Driving traffic to a new eCommerce website isn’t easy. But there are a few strategies and tips you can use to bring more traffic to your site and get more customers to shop at your store.
While none of these are a “magic bullet,” implementing them all is sure to help you increase traffic to your online store, improve your position in search results on Google, and start selling more products. Learn more in this blog from Australian Internet Advertising now.
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1. Focus On Performance To Boost Traffic To Your Online Store
Did you know that website loading time actually has an impact on your position in Google’s search results? It’s true! Since 2018, speed has been used to help rank websites in mobile searches, so a fast, high-performing website is a must-have.
There are a lot of different ways to boost performance, depending on your eCommerce platform. One of the best things to do is to make sure you always optimize images on your website. Uncompressed images are huge and often take a very long time to load, and by optimizing them properly, you can preserve their quality while making the file size up to 5x smaller.
You may also want to choose a website theme that’s optimized for speed, and to make sure you’re not using a lot of unnecessary extra apps or add-ons, which can really slow down your site.
Performance doesn’t just help with SEO (search engine optimization) and search results, either. A faster website translates directly into more sales. When someone visits your site and one of your product pages takes too long to load, they’ll probably just leave and shop elsewhere. But when your site loads quickly, they’ll be more likely to stick around and actually shop. If your page loads in 2.4 seconds, you can expect a 1.9% conversion rate. If it takes 4.2 seconds, this drops to less than 1%.
2. Make Sure Your Site Is Mobile-Friendly
Even just 10 years ago, the majority of online sales were done on desktop or laptop computers. But that’s no longer the case, and Google and other search engines have recognized this. Mobile traffic now represents half of all online traffic.
Because of this, Google and other search engines also prioritize mobile-friendly websites in mobile search results. If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, it may not rank as highly when people try to search for your products.
In addition, a non-mobile-friendly website means you’ll be missing out on selling products to mobile users. 61% of people who go to a non-mobile-friendly website on a mobile device will never return to that website again.
3. Create Content That’s Engaging & Useful For Your Customers
Content marketing is a great way to build more buzz around your products, share useful information with your customers, and create SEO-optimized content that can help you rank higher for certain keywords in search results. There are a few different types of content you may want to think about incorporating into your strategy:
- Blog posts – Blog posts are the most basic, yet most effective type of content marketing. You can write about anything related to your industry or market niche. If you sell auto parts online, for example, you could write a quick guide about troubleshooting your brake system.
- Video content – Video content like product showcases, “how-tos,” vlogs, unboxings, and other such types of content can be great ways to boost engagement. In fact, 68% of surveyed marketers said that video content was “more effective” than PPC ads like Google Ads!
- Guest posts – Guest posts are a type of blog that you write for another company in your industry or market niche. They allow you to show your expertise and build relationships with other websites. But the biggest benefit is that you can usually link to your own website, which helps boost SEO and your website’s reputation if you’re writing for a large publication.
- Social media content – Staying active on social media is important if you want to improve your organic reach on social media. You can share blog posts you’ve written, ask your shoppers questions, run product giveaways, and more.
- Email newsletters – Email newsletters let you connect with customers directly in their email inboxes. They’re a highly-effective marketing tool and allow you to stay connected with your customers even when they’re not shopping at your store.
4. Build Up Your Email List
Whenever possible, you need to try to capture customer emails and add them to your email list. Most modern eCommerce platforms like Shopify let you do this automatically, opting your customers into your email list when they sign up and check out at your store.
However, you should also take other steps to build up your email list, such as offering content downloads (whitepapers, eBooks, etc.) or other offers like free shipping or a discount if a customer provides their email address.
Then, you can use this email list to send out content like newsletters, new product launches, sales announcements, and a wide variety of other promotions that will help you bring in more customers – and enjoy more consistent sales.
5. Think About Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
We’ve already mentioned SEO a few times in this guide, and you probably have a familiarity with the basics, but we’ll quickly define it here. SEO is all about optimizing your website and its content for search engines like Google.
With great SEO, you can rank highly when your customers search for your company name, the products you sell, and other keywords you may want to compete for. This guide from Shopify is useful if you want more help understanding the basics.
There are a lot of steps you can take to optimize your website for SEO – from writing better meta titles and descriptions, to adding keywords to product description pages, creating SEO-optimized landing pages, linking between your website’s pages, and more.
The biggest benefit of SEO is that it’s “organic.” In other words, you’re not paying to rank higher on websites like Google, unlike with pay-per-click ads. This makes it a great long-term investment. With a good SEO strategy, you can beat your competitors while reducing your overall ad spending.
6. Consider Using PPC (Pay-Per-Click) Platforms Like Facebook Ads
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) platforms like Google Ads and Facebook ads are great ways to boost traffic to your online store, particularly if you’re running a newer store and need time to implement SEO and rise in the search rankings.
The biggest benefit of PPC platforms is that you only pay when a customer clicks your ad. This helps keep your overall ad spending low when you’re learning the ropes of marketing, since you won’t overspend on ads that are ineffective or are not properly optimized.
Another benefit of these platforms is that they let you really narrow in on your target audience. Facebook Ads, for example, has dozens of different demographic settings you can change to determine who your ads are served to. This includes:
- Geographic location
- Age
- Gender
- Education
- Interests
- Job title
- Type of device
- Prior purchases
As you can imagine, this type of information is really powerful. It can help you reach exactly the customers you want.
For example, if you sell organic hair care products, you can specifically target women between the ages of 18-44 years old who have shown a past interest in “green” products – which means you’ll be more likely to make a sale and drive more traffic to your store. With the proper use of PPC platforms such as Google Ads and Facebook Ads, you can boost your sales quite a bit.
7. Launch A Referral Program To Spread The Word
In a referral program, you offer a certain bonus or discount – $20 to spend or a 20% discount, for example – when a previous customer shares your store with a friend and they make their first purchase. Referral programs are an excellent way to bring in more traffic through word-of-mouth.
Not only that, but they help your existing customers feel more valued, since they’ll be rewarded for sharing your products with their friends, family, colleagues, and others. You may also want to consider integrating a loyalty program with your referral program, which will allow you to give further rewards to customers who continue to shop at your store.
Need Help Boosting eCommerce Traffic? Turn To The Pros!
At Australian Internet Advertising, we’re experts in eCommerce, SEO, PPC ads, content marketing, social media and so much more, and we use all of our talents and expertise to provide a “one-stop-shop” for eCommerce marketing, If you need help boosting traffic, increasing conversion rates, and improving your bottom line as an eCommerce entrepreneur, we’re here for you. Contact us now for a free, no-commitment consultation and see how we can help you.
