More traffic to your website …. more conversions …. more revenue from the business…
Is that your dream as an ecommerce entrepreneur?
Faced with a fleeting attention span of the prospective customer and all the noise and distractions that surround us, this is not an easy task!
But one step at a time….
Without leaving matters to chance, plan out a structured approach using some ways listed here that can help create interest in your website. These are broadly classified into 2 categories – Paid Activities and those that you can implement for Free.
Some Paid Activities to Drive Traffic To Your Site
Paid Search Advertising
This is a way to drive more traffic to your site through paid ads rather than organic content. Such ads appear on the search engine results page and help drive traffic to the website.
Pay per click (PPC) ads on search engines like Google are strategically targeted to the right customers and can help generate more qualified leads.
This Pay Per Click model of some platforms means that you pay only if the user takes the action you desire.
Paid Social Media Advertising
This gives you complete control over who sees your ads and can be a cost-effective way of reaching your target audience and driving traffic to your website.
Widespread use of Big Data and machine learning helps in creating brand awareness, generate leads and bring website traffic.
For Example, on Facebook, paid ads using pixels are guaranteed a place in the user’s feed that will surely help in enhancing brand awareness and widening your reach.
Explore also Story ads on Instagram, Promoted Pins and ads on Pinterest, and Snapchat ads. Basically, you should look into where your potential customer is more likely to be, as well as what channel works well for your kind of product or service.
Display Advertising
By using banner ads and rich media appearing in specifically designated areas of a website or social media platform, you can deliver brand messages to site visitors.
Unlike text-based ads, this relies on elements such as images, audio, and video to communicate an advertising message and can help increase the number of website page views.
Email Marketing
An email marketing campaign is another effective way of getting leads, connecting with potential customers as well as current customers.
Generally a well planned and executed email campaign brings traffic to your store through a call-to-action button; which could be anything like ‘sign up’. ‘Buy now’, etc.
Although there are many free email marketing programs around that are good for a start, a paid version of these email campaign service providers offer users a wider range of options to design, customize and send their emails.
Such a paid service can also provide data collected from emails sent out such as “open rates” and “unsubscribes” and is worth exploring.
Free – Implement to Drive Traffic Your Way
Spruce Up the Website
In order to create and sustain interest in your website make sure that it is equally responsive across a range of devices including smartphones.
The website should be attractive and functional and look good on smaller screens. All pages must be technically optimised and load quickly to improve user experience.
Anything otherwise could see your visitor wander away to another site….the exact opposite of what you have been working on!
Platforms like Shopmatic have this feature integrated seamlessly; and stores that set up on Shopmatic are equally quick, functional, and good-looking across all devices.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and creating internal links to your own content can also help boost organic traffic to your website.
Keep linking the material as you keep publishing new content as such internal linking strengthens the overall search-optimized value of your website.
Social Media
Use appropriate social media to target different groups of people and promote your content. Facebook is the largest and the best channel to generate leads and connect with users. Instagram is more visual and very popular with millennials.
Pinterest helps people find creative ideas for their futures and has a large following amongst women, while Twitter is widely used by smartphone users who don’t want to read long content items on screen.
In addition, chat tools like Whatsapp or Messenger allow you to be proactive and interact with potential customers, answering their queries and replying to their comments; enhancing overall customer experience at your website.
Use Analytics Data
Learn to understand reports that give you data about engagement on your website. You should aim to make full use of the analytics data available to you to adjust and tweak your promotional and content strategies accordingly. This will attract more traffic to your website.
Good and Interesting Content
If you want to keep people who visit your site interested, you will have to offer them good quality and varied content. There will be some readers who prefer scanning through the content and like short snappy blogs.
While there are others who prefer more detailed and technical analyses and case studies. The objective is to have a variety of content that will help draw traffic to your website.
Visuals like Infographics and Videos often score well too as such data is easier to retain.
Posting content on other blogs with a link to your site, and inviting people in your niche to blog on your own site, ie. Guest Blogging could also help make more readers aware of your site.
Build Communities
Building a community into your site around issues that your customers feel passionately about is a great way to start a conversation and increase traffic to the website. One of the ways to do this is by embracing a social cause that extends customer impact.
For example, if you are a health food company, start a healthy recipe sharing group. Giving customers additional information and promos along the way also helps in keeping up interest.
The online world is a crowded place, but implementing some of these strategies listed above will hopefully grow traffic to your website.
As an aspiring entrepreneur with big dreams, try a platform like Shopmatic, that simplifies the complexities of going online and expanding your reach. Worth a shot!
