Ecommerce sites have a lot of moving parts, however, getting most from them and gaining traffic doesn’t have to be complicated. We’ve created a list of a number of different things that will help you build a presence and make more of your ecommerce site.
#1 Link Building
In addition to make sure that your website is optimized for the keywords you are targeting, you need to focus on building high quality back links that are relevant to your domain. You should focus on building both external and internal links as this is what the search engines like. All the strategic places in your website should be smartly used to include external and internal links.
When you’re creating external links, make sure you are only linking to websites that are legitimate and relevant. If you start linking to random websites, it will do a lot more harm than good. Your audience would lose trust in you and so will search engines. So, make sure you are putting out interesting and helpful information for your users and it will pay in the long run.
Moreover ensure that all of your links are working correctly.
#2 Build Presence on Different Marketplaces
One of the ways to increase the visibility of your website is to spread your products over many different marketplaces. It’s an excellent way for people who are just getting started to let everyone know that they are also there. Being present on different marketplaces will allow you to start making sales right away and you won’t have to wait for your website to become recognized.
When you spread your products on various popular online marketplaces, it also gives you the opportunity to build high quality and legitimate links to your own website in addition to increasing your revenue and finding new customers. You might find it challenging to get a breakthrough on bigger online marketplaces such as Amazon but it’s not the only game in town as they are a lot of other marketplaces. Use Google to find opportunities in your chosen niche and you will be surprised by the results.
#3 Social Media
You can bring a lot of high quality traffic to your website through social media. Make sure you have profiles on popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others. Keep posting updates on these. Posting content regularly will increase your chances of showing up in other people’s news feeds which means it also increase your chances of getting someone’s attention. Don’t forget to use proper geo-tags and hashtags with each post to get more attention to your website.
Follow the followers of your competitors and keep commenting on posts related to your niche in order to maximize the use of social media platforms. Also, check out paid advertisement opportunities. In terms of advertisement cost, Facebook is cheaper as compared to Google but the results are similar in terms of traffic. In short, remaining active on these platforms will bring a lot of traffic to your website.
#4 Email Marketing
Email marketing is another great way to increase your sales and traffic significantly. However, it is important to ensure that your email marketing efforts are designed to get good results instead of driving potential customers and existing customers away from your business. Many companies lose track when they go over-the-top with their email marketing efforts and it results in loss of valuable customers.
Begin by creating an excellent opportunity for people to subscribe to your website. Send out a welcome email to these new subscribers that should include some kind of coupon code. Follow-up with some introductory mails over a period of time. You do not want to spam them. Keep sending useful information designed to make them visit your website and buy something. As your email list gets bigger, the chances of making a sale will also increase.
#5 Schema Mark Up
Even though it can be complex and even tedious to a certain degree, investing the time into implementing Scema.org through the magic of SEO is well worth the effort. Structured data may have a somewhat confusing or un-intuitive way of working, but it adds semantic meaning to your content and helps the search engines to figure out what it is you are doing online. While you will still want to share as much data on your site as possible, the experts recommend sticking to the Schema.org elements which will be a major boost to your eCommerce Business. Here are a few things you should know about.
- Brands model
- Product rating (Aggregate Rating)
- Offers & reviews
- Product ID
The basic elements of Schema micro-data are not hard to implement and can be done with certain tags and codes included in various sections of the website. For example, you can add itemprop=” reviews” to the review section of your websites. There can even be more complicated elements included with informational tags like “rating value”, etc. However, if you’re having issues then take a look here and learn how to fix product schema validation errors, among other problems.
#6 Automating Follow-Up after Purchase
Automating the process of reaching out to customers after they buy something should work in synergy with email marketing. Make sure every single customer gets an email once they make a purchase. You can do this by creating a separate campaign. The first email they receive should be about confirming their purchase and thanking them. The rest of the email should focus on sequences based on the products they have bought in order to send reminders, tips and other relevant products. It will help in keeping existing customers engaged and cross selling your products which will make customers keep coming back to your website for more.
Automating the after-purchase process also helps you by allowing you to get feedback on things that work and things that don’t. Don’t forget to check out Active Campaign to take it to the next level. Include this tool in your toolbox regardless of the way you use it. It is one of the most effective ways to grow the sales and traffic of your e-commerce website.
#7 Focus On Abandoned Cart Sales
Abandoned cart is a big problem for e-commerce and it is one of the biggest potential losses. People do online shopping in their spare time which means if they lose attention in the process of buying something, they might get away from the computer screen leading to abandoned cart. There is no shortage of distractions these days. In fact, if you are distracted while shopping online, you’ll find it difficult to remember what you were doing exactly. It’s also a known fact that close to 60 to 70% of the customers abandon their online carts.
This is why, you need to focus on abandoned carts. These potential sales are losing your money, and this is why you need to automate the process of following up with customers who have abandoned their carts. Most of the e-commerce platforms available today offer this feature, and you need to make good use of it. Make sure to create an email that grabs their attention and remind them of the abandoned cart. You might also consider offering a discount code to encourage them to complete their purchase.
#8 Checkout Optimization
You might already be aware of the importance of ensuring that your e-commerce website is optimized for mobile but you also need to make sure that the checkout process is also optimized. Most people think that their checkout process is optimized but that’s not really true. It’s great to have a website that is responsive and mobile, but when checkout process creates a lot of hassles, it will lead to loss of a lot of sales for you.
Therefore, you need to ensure that your checkout process is continually improving with the technology. Visit your own website and find out whether checking out on mobile is a frustrating process or a smooth one. There are a lot of mobile payment options available these days. You need to ensure that yours website isn’t lagging behind the innovations in the mobile payment space.