How to increase traffic to your eCommerce store
Increasing traffic is important for every website.
However, you don’t want just any old traffic – you want the right traffic; users who are interested in your offerings, who want to keep in contact with you and who are ready to buy.
Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a quick-fix or magic button when it comes to attracting traffic. It’s something you need to work at over time and from multiple angles.
And while it might take a bit of energy and hard work, the results far outweigh sitting back and waiting for customers to (hopefully) find you on their own.
If you’re up for the task, let’s take a look at 5 of the most tried and tested strategies to increasing traffic for ecommerce stores.
Build your databases (and utilise them)
Lists and databases are one of the simplest and most effective ways to increase traffic to your online store. Regardless of whether they’ve purchased from you or not, people in your lists are interested in your brand. They’ve told you this by opting in to receive communications from you.
Contact lists don’t just necessarily refer to your email contacts, either. These days, brands are forming lists on things like Facebook Messenger to keep the conversation open on platforms that matter most to their audience.
Having these lists not only keeps these prospects engaged, but it also helps you to nurture them through your sales funnel.
To help build your databases, try implementing some of the following lead generating tactics:
- Include a form or pop up on your home page. These should include special offers like a discount or free shipping and request an email address to receive the deal.
- Offer referral incentives to current subscribers for referring a friend
- Offer ‘bonus’ content (like a video or how-to guide) relevant to your industry that users need to enter their details to access
- Promote chatbot subscriptions on Facebook by running a competition or encouraging users to ask questions
- Create a blog subscription
Create content for your website
Boosting your content marketing strategy was one of the most important marketing trends to come out of 2019. It’s also a really effective way to achieve better SEO, establish your authority in your industry and keep users coming back to your online shop.
When creating a blog series, it’s important to think about what your users want to know about – not what you as a business want them to know.
What is interesting or relevant to them, yet still in some way linked to your product offerings? How could you answer a question your customers have about your product while still providing value?
For instance, if you sell work out gear, you could write a blog post about staying healthy with the right food or offer the best short workouts using equipment they can purchase from you.
Not only will people looking for this type of content be more likely to find you in search engines, but you’ll also be able to share it across your social media accounts and drive your social followers back to your web store.
Guest blogging is another really cool way to keep your blogs interesting. Essentially, a guest post is written by an authority figure within your industry (such as an influencer) and posted to your website.
Promoting a blog written by a figure your audience follows is a great way to boost organic traffic to your ecommerce website and encourage users to form a deeper connection with your brand.
Try influencer marketing
Influencer marketing essentially means collaborating with people who influence your audience.
Beyond blogging, influencer marketing can be really effective for increasing traffic to your store. Your users see a person they look up to promoting your brand and take it as a personal recommendation about your products.
So, how do you define which influencer would be most appropriate for your brand? Research.
One way to do this is to conduct some market research to see who your audience believes to be most influential to them.
Another option is to create a list of keywords related to your products and search online for popular bloggers and related brands you could collaborate with.
If you’re taking the social media approach, search hashtags and social media accounts related to your products.
When searching for influencers, keep in mind that accounts with the largest following won’t always have the most engaged audience. If you’re not sure, have a look at their likes and comments to see who interacts with their audience the most.
Offer referral incentives
Another way you can increase traffic is to utilise social proof and the word of your existing customers.
People trust the recommendations of their friends and family above all else, so it makes sense to reward your customers for promoting your brand to others.
When developing a referral program, it’s important to offer an incentive your customers are likely to value. For instance, offering a $10 discount is unlikely to encourage action if you’re selling luxury bedspreads for $500.
In short, make sure your incentive is relative to a) your product offerings and b) to the amount of effort you’re asking of your customers.
Run a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising campaign
Did you know that, on average, a quarter of all online traffic for online retailers comes from Google Ads?
Organic traffic through SEO and paid advertising like PPC are two really important strategies for increasing traffic to your website. However, unless you know what you’re doing, both of these things can be really hard to master.
If you’re serious about driving ready-to-buy customers back to your site, consider onboarding a digital marketing specialist who can help you audit and improve your SEO, set up your ad campaigns and track your performance through Google Analytics.
Beyond traffic
It’s all well and good to attract traffic to your site, but this will mean next to nothing if you don’t provide them with a good experience while they’re there.
Click here to learn more about providing a seamless checkout experience to your customers.
