Blogs are one of the important traffic sources for independent sites. By creating a blog, independent site sellers can not only divert traffic to their websites and promote their products but also build trust with potential customers to shape and strengthen brand images by establishing communities around products and brands.

You can add a blog to your online store and then post them to keep customers informed of your businesses or products. Blog posts divert traffic to your site in the following ways:

Improving the search engine optimization (SEO) for your store
Allowing you to tell stories that can turn visitors into customers
Increasing customer engagement

Adding Posts to the Blog

You can create different series of blogs about your products, brands, product usage, news, and more.

Blog category groups the same series of blog posts, which is not only beneficial for you to manage your blog posts but also easy for customers to quickly search for or subscribe to their favorite blog posts in the same series.

Steps:

From your SHOPLINE admin panel, click Online Store > Blog.
Click Create a blog.
Enter the title of your blog post. You must enter a title to save the post.
Enter the content of your blog post, including the summary and main body. This field uses a rich text editor and allows you to set the format for your content. You can also include images, videos, or other media, or insert links to enrich your post.
Select the author and category of the blog post:
- Author: From the drop-down menu, select the name of the author. The drop-down menu contains the names of the store owner and employees only.
- Included in a blog category: Select the name of the blog category that the post to be published belongs to. If you do not want to publish the post to an existing blog, you can create a new blog category from the drop-down menu.
(Optional) You can display images on the blog category page. In Cover image, click Add Image, and select the image to be uploaded.
(Optional) You can include a summary in your blog post on the Blog page.
(Optional) You can add a tag to your blog post for easy sorting by category or theme. This way, customers can search for other blog posts in the same category by clicking the tag. When customers search for a tag in your online store, the matched blog posts will be displayed in the results. Tags are separated by comma in the Tag field. One tag contains up to 255 characters, and there are more than 1,000 blog tags available.
(Optional) If you have created custom templates for your blog posts, you can select one. From the Theme template drop-down menu, select the template to be applied to your post.
(Optional) In Search engine optimization, click Edit. On the displayed window, set the parameters of the search engine list of the blog post.
In Theme template, the Default template option is selected by default. You can select your custom templates.
Blog posts are hidden by fault, and will not display in your online store. If you are ready to publish the post, select Publish or click Schedule to set a specific publish date in the Publish a blog area in the upper right corner. You can edit or delete published blog posts at any time.
Click Add.

Editing Blog Posts

You may wish to edit an existing blog post to change its content, publish date, author, or other details.

From your SHOPLINE admin panel, click Online Store > Blog.
Click the title of the post you want to edit.
Change the content and settings of the post.
Click Save.

Hiding Blog Posts

From your SHOPLINE admin panel, click Online Store > Blog.
Click the blog post you want to hide.
From the Publish a blog area in the upper right corner, select Hide.
Click Add.

Deleting Blog Posts

From your SHOPLINE admin panel, click Online Store > Blog.
Click the blog post you want to delete.
On the page showing the details of the blog post, click Delete the blog.
In the Confirm delete dialog box, click Complete.

Adding Images to Blog Posts

Adding images makes blog posts more attractive. You can upload new images to your posts. The optimal image format is .JPEG.

From your SHOPLINE admin panel, click Online Store > Blog.
Create a new blog post or select an existing blog post.
In the Main body area, click the Image icon.
Click Upload > Browse For An Image, and upload a new image to the blog edit page.
Click Save.

Showing the Blog Post Summary

You can display the summary of the blog post on the Blog page. Based on your template, you can include an image, text format, and URL in the summary. If you do not add the summary, some content of the blog post will be displayed, without any image, format, or URL.

From your SHOPLINE admin panel, click Online Store > Blog.
Create a new blog post or select an existing blog post.
In Summary, the rich text editor allows you to add what you want to display on your Blog page as a summary. The full summary will be displayed on the Blog page, with Read More below. You can click it to read the full blog.
Click Add.

Adding Tags to Blog Posts

You can use tags to sort blog posts by category or theme. For example, you can create a "summer" category by adding a tag to all the posts related to summer. In this way, customers can search for other blog posts in the same category by clicking the tag. When customers search for a tag in your online store, the matched blog posts will be displayed in the results.

From your SHOPLINE admin panel, go to Online Store > Blog.
Create a new blog post or select an existing blog post.
In the Tag field, enter the tag you want to create. You can also click Manage to search for and select created tags.
Click Add.

Editing the Search Engine List of Blog Posts

You can edit the text to be displayed in the search engine results of the blog post. Informative titles and descriptions are helpful for new customers to find your online store and attract them to click URLs.

You can preview and modify the search engine list of the blog post, making it easier for new customers to find your online store.

From your SHOPLINE admin panel, go to Online Store > Blog.
Create a new blog post or select an existing blog post.
In Search engine optimization, click Edit.
In Page Title, enter a descriptive title. The title is displayed in the form of a URL in the search engine results. You can enter up to 70 characters.
In Meta description, enter a description of the search engine list. Please include related keywords to help new customers find your URL, and be sure to include your business name. You can enter up to 320 characters.
In URL, you can edit your site URL. In most cases, you do not need to change the URL. To change the URL, please be sure to set the URL redirection from your old site URL. The URL must not contain any space.
Click Add.

How to Invite Customers to Subscribe to Your Blog?

What is an RSS feed?

RSS feed is a format used to describe and synchronize site content. It is also the most widely used XML application, which can make it easier for customers to access your latest blog posts, online magazines, and other content, ensuring that customers can check your blog posts in time.

SHOPLINE will automatically generate an RSS feed for each blog category you create. Customers who like one of your blog posts can subscribe to all the blog posts of the same blog category (a collection of blog posts in the same category) using the RSS feed. In this way, customers will be notified timely of any updates in this blog category and view them quickly.

How to Attract Customers to Subscribe to Your Blog Category Through an RSS Feed?

Customers can subscribe to a blog category by copying the blog category URL with .atom into their browsers. For example, if the blog category URL of a certain blog is https://xxx.myshopline.com/blogs/ BlogCategoryName, customers can subscribe to this blog category just by copying https://xxx.myshopline.com/blogs/ BlogCategoryName.atom into their browsers.

The recommended procedures are as follows:

View the URL of the blog category.
Add the RSS feed URL to the blog content.

To attract customers to subscribe to all the blog posts of the same news category in a blog, you can include the RSS feed URL in the main body of the blog, for example, Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed using http://xxx.myshopline.com/blogs/news.atom.

Save and publish this blog.

Recommended Practices

Developing a Content Strategy

Content strategies are critical for obtaining long-tail keyword traffic for a long period. A content strategy covers topic selection, publishing frequency, and audience targeting. Usually, topic selection depends on the industry in which your site is located and the products you sell. For higher efficiency and more valuable reference of topic selection, you can use tools such as Ahrefs and Semrush for industrial investigations of existing contents and decision-making of industry trends.

Continuously Delivering High-Quality Blog Content

The essence of traffic is value. For higher visibility, your blog content must be realistically valuable to potential audiences. Furthermore, your blog posts must be associated with what you sell on your site, to form a good link between your blog content and product pages. If you are in trouble with continuously delivering high-quality blog content due to reasons such as limited writing skills or content resources, you can use AI or external (outsourced) writers to obtain the initial content and make the final decision upon quality control. You can install the “EasyRank” app in the APP Store, and use AI tools to generate blogs with one click. For details, refer to EasyRank SEO All-in-one.

Promoting Your Blog Content in All Channels

When you have done a great deal of preparation and invested a lot to generate a series of high-value blog content, the next step you need to do is to spread your blog content across all channels. Please promote your blog content across your social media, email marketing systems, and other channels that you have established to drive traffic to your site.

Monitoring Blog Traffic Acquisition Efficiency

After promoting your blog content across channels, you need to evaluate the performance of your blog content based on the page views and interactions (stay time, bounce rate, number of traffic pages, number of likes, number of comments, and number of forwarding sessions), and flexibly adjust the established content strategies. It is recommended that you use the Google Search Console for website content monitoring.

Creating a Blog

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