A blog doesn't have to be a blog

You might think blogs are so 2010 but they and their content have powered most of what you see online. There's a key point though:

They aren't called blogs that much anymore.

A blog is just a collection of web content organized by date (it was a shorted version of web log). They've since evolved and the format is pretty much 80% of social media, just with extra social features tacked on.

It's the term blog that's gone out of favor, not the actual purpose.

Shopify uses blog terms inside its platform but that doesn't mean you have to. Other than what's in the url, you can call yours whatever you want.

Sell more B2B? Call yours whitepapers or case studies.

More of a social media maven? Call your blog your timeline or feed.

Want more of an expert angle? Call them your article collection or publications.

You see in Shopify, blogs are just containers of content. They have a featured image, title, content, belong to a category, have a feed, and are schedulable. Beyond that, much of the rest can be changed and adapted to what you want.

Blogs, and their content, are key if you want content marketing or SEO to work with Shopify.

Without content outside of your products, your going to struggle to build any real authority. People don't like linking to products outside of a recommendation or endorsement. Blog posts though, they get shared and sent around because they feel informative and not a sales pitch.

To make your blog not a blog, figure out what you want to call things. You have the actual blog post itself and the category it lives in (a container of blog posts). If you only want one category you can just leave it or name it after the plural of your posts (e.g. Whitepapers, Articles).

Then all you need is to link to your blog. Commonly you'd have a top menu link to the main page, though a link in your footer can work too. If content is going to be important for you, adding a block showing the last few posts to your homepage can help drive traffic.

That's it. That's all you need to get setup "not blog blogging".

As a note of caution. You can call your blog whatever you want but if you change the URL, it could impact your SEO. Not that you can't change your URL, just be aware of it's impact and maybe don't do it right before your busy season.

Now go create your content.