If you have a storefront to sell you products, do you also need a website? Yes, if you want to increase your chances of people actually finding your online store … and if you want to stand out from others in your field … and if you want to be viewed as a welcoming “expert” to potential customers.

A recent article describes the options available for storefronts, including ecommerce sites, Amazon, eBay sales or even a WordPress platform just for selling products. While these may seem like a simple solution to selling products online, success comes when the storefront is part of an overall content creation strategy – including optimizing on keywords, using blogs to identify yourself as the expert and offering buyers an answer to their questions with a well-written website.

Offering just a storefront and not a website also robs your business the opportunity to create a powerful, lasting customer experience across multiple channels. Your website is the friendly face, the greeter, the helpful “staff” member that conveys key information about your products and your brand to your audience.

Through keywords in the website text, your SEO rank dramatically increases. Through opportunities to sign up for enews updates, to read news articles and view exciting images and video clips, you set the stage for visitors to take action (which would be the next step, shopping at your storefront).

Launching a website to complement and open the doors to your storefront also allows for the critical function of blogs and backlinking. Blogs feed strategic traffic to your website and build the trust factor toward you instead of others in your industry. Backlinking allows you to place your website address within the conversation of industry leaders and hot forums, further solidifying your competitive edge.

A well-written website, keyword optimization, blogs and social media work together in your favor to add serious value and higher interest in your storefront. Remember, there’s more to an effective website than just writing the words you want your audience to read – an effective strategy is a must if you want to drive measurable results.