Bill Gates once said:
If your business is not on the internet, then soon your business will be out of business.
And, how true he was! We are living in an age dominated by web technology.
Whether it is buying clothes or searching for a nearby salon, the first thing we do is pick up our laptop or mobile phone and search on Google. That is why your business should appear high in Google search results. And you should be looking for ways to grab the attention of these people who are looking for solutions.
In other words, you need to get search traffic to land on your pages.
With more consumers shopping online than ever before, retailers need to find ways to drive more ecommerce store traffic and get noticed by a wider audience.
Although investing in paid ads to attract traffic to an eshop is arguably the best way to get product sales fast, there are plenty of ways to get free traffic as well.
What are those eshop traffic strategies? Let’s look at the most effective ones.
1. Write it right
As Seth Godin says it – Content marketing is the only marketing left.
In order to make an impact on consumers, you need to satisfy their needs with more than just your product catalog. You need to give them reasons to choose your brand. Major part of this are all the benefits that come with your product.
And you need to communicate these benefits effectively through writing about them and publishing content on your web properties. Write what’s right for your customers, and you will see the right things happening for your business.
Put simply, you need to create a value proposition for your online store, brand and products, and you need to put it out there. Here’s an article we published a while ago that explains how you can create high-converting web copy for every stage of the buyer’s journey.
When customers get exposed to your brand message and when your solution resonates with them, they will automatically want to visit your eshop.
2. Optimize for search
Both Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing have become integral to the success of an online retailer nowadays. Your goal with SEO is to to rank 0-5 for any related keyword query. Your goal with social media marketing is to get your brand message across to as many interested consumers as possible.
Here’s a complete guide to ecommerce SEO that we found; it can help you create an optimized structure for your eshop, and publish amazing content as well.
Remember, whatever content you put online is crawled by Google’s search bots. This is how Google knows if your site is the best answer to a user’s question. So, both the content itself but also some technical elements are important if you want to make sure Google ranks your best content high.
If done right, SEO can be low-hanging fruit for ecommerce websites.
3. Social proof
One of the most astonishing facts about ecommerce is that nearly 70% of users trust product/services recommendations made by total strangers. In other words, before buying people seek reviews.
This is clearly why your online retail business needs reviews and social proof to back up your marketing efforts.
Take a look at the ecommerce giants like Amazon, eBay and more – they are using social proof on every single product page in the form of product reviews. They also use star rating, video reviews and other types of testimonials to entice visitors to buy.
Most online retailers also rely on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to build a massive following and motivate users to publish rave reviews.
Remember that 23% of shoppers are influenced by social media recommendations/reviews. Also, online shoppers expect products to be brought to life with pictures (78%) and reviews (69%). (Source: BigCommerce.)
4. Email marketing
Some things never go out of fashion. And, email marketing is one of them.
No matter what you might think about its power, email marketing is actually one of the most effective marketing channels. Email marketing is an essential component of every business. But it’s even more important for your ecommerce store.
Why? Because it’s one of the best ways to reach targeted consumers.
As an ecommerce business, contrary to a brick-and-mortar store, you don’t have the luxury of seeing your customers face to face. With email you can deliver your message right to their inbox.
Also, you can you use email to deliver product videos that will increase engagement. And, of course, there’s the ability to deploy advanced marketing automations (like abandoned cart emails or re-engagement sequences) like the big guys do.
5. Referral marketing
There is no better publicity like word of mouth publicity. First of all, it’s free. Second, it’s authentic.
No matter how technologically advanced we become and how much we are influenced by numerous advertising messages, we are still affected by the word of mouth. Especially, when it comes to online shopping, we often buy what a friend also bought and liked.
How can an ecommerce business leverage referral marketing?
You can create a referral program that makes it easy and beneficial for your buyers to refer their friends. ReferralCandy is a popoular app that can do the trick for your ecommerce store.
6. Build customer personas
You cannot sell to anyone; you need to know who your ideal buyer is. Period.
A great tool that can help you create your ideal customer avatar is Scriptly. Scripty has a lot of value-packed features, but with regards to buyer personas, it gives you an easy-to-use wizard that helps create the ideal customer avatars in minutes not hours.
Click here for a free trial or watch the following video to see how Scriptly tackles the overwhelming task of creating buyer personas.
Most of today’s smart customers make an informed decision to buy a product. Therefore you need to thoroughly understand the customer before you make any marketing efforts.
The benefits of building customer personas? Ability to create targeted messaging, increased ROI from your streamlined marketing efforts, and, at the end of the day, more sales for your ecommerce store!
7. Get them to come back for more
According to a study by Bain & Company, veteran retail customers spend nearly 70% more than patrons who are around for no more than six months
The numbers say it all – as an online business owner you need to get people to come back for more.
Not only is it easier to upsell something to the people who are already associated with you but it is also a great way to leverage social proof and build trust in the market with their help.
After all, customer loyalty ranks right up there on the top when it comes to factors that drive traffic to an ecommerce website.
But how do you bring old customers back? A simple way is to re-engage them using email marketing automation. Also, retargeting (or remarketing, as it is called) is a great way if you’re using Facebook Ads or Google Adwords.
8. Leverage data
Probably the most important step you can take to drive more ecommerce store traffic without buying ads is to leverage the power of data whenever possible.
Website and customer data can help you create strategies that will bring more traffic, get that traffic to move further down the sales funnel and ultimately allow you to hit the bull’s eye – CONVERSION!
Therefore, you need to feed your marketing team with the correct data analytics, so that they can scale what works and improve sales.
Can you boost ecommerce store traffic without buying ads?
Getting more people to visit your ecommerce website shouldn’t mean that you need a whole team of expert marketers onboard or a huge marketing budget. You can definitely use free tactics and tools to get started with attracting and converting targeted consumers.
In this article, we’ve discussed 8 ways that can help your eshop get more traffic as soon as possible. Choosing what’s best for you and having an action plan will help you see real results fast.
And if it’s something you want help with, we’re happy to work you through it. Just schedule an Action Plan call with us here!