eCommerce Content Strategy Playbook to Land Jobs

A laptop with an image of a yellow couch for sale on an eCommerce website.

As a content specialist, it’s in your best interest to explore content strategy in trending industries. Two spaces are currently dominating hiring for content roles: B2B SaaS and eCommerce. It makes sense - people rely on software solutions to improve their jobs and shop online for convenience.

While content strategy is crucial to growth in B2B SaaS and eCommerce, the types of strategies you should employ are vastly different.

This article will explore the differences between each and how to build a robust eCommerce content strategy.

eCommerce vs. B2B SaaS Content Strategy

First, take a look at a typical B2B buying cycle. A buyer might go from a blog post, to a newsletter signup, to an email nurture, to browsing service pages, to a free trial, to direct sales conversations.

The end goal: a whopping purchase of a $10,000 - $1,000,000 solution. Producing 5+ touch points and leveraging several marketing channels was well worth the effort.

Example of a B2B SaaS buyer journey with 9 touch points

On the other hand, eCommerce marketing is direct. Consumers browse and compare products at their leisure with less pressure - they can always return what they don’t like. Plus, these products tend to be more affordable than business software.

Example of an eCommerce buyer journey with 4 touch points

Unlike multi-touchpoint B2B methods, eCommerce content strategies are expected to convert users quickly and frequently. Here’s how to build your eCommerce content strategy from the ground up.

How to build an eCommerce content strategy

An eCommerce content plan should focus on web pages and how they fall into the marketing funnel, SEO and keyword research, social media, and video.

Begin by zeroing in on a few products.

You might also like this resource to build annual SEO plans: eCommerce SEO roadmap

1. Prioritize products

Depending on how many products you sell, you may need to pick a few areas of focus. Use Google Analytics or your product data to find:

Top 1-3 revenue products
Top 1-3 product pages in terms of conversion rate

The reason conversion rate matters - if you’re able to drive more traffic to these pages through SEO (or marketing teams running ads), they have high revenue opportunity.

If the business strategy already determines focus products, you can ignore this step and follow the company plan.

2. Document and design compelling messaging

Your product messaging should include key differentiators and problems your product solves. What standard, powerful message do you want your target market to know about your offerings?

You can start by compiling these elements for each product of focus (which you can later use to enhance your content strategy).

Comparison grids (your product vs. competitors)
Product imagery
Persona pain points
Feature and benefit analysis

Bonus: work with design teams to create reusable graphics for each.

Remember how we mentioned eCommerce content requiring a direct sell? When you begin executing your content plans, make sure you are tying in these messaging themes to gently persuade.

3. Map the buyer journey to plan website content

Categorize your website pages (or future pages) by the buyer journey for each product. Remember - your strategy doesn’t need to focus on creating new content for each. You can also optimize and improve existing pages.

Let’s take a look at an example of a cavity prevention toothpaste brand.

Awareness / top-funnel: At this phase, the buyer searches informational terms that may explore a problem.

Keywords: “Do I have a cavity?”, “signs of cavities”, “cavity pain”
Content types: blog posts

Consideration / mid-funnel: At this phase, the buyer is exploring different types of solutions (not necessarily toothpaste)

Keywords: “foods that prevent cavities”, “mouthwash for cavities”, “toothpaste for cavities”
Content types: blog posts

Decision / low-funnel: At this phase, the buyer has chosen cavity prevention toothpaste and is comparing brands.

Keywords: “your brand vs. Colgate toothpaste”, “best toothpaste for cavities”, “cavity prevention toothpaste”
Content types: blog posts, campaign landing pages, product pages

Start at the bottom of the funnel (decision phase). These pages are the most likely to drive conversions with minimal followup marketing effort.

Only back your way through the funnel when you feel you’ve covered most of your low-funnel bases.

4. Quickly ideate video and social content

SEO pages and campaign landing pages are your most powerful content pieces for revenue. However, it’s worth taking a look at this method to quickly generate social media and video ideas as well. Full credit goes to Rachel Pedersen (a TikTok find)!

First, choose basic topics/subtopics related to your products. Continuing the toothpaste example, these could be “toothpaste,” “dental health,” or “cavity prevention.”
Next, type a topic into Google and look at the “people also ask” section. Expand each section to find additional questions.

3. Compile these questions to produce helpful social and video content

Repeat these steps for each product’s topic area for an effective social and video strategy.

How to optimize eCommerce content for SEO

Optimizing content for SEO includes reviewing competing pages in the SERPs, breaking content into logical sections, and writing quality in-depth content.

Take a look at my blog writing checklist from How to write content that ranks:

Incorporate basic keyword optimization
Offer a truly unique perspective
Cut out any fluff
Write at least 1000 words
Write extremely well-organized content
Submit new content to search console
Continue optimizing content as it starts to rank

When writing an eCommerce blog or resource, offering a unique perspective in your content is the perfect way to future-proof rankings with AI. That’s because Google would rather rank an industry expert’s opinion piece than an AI-written piece. AI tends to regurgitate basic information.

Plus, Google strives to serve a variety of useful information on page 1. Saying something different increases your odds of becoming part of the variety.

Another important step is to use statistics, facts, and quotes throughout your content to support points. Be sure to reference authoritative websites (bonus for .org, .gov, or .edu).

How to optimize eCommerce content for conversions

Paid campaigns and SEO techniques drive traffic to your pages. But that’s only useful if the pages are designed to facilitate purchases.

As a content specialist, you can employ a few techniques to improve conversions.

Incorporate your product messaging

First of all, even when writing top-funnel informational content, find a way to tie it back to your products by incorporating your messaging. Blog posts should mention your product as a solution every time you cover a pain point.

Product pages should include “who it’s for,” “problems we help solve,” and comparison grid sections to persuade.

Product imagery, whether it’s screenshots from a digital product or closeups of a tangible product, will also help you sell.

Encourage purchasing with call-outs

Secondly, use pop-ups, call-outs, and internal links to product pages. Provide readers with the option to purchase frequently to funnel them to buying areas of your website.