The eCommerce industry is growing tremendously giving rise to a stiff competition among the businesses for capturing the attention of the customers. The global eCommerce market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 14.7% from 2020 to 2027.
Most eCommerce businesses today find it challenging to reach out to their customers and engage them with their respective brands organically. They are investing in paid advertising to make their brands stand out amidst the competition.
However, not all businesses have the required budget for paid ads. Hence, getting the audience to visit the website is the only option. There are various ways to ensure a streamlined flow of visitors to your online store.
In this post, we shall learn how eCommerce businesses can increase the traffic on their websites by following these five simple tactics.
5 Ways to Boost Your Website Traffic
Optimize Your Ecommerce Website
The first step toward ensuring traffic to your online store is optimizing your eCommerce website for sales. If your website is unprofessional or disorganized, your customers might struggle to complete their purchases. Hence, it is critical for businesses to regularly check the shopping experience they provide to the customers.
Did you know that 48% of customers say that website design plays an important role in deciding the brand's credibility? Around 88%
Here are a few tactics that you can implement to optimize your website for increased sales.
- Site navigability - Organize your website to have clear structures and CTA. Your customers must be able to find the products they are looking for without any hassles. Set up a simple yet attractive website with easily scannable content, clear menus with proper product categories, and more.
- Product search and filters - Install smart product search and filters plugin like Sparq to improve product discovery on the website and boost conversions.
- Website loading speed - The longer your website takes to load, the higher are the chances that your customers might leave your website. The ideal eCommerce website load should be around 2 seconds.
- Product descriptions - Write accurate and detailed product descriptions to provide the customers with the right information about the products. Leverage product photos and videos to let the customers see how the product looks in real-life. You can also use user-generated images for showcasing the products.
- Checkout process - Simplify the checkout process by providing various payment options, such as card payment, UPI, POD, and BNPL.
Work on Your Website SEO
There are approximately 12-24 million eCommerce websites across the world. Imagine there will be hundreds of websites offering the same products as you. So, the competition for getting your products to the desired target audience is getting fiercer every day.
Ecommerce SEO ensures that your website turns up on the top of the SERPs whenever your customers search for your products online. It drives organic traffic to your website and strengthens your brand awareness.
You can start optimizing your website for search engines and increase your store's discoverability by following these simple tactics.
- Research for relevant keywords and optimize your website content including the product descriptions for the same.
- Change your product page titles to match the search intent.
- Write proper meta titles and descriptions for the website pages.
- Ensure that the page URLs are SEO-friendly. These URLs must be short and rich in keywords.
- Do not forget to link the website pages together for better crawlability.
Leverage Content Marketing
Publishing original content on your eCommerce website blog can help you increase your website traffic. According to a recent survey conducted by Content Marketing Institute, 88% of marketers have successfully leveraged content marketing to create brand awareness and build credibility.
You can create various types of content to educate your customers about your products. Some of them are -
- Blog posts
- Articles
- Product videos
- Tutorials
- Infographics
- Ebooks
- Podcasts
This short guide on eCommerce content marketing will help you devise a solid content plan for your business.
- Establish your goals. Ask yourself why you are creating content and associate the same to your business goals. For example, one of the goals could be generating more sales.
- Understand your target audience and their pain points to devise a content strategy that addresses the same.
- Write original and engaging content for your audience. For example, share tips or best practices about using your products in a blog. You can also review your existing content and revise it to match your audience's interests.
- Leverage SEO to ensure that your content performs the best across various platforms, such as search engines, social media, and more.
- Decide on a publishing schedule for posting your content. Do not forget to promote your content on your website, social media, emails, and more.
- Monitor the performance of your content on a regular basis and refine the same to ensure greater success.
Invest in Social Media Marketing
The average time a person spends on social media is found to be 2 hours and 29 minutes. Imagine the potential social media has in redirecting traffic to your online store.
Leverage social media to increase your website traffic from both existing customers and new prospects. Focus on increasing your social media presence with the help of the right social media marketing strategy. Here are a few tips to help you build your eCommerce brand on social media.
- Identify the platforms where your target customers are the most active on and suit your business the best.
- Brainstorm ideas to create a content calendar and start sharing it on social media.
- Create a community for your followers on social media by engaging with them. Reply to their comments, share their posts, answer their queries, and more.
- Organize giveaways and contests to increase social media engagement and offer exciting prizes in exchange for participation.
- Introduce a referral program for the customers and ask them to share your product recommendations in their connections for some tangible incentives.
- Collaborate with the industry influencers and bloggers to promote your products and boost brand awareness.
Make the Most of Email Marketing
Although social media has become the primary means for businesses to connect with customers, email marketing has still not lost its charm. Email marketing provides eCommerce businesses with numerous benefits that help in connecting with customers and prospects, collecting their feedback, promoting products, and more.
In fact, 99% of customers check their emails every day and prefer to receive updates from their favorite brands.
Email marketing helps you connect with highly-targeted audiences who are interested in purchasing from you. All you need to do is build an email list and plan an email marketing strategy.
Decide on the type of emails - promotional, educational, business updates, and more you wish to send to the customers. Choose the frequency of the emails. You can send order updates on a timely basis while promotional and educational emails can be sent out once a week.
Keep your email content clear and short. Add the necessary call-to-action i.e directing your customers to your website. Tailor your email messages to connect with the customers on a personal level. Send product recommendations, back-in-stock notifications, promotional offers , discounts and more to encourage your customers to make additional purchases.
Wrapping Up
Driving traffic to your eCommerce website is not a tedious task. You need to gradually implement all the tactics mentioned in this post and monitor the results. Do not hurry into implementing all these techniques in one go. It is always ideal to plan your actions and scale your efforts accordingly.
