With an expected 2.14 billion online buyers by 2023, eCommerce is one of the most popular verticals. The reach of technology and the way the world is right now have made the perfect storm for your new eCommerce store.
Even in this environment, if you’re having trouble making sales, there are many things you can do. Web traffic is one of the keys to making sales, but it takes some work to get the traffic you need.
We’ll look at some of the best ways to get people to visit your online store in this article. Not everything will need a lot of money, but you can expect to spend a lot of time on it
Analysis of competing keywords
Technical analysis looked at how the site works. Keyword analysis, on the other hand, looks at how people find the site. Content is one of the main things that brings people to a website. Researching keywords takes time, so let your competitors show you the way.
There are also a lot of tools that can be used to do keyword analysis. Some of them are free, but if you want more information, you’ll probably have to pay for one. Before buying a more expensive tool, it might be a good idea to try out some of the free ones first to see how they work.
You can link URLs to Wordstream’s keyword research tool, which is pretty good. To use it, you just need to put in a site’s address, the industry you want to reach, and the country you want to search in. It will show you all the keywords that the page ranks for, as well as how many people search for those keywords and how much they cost per click (CPC).
Look for something like Ahrefs if you want to learn more. This is a paid service, but it’s one of the most complete ones out there. This lets you not only choose keywords but also do a full content gap analysis with the click of a button.
Always make sure that this is part of a larger plan for marketing. Doing so will make sure that you are moving in the right direction as a whole.
Technical analysis of competitors
In business, as in war, you will win if you know your competitors. This is especially true when it comes to eCommerce sites, which is an interesting fact. Since you work in a certain field, it’s assumed that you know who your main competitors are.
The competitive analysis looks at both the technical and marketing sides of a business. For the technical part, you need to find out what kinds of technologies other sites use and why.
There are many ways to do this, but the WHSR Tool and BuiltWith are two of the easiest to look into. Both of these can be used for free and will tell you a lot about the sites you type into their search bars.
For example, if we search the URL for Zalora, we can see that the site is hosted on a server that runs Nginx and that it uses the Akamai Content Delivery Network (CDN), among other things.
You don’t have to do everything your competitors do, but it might be helpful to know why they use certain methods.
Streamline your site design
When you build an eCommerce store, you don’t just want to sell things; you also want to give your customers a great experience. This is being talked about here because search engines like Google also understand this logic.
Because of this, your search rankings will be affected by how your site looks. The more closely your pages match the criteria, the higher they will rank. In turn, that brings more people to your site. So, what do you need to think about when designing a site for eCommerce?
Since website design is not a one-stop shop, you can make small changes over time. Don’t worry about having to make a lot of changes, but make sure the most important things are taken care of. For instance:
- Having a mobile-friendly design
- Getting the right size for buttons and text
- Putting links far apart to stop accidental clicks
- Avoiding glaring designs
Make a website work better.
Having a website that loads quickly can not only bring more people to your site, but it can also improve your conversion rates and dropshipping KPIs. That means that if you build a strong platform for customers, more people will go to your site and a higher percentage of those people will buy something.
In the past, big eCommerce brands like Amazon and Walmart have shown this to be true. The first company, for instance, found that for every 100ms of extra latency on their site, they lost 1% of their sales. When you add it all up, that’s a lot of money.
Even though you can make changes to your site to make it run better, keep in mind that a big part of the equation is the web host you choose and the hosting plan you’re on. If you’ve done everything you can to speed up your website and you’re still not happy with the results, you might want to:
- Switching to a better web host
- Getting a VPS plan or upgrading to cloud hosting
- Using a CDN
Improve your SEO.
For many website owners, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a bit of a scary word. It’s a term that covers so many different things that it can be hard for a single website owner to keep track of.
In fact, some of the things we’ve talked about so far, like making the design of your site better, can also be thought of as SEO. Because of this, we’ll make things a little easier by just talking about on-page and off-page SEO when we talk about SEO.
On-Page SEO is when you make changes to your content pages that help them rank higher in search results. This can include the layout, the page elements, the tags, the images, and a lot more. Just like the name says, these are things that happen on your page.
When these things happen outside of your site or page, it’s called “off-page SEO.” Link building, customer reviews on third-party sites, content outreach and marketing, and so on, are all examples.
Off-Page SEO is a lot of work and takes a long time to do. Prepare for this area to grow slowly. If you feel like things aren’t moving fast enough, you might want to spend some money to hire an outreach agency to help you.
Both are important parts of SEO, and you should make a plan to deal with both.
Social media marketing
SEO is a very powerful tool, but there are also other, more direct ways to get people to visit your online store. One of the most popular ways to do something today is to use social media.
This help not only makes people aware, but it can also be used to reach other goals. When you think about social media activities, it’s important to remember that there are many channels available today. Choose wisely, because not all of them are good for every business.
For example, Pinterest is a social media site that is based a lot on pictures. Some eCommerce site owners can really benefit from this, but not all. We’ve already written a long article about all the ways Pinterest can be used to get people to visit your online store.
No matter which platform you choose, make sure you use the right social media marketing tools to help you get the best results. In this part of operations, it’s easy to waste a lot of time without keeping an eye on the big picture.
Try to get “lost” sales back.
Don’t give up on lost sales until you’ve done everything you can to get them back. There are a lot of people who come to shop but then change their minds and don’t buy anything. One way to get them to come back to your site is to go after these.
As many as 10% of people who go back to their abandoned carts and finish their purchases. Try to reach as many of these people as possible. Setting up automated marketing emails for these users is a simple way to get more people to visit your site and buy from you.
Depending on the platform you’re using, you’re likely to be able to find a solution like this. For example, WordPress users who use WooCommerce can use plugins like Retainful, YITH, or CampaignRabbit.
Make good content.
When it comes to eCommerce, many site owners think of selling in a very straightforward way. Because of this, a lot of people who might have bought from you decide not to. People today have a lot more options and are much smarter. Plus, everyone is trying to sell them something, so you have to be smart about how you do it. Instead, focus on making content that can actually help your potential customers.
For example, you could use an article about how to clean floor tiles yourself to teach readers and keep their attention, or the “About Us” page of your online store could be used by customers to learn more about your company. At the same time, subtle inserts can be used to highlight a few key products that will be used. These products are, of course, available on your eCommerce site right now at very low prices.
This kind of content is useful in two ways. The first is that it will help your site show up higher in search results. Second, they make much better email marketing topics than sending out lists of products in the hopes that someone will buy something. So, making good content can make it easier to get people to visit your online store.
Work with influential people
To quickly increase your traffic, you might also want to work with a few influencers in your niche. Influencers are people who have a following online and come from a wide range of backgrounds. By getting them involved, they can help sell your site to the people who follow them.
This can be a quick and easy way to get more people to your site, but the price may be too high. Ideally, you should work on this as a campaign and carefully measure your Return on Investment (ROI).
Keep in mind that these boosts usually only last as long as the campaigns do, so don’t take the number of visitors during that time as gospel. Make sure you work on the things that will last longer if you want more stable growth.
Buy Google Ads
As a last resort, you could buy a few Google Ads that are very well placed. This works best as part of a bigger campaign, but you should think about it very carefully. Buying ads can easily turn into a bidding war that doesn’t help anyone.
To sum up
As you can see, there are a lot of ways to get people to visit your online store. Even though a lot of them might not cost you any money, you can expect to spend a lot of time on them.
The good news is that you can do so many different things that if you get stuck in one area, you can just work on something else for a while. Put your head down and keep working. Don’t forget that Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will your online store.