The best way to maximize your Shopify blog to increase visibility

A Shopify store recently asked:

Does adding a blog to my web site help with SEO? But what is the best way to maximize the blog to increase my visibility in searches?

Even though the heyday of blogging has passed, adding a blog to your Shopify store can improve your SEO traffic.

The core components of a blog are: regularly published articles and ways to browse by time. Commonly, we'll have a list of articles with the newest at the top and oldest at the bottom, paginating as needed (e.g. 1st 10 on page 1, 2nd 10 on page 2).

Blogs help your SEO because:

1. Search engines want content and blog articles are a standard form of content
2. The chronological listing makes it possible for every blog article to be found
3. As new articles are published, the list is updated (e.g. sitemaps) so search engines can easily find those new articles

There's also secondary technology and features that can boost those three. From tagging, RSS/ATOM feeds, to pingbacks, most of those are designed to help discovery. Some technology has fallen out of favor, like how pingbacks tend to attract spam, but the core purpose remains.

You could use regular webpages to accomplish this without using specialized blog system or structure, but you'd have to create and design ways to gain these benefits. It wouldn't be hard, but why do it when Shopify comes with a blogging component already?

The best way to maximize your SEO success with blogging is to create great content.

Just like with product descriptions.

Just like with homepages.

The best way to maximize your SEO success with blogging is to create great content.

If you're someone who doesn't like to write, start writing and eventually it will feel more natural. Some of my early writing is hard to look at, but we all start somewhere. 

One interesting thing about blogging content is that it's a lot lower risk. There's something about creating a blog post that almost allows people to let their hair down and become more casual in their writing. This tends to avoid the corporate-speak that holds back and neuters most other content. With blogging, people tend to use more humor, go on tangents, and just have more fun in the writing. That makes it more fun for the readers too.

There's nothing inherently different about blogs. Even heavy copywriting content can be written casually, it's just people give themselves more permission in a blog I guess.

It should be apparent now that any and all content advice can apply to blogs. Use a variety of mediums, write for scalability, write to inform or persuade, etc.

Just make sure you write regularly. If you forgot to write for awhile, a blog tends to look abandoned to people (search engines don't care). Start with writing once per month or even once per quarter. Any broadcast newsletter you publish could be turned into a blog with a bit of work.

If you don't want to use blogs for your SEO, you don't need to. Just find another way to create and publish content to attract people to your site.