Many of you business owners have spent years working hard drive more foot traffic into your brick and mortar retail stores. It takes a lot of ingenuity and hard work to stand out and bring in more customers.
But now more and more retailers are opening eCommerce stores either exclusively as such or in addition to an existing brick and mortar shop. And getting more clicks to your website is a whole different type of game.
Not only do you have to have a website, but you need to support it in a way that gets people there. And once shoppers arrive, you want to keep them there. And once they hang out for a bit, you want them to actually buy something. The whole thing can be overwhelming, and frustrating when you lose possible customers. But it all part of the process. So step back and take a look at how to drive traffic online and ways to increase conversions on your eCommerce site. Like all big projects, take it one step at a time and be patient through the process. You’ll see results by following a few simple strategies.
Table of Contents
- Choose Your URLs Wisely
- Write Descriptive Titles
- Only Use High-Quality Images
- Optimize Your Website’s Speed
- Use Google AdWords
- Write Great Content
- Add Incentive for Social Invites
- Make Subscribing to Emails Easy
- Include Relevant Details in Produt Descriptions
- Highlight Reviews and Product Ratings
- Include How-To Videos
- Suggest Related Products and Show Abandoned Carts
- Add an FAQ and Chat Support Feature
PART I: DRIVE ONLINE TRAFFIC
1. Choose Your URLs Wisely
Make some slight technical changes can go a long way. One aspect that is often overlooked is managing your URLs.
Make sure that all URLs are clear and get to the point of your page. Include keywords in URLs to make them more search engine friendly and so users know what they’re clicking. Remember, your URLs are meant to communicate to both consumers and search engines.
Use parent pages to keep URLs organized. This also shows a structure of importance between pages on your website.
If possible, use unique URLs for each product page. However, if your store has a massive catalog, this might be impossible. In such cases, select a canonical URL to tell search engines which page you prefer users to land on. This prevents issues with duplicate content.
2. Write Descriptive Titles
Product pages are the most important part of any eCommerce site. They are the stage for conversions and where a sale is won or lost.
Titles for products should be brief but adequately descriptive, so any essential information about the product should be included here. For instance, a tea company should include the flavor, size/quantity, and price in each title.
Use common descriptors that your shoppers would use themselves. You want to avoid confusion, so no need to get flowery with your product titles.
3. Only Use High-Quality Images
Images are an important part of your search engine optimization strategy and the first thing on a page that catches users’ eyes. They are vitally important for getting more traffic to your online store.
Don’t use poor stock photos that are clearly not original.
If you buy your product from a manufacturer, analyze their default images. It’s not always worth taking the free option if it costs you conversions.
Spend some time and money on taking unique product photos. It looks better on your webstore, and search engines reward original content, bringing more people to your webstore.
Take the images from different angles to offer more perspective and show shoppers what they might look like using or wearing a certain item.
If you want to get extra fancy, offer “try it on” features where the shopper can upload a photo of themselves to see how the product would look on them.
4. Optimize Your Website’s Speed
Website speed is a critical factor in determining your site’s visibility online. Search engines will heavily penalize slow websites or individual pages.
Users, too, will get frustrated quickly by an unresponsive page or lagging load time. Even a slight decrease in speed will significantly lower your traffic.
Check for any pages with errors. Search engines want to see a healthy and fully functioning site. Fixing errors is easy and should be checked regularly.
5. Use Google AdWords
While SEO is a great way to increase your eCommerce traffic, paid advertising should also be considered. Many businesses use the two in conjunction.
Running an ad campaign through Google in addition to your other marketing will almost guarantee a boost in traffic.
It’s easy to set up and get started and you can set your budget however you’d like. Start slow and ramp up the budget if it’s a success.
6. Write Great Content
Start a blog and set up accounts on social media. Adding content to your website is great for showing search engines more about what you sell and what search terms your site should rank for.
It’s also important to provide value to your customers. An informative blog and social media shares should give your shoppers insight and information in your industry.
7. Add Incentive for Social Invites
Getting reviews and recommendations from peers is a great way to get more traffic into your eCommerce store. Consumers trust the opinion of friends and family more than any other source, so encourage your shoppers to share their experience with their friends.
There are many ways to incentivize spreading product information by word of mouth. One great way to reward shoppers who invite friends to join a social media group, download an app, or like a page. Many companies offer $5 or $10 for every friend that joins a new service. Think about ways your business could implement this strategy.
8. Make Subscribing to Emails Easy
Email marketing is a great way to boost your traffic and sales, stay in touch with your customer base, and provide some added value in the shopping experience. Plus, it’s easy to set up and cheap to get started.
So make it easy to join these channels. Ask website visitors to subscribe before they leave your site; add subscribe boxes in the top and bottom corners of your website; offer subscription in the bodies of other emails.
Building a group of subscribers is an easy way to get more traffic down the road and stay on more people’s radars.
PART II: INCREASE YOUR ECOMMERCE CONVERSIONS
9. Include Relevant Details in Product Descriptions
To increase conversions, add all essential details in your product descriptions. While you want to stay concise and to the point with your titles, you have more liberties with your descriptions.
Add any information that you anticipate customers might ask. If you have had problems in the past with orders being returned for specific reasons, include those details here, too.
A thorough section of information on your products show customers that you’ve taken feedback and spent the time to provide valuable information. They will be more likely to make the purchase feeling confident that they know what they’re buying.
10. Highlight Reviews and Product Ratings
One of the biggest obstacles to converting online sales is that shoppers feel unsure that the product they’ll receive will match their expectations. We’ve all ordered at least one thing online that was a disappointment once it arrived.
Eliminate these fears by asking your users to leave reviews and offer substantial feedback. Reviews are critical for building trust off the bat and giving shoppers that extra push towards completing a purchase. The more detail you encourage in the reviews, the better the quality of your average review will be and the more value it will provide to your website.
It’s always great to provide some incentive for reviews as well. Make the process as easy as possible – most shoppers don’t want to spend more than a minute or two leaving a review.
11. Include How-To Videos
As we talked about above, creating videos is an important way of diversifying your content and increasing your online store’s traffic.
But remember that they should also be helpful. How-to videos displaying your products show shoppers a different look at what they’re getting. For products that require some set up, offer an instructional video. Find creative ways to show the product in use, too. Like your product photos, these give your shoppers more perspective on your catalog of items.
12. Suggest Related Products and Show Abandoned Carts
Give your shoppers some great suggestions based on their purchase and search history. Categorize related products on your eCommerce platform so that shoppers see an alternate possibility. Perhaps they didn’t complete a purchase because of a small detail, like the color, price, or size. If shoppers see similar items, they might be inclined to keep shopping and stay on your website.
Abandoned carts are another huge issue for online retailers. First, make the checkout process as seamless as possible. Don’t require logins, passwords, etc. Allow checkouts as a guest and keep page transitions to a minimum. Every extra click leads to more lost conversions. For carts that are just left, send email reminders and optimize a remarketing campaign on social media or browsers.
13. Add an FAQ and a Chat Support Feature
To provide a more helpful user experience on the website, add an FAQ. Take inventory of common questions your support receives and write detailed descriptions of solutions to the issue. You can encourage customer interaction, too, if you allow users to write comments under the questions. This keeps more people on your website, lessens frustrations, and saves your customer support team valuable time.
Likewise, a chat feature on your website will add to users’ convenience. Chat can be used as support for existing customers or as a way of instant direct communication with potential customers. This allows you to engage with shoppers right away and keep them on your site. Just make sure that the chat support is being answered in a timely and helpful manner.
For more ideas on how to increase your traffic, check out our how-to guide on SEO for retail owners. This walks you through a more detailed process of setting up your website to drive more traffic and boost your conversions. Subscribe to our blog to get updates on other general business advice we offer here. And if you’re in the market for a new POS system, check out KORONA. We offer an unlimited free trial plus a personalized product demo with one of our product specialists. Click below to find out more!
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