There are billions of websites on the internet. Unless you are eBay or Amazon, you are probably struggling to drive motivated shoppers to your ecommerce site.
Creating your website and social profiles is just the first step to increasing your visibility. What you do with these platforms will ultimately dictate how much traffic you are generating.
There is no quick and simple way to get traffic unless you pay money for it. And building up a consistent stream of visitors takes time and effort.
Here are 5 things that you can do to attract more traffic to your store in both the long and the short term.
Think How Many Visitors You Need Everyday
If you dive into any marketing strategy without a goal, it can be overwhelming and disorganized. So, first, you should set a goal of how many daily visitors you want to see on your site.
To decide on an attainable goal, let’s do some quick math.
Let’s say you are aiming to generate $100,000 in annual sales. Divide your total sales by the value of your average order, which we are, for example, $20.
The sum of that will tell you the number of annual orders you need to reach your sales goal. In this example, the number of sales you need is 5,000 (about 13 orders each day).
Let’s assume that you have a 2% conversion rate to attain 13 orders each day. That means you need about 650 daily visitors to reach 13 daily orders.
Now that you have a set goal in mind, you can shape your marketing strategy. Solid numbers like this can help narrow your efforts to reach measurable objectives.
Leverage Search Engine Optimization
One of the main sources of your traffic comes from search engines, regardless of how well-established your site is. So, your SEO strategy should be high-priority.
To get started with your SEO, you need to audit your site. Make sure you pick a tool that permits for competitor analysis and keyword tracking to maximize your optimization efforts.
A few popular tools that fit this description include Moz, WooRank, SEMRush, and aHrefs. Moz and WooRank offer a free trial to test the tool before you commit to paying, as well.
With a keyword tool, you will be able to see the volume and rank for each keyword you are targeting and how you are doing against your competition for that keyword.
Prepare Your Content for Your Audience
Try not to think since you are an ecommerce store you can slack on your content! Product images are great (and essential) — but adding product descriptions will add way more value to your site.
Your product descriptions are a natural way to incorporate the keywords you worked so hard to identify. You can also choose the keywords that you know are easy to rank for and that drive conversion.
Simply follow these simple steps to get your content read by your audience:
- Identify your target keywords using the keyword tools.
- Write product descriptions that include your target keyword. For example, if you are selling stain remover and you can rank highly for the keyword “stain remover for red wine,” you ought to include this long-tail catchphrase in the product description.
- Add product images, and don’t forget to include the alt text for each image you use. Remember to only use images that are representative of the actual product and not something from the internet that is different from your actual product.
- Publish product videos on YouTube, like an unboxing video, using your target keywords.
- Share your videos on social media so that you get more exposure and clicks!
Scout Out Your Competitors
Make a list of all of your competitors and find out where they are advertising. Then go through all of these spots individually and evaluate whether these venues worth your store.
This process is extremely tedious, but early on in the life of our shop, we took our top ten competitors and did this analysis for every single one. It’s significant because your competitors are likely on a budget and have done some homework as of now. You can leverage their hard work!
Motivate Users to Leave Reviews
A recent survey shows that more than 84% of shoppers trust reviews they read on the internet. If you have users leave reviews (hopefully positive) you will rank higher in search results and users are more likely to click onto your site or social media page.
There are a few simple ways you can solicit reviews for your site without bombarding your customers.
- Email them — after a product has shipped and the customer has received their purchase is the best time to solicit a review. For example, ask them if they are loving their new iPhone case and keep it easy for them to click onto your site for a review!
- Publish the good and the bad — Your users have to feel reassured that their feedbacks will be published, no matter their opinion of the product.
- Ask! This might seem obvious, but ask your customers for feedback wherever it makes sense to do so. Don’t drown your site in CTAs, however, don’t be shy to ask for their reviews or opinion.
- Make reviews visible on your site — Users need to know that they can leave a review without hunting for a place to do so.
Conclusion
As with everything in digital marketing, whether you are an e-commerce store or B2B, you can’t expect to see results without first establishing a clearly-defined strategy. You must know your traffic sources and optimize your brand on different platforms, especially on your website itself and on social media platforms.
If you know where your customers are coming from, and how many visits you need to get each day based on your conversion rate, you can start targeting them with specific keywords and well-crafted content.
