by developing a series of branded posts and providing valuable information to keep your audience coming back.
- Improved SEO and Visibility: Content marketing has the ability to contribute to higher search rankings and is tied to greater organic traffic, bringing in more potential buyers.
- Better Customer Retention: Retaining customers requires different types of content to keep them connected to the brand. Relevant content will help maintain customer retention.
Effective Content Types for Ecommerce
SourceAlthough reaching your target audience is the ultimate goal, there are specific content types that are known to bring more bang for your buck in your content marketing efforts. These include:
Product Pages and Descriptions
Your product descriptions may not seem to be a significant part of your content strategy, but they can help bring customers in, and can help your customer base trust your brand. As you develop your product pages and descriptions, keep an eye on search engine optimization by using important keywords and key phrases, and make your product descriptions pop.
E-commerce content marketing relies on information involving your products, so make each page as informative and compelling as possible. This will help with driving organic traffic and building trust with customers.
Blog Content
Educational and informational blog posts are also important parts of your overall content strategy, as they are able to capture search traffic and engage your readers well. Of all the content formats, blog posts are the most likely to offer long-form information, and can go into greater depth to develop thought-provoking insights, how-tos, and more.
User-Generated Content (UGC)
Social media platforms are the preferred place for user-generated content, or UGC. This can be developed or encouraged in a number of ways. On social media platforms, brands can request UGC by encouraging audience participation and developing branded hashtags. Offering mentions on social media can also encourage UGC.
UGC can also be encouraged by suggesting that customers write reviews. Those reviews can then be used on social platforms and websites as user-generated content that builds engagement and increases social proof.
Further Reading: 17 UGC Marketing Strategies to Generate More Sales in 2025
Video Content
Video content can be a great support along the customer journey. Video content is frequently used by business owners to produce product demos, tutorials, and even reviews. All of these, in turn, can improve a customer’s experience with your brand, by increasing confidence in a product and a brand overall.
Further Reading: What Exactly is Video Content Marketing? Here’s Why It’s Important
Email Newsletters
Creating an email newsletter for your email list can help nurture customer relationships and encourage repeat purchases by keeping your brand or products top of mind. Newsletters can be used to announce new products and collaborations, release company or industry news, and offer suggestions for product or service use.
Building an Ecommerce Content Marketing Strategy
SourceContent creation for ecommerce businesses is developed to encourage organic search results. Building ecommerce content marketing campaigns requires a solid strategy to produce a steady stream of informative content, support customer engagement, and bring in prospective customers.
To build your strategy, begin with the following:
Define Your Audience
Defining your audience will help your search engine rankings, because you will be able to more effectively cater to your customer demographics. When you define your audience, you can identify prospective customer pain points, determine preferences, and effectively tailor your keywords toward those preferences.
Content Planning and Calendar
Creating compelling content can be difficult without a dedicated content calendar and a set plan in place. As you begin planning your calendar, you can choose specific days for certain types of content (i.e. educational content on Mondays, UGC on Thursdays, and behind-the-scenes on Fridays). As you continue to develop your strategy, these days can change, and you can rework your calendar as your metrics suggest.
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Ultimately, when working on developing your publishing schedule, opt for quality over quantity, and consistency over rapid bursts of content. If you can only publish once per week to start, begin your visual content calendar with one post! As you try different days, times, and formats, you can refine your strategy.
Further Reading: The 18 Elements of Successful Content Planning
Distribution Channels
Although online stores frequently focus on social media and email, your website as a whole is important as well. Your social media can help reach out to new customers and keep existing audiences aware, email marketing can help keep your audience in the loop regarding upcoming sales, new products, and more, and your website itself can help piggyback on both via product pages and blog posts.
SEO Best Practices for Ecommerce Content
SourceCreating a successful content marketing strategy does require a close eye on SEO best practices–SEO practices geared specifically for ecommerce content. Implementing SEO best practices for your ecommerce content marketing goals includes the steps I have outlined below.
Conducting Keyword Research
As you conduct your keyword research, keep a close eye on common pain points, frequently asked questions, and keywords relevant to your products. Producing content that utilizes these keywords and key phrases can help increase your click-through rates and improve your overall SEO performance.
Keyword research tools can be a great way to determine your content goals and identify relevant keywords. Tools like Ahrefs and Semrush can help determine the most likely keywords to fit your content marketing goals.
Developing On-Page Optimization
Optimization for your site overall is important, but on-page optimization is important, too. Keyword placement can impede or improve your search engine rankings; when you place keywords in your titles, headings, and even in your tags, you increase your visibility to search engines.
Metadata can also be used to improve reach for e-commerce sites. By tailoring your SEO title, your meta description, and your keywords to accommodate common words and phrases in your niche, you will see an improvement in your SEO performance and a greater return on investment in any tools you have purchased and time you have put into chasing your content goals.
Finally, make sure that you link internally. By linking to different pages on your site, you help Google and other search engines identify, comprehend, and index all of the pages on your site. When search engines more fully understand and recognize your pages, your SEO scores soar.
Further Reading: 7 Best Content Optimization Strategies for 2025
Focusing on Image and Video SEO
Images may not initially seem to be a great spot for SEO improvements, but your image and video SEO can actually have a significant impact on website performance. Make sure that all images and videos are tagged with appropriate keywords to further support search rankings.
Targeting Mobile Optimization
Mobile-friendly content is essential for ecommerce. Brick-and-mortar stores and desktop or laptop browsing certainly still exist, but increasingly often, purchases are happening on mobile devices. If your ecommerce site is not optimized for mobile, you may not show up as readily in searches, ultimately hurting your e-commerce performance.
Creating High-Impact Product Descriptions
Now that you have your channels and websites put together and developed well, let’s move on to creating high-impact product descriptions. The content creation process is not all social media and emails; make sure you put time and effort into developing your product descriptions and website copy, as well.
- Crafting Persuasive Copy: Your product descriptions should highlight the features and benefits of your products, while telling a compelling story. As you write your descriptions, emphasize how products improve quality of life and bring value.
- SEO Integration: Keyword stuffing may initially seem to be a worthwhile strategy, but it can actually harm SEO rankings. Instead, include keywords in a natural rhythm as you write to improve visibility without sacrificing the readability of your copy.
Social Media and Content Marketing for Ecommerce
Social channels are another important content hub to consider. Not all platforms will work well for your business, and not all content types will be ideal for your success. Instead, be selective in which platforms you develop content for, and what kinds of content you share.
- Choose Strategic Platforms: Different platforms perform best with different products, so conduct some research to determine where your niche often thrives. Consider YouTube for Tech, LinkedIn for B2B sales, Instagram for Health and Wellness, etc.
- Content Types for Social Media: Product posts, user-generated content, and posts encouraging engagement are all ideal for ecommerce, as they all drive interaction. Focus on these types to make the most of your content calendar and bring in your ideal customers.
Measuring the Success of Your Ecommerce Content Strategy
SourceNow that you have learned how to develop engaging content, how to successfully leverage keywords, and how to support the SEO for your site and socials, it is time to measure your success and pivot as needed. Tracking your metrics will help you keep your finger on the pulse of your strategy, and can help identify any areas that need a little bit of extra help. To measure your success, look at…?
Traffic Metrics
Metrics that hone in on your page views, bounce rate, and traffic sources can all help you identify where your campaigns are succeeding, and where they may need extra support. These key metrics will offer great insight into where your audience is thriving, and where you may need to focus extra attention.
Page views show how many people are looking at your page in a given time frame. This can help determine the times of day your site, emails, and more are most popular, or most likely to be clicked on.
Bounce rates show how many visitors are leaving your site after only viewing one page. A high bounce rate could indicate the need for more compelling language, more internal links, or even more compelling imagery. A low bounce rate suggests success in these areas.
Traffic sources are great to take a look at, because they help illustrate where your audience is primarily coming in. Traffic sources can help identify where your focus should lie, or can help you determine where you may need to improve your strategy.
Further Reading: 30 Most Important Ecommerce KPIs to Track for Growth: Essential Metrics for Success
Conversion Metrics
Conversion metrics are also important to measure, because they demonstrate where you are actually making your sales. Tracking conversions and the purchases that can be attributed to content is important, because it helps your e-commerce business identify the pieces of content that are most likely to perform well in future campaigns.
Engagement Metrics
Engagement metrics can be evaluated on your social channels. Social shares, comments, and likes can all demonstrate how well your audience is engaging with your content, and how your audience perceives your products. Engagement metrics are a great way to evaluate your social proof and determine the future of your content creation across social platforms.
Conclusion
Content marketing is a powerful, essential strategy for ecommerce businesses. Through content marketing, ecommerce businesses can attract, engage, and ultimately convert new customers. Through crafting high-quality, relevant content designed to resonate with your target audience, you can successfully drive traffic to your site, boost sales, and eventually build brand loyalty.
With the tactics and best practices I have outlined above, you can begin building an effective ecommerce content marketing strategy to meet your business and sales goals. As you implement each strategy, monitor your results and adjust your approach to make sure you see long-term success in the highly competitive (and rewarding) ecommerce landscape.
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