12 proven strategies that help an e-commerce business drive traffic to their website
Hey there! Welcome back to my blog, and if you’re new then I’m glad to have you!
My goal is to help local businesses gain an unfair advantage over their competitors and level the playing field with big brands through the power of unlimited leverage that is websites. I strongly believe that websites have the power to transform your business… and your life!
Today, I'm excited to share with you 12 proven strategies to help your e-commerce store get more traffic in this two-part e-commerce blog series. Whether you're new to the scene or a seasoned pro, these tips will help you drive more traffic to your store effectively. In this post, we'll cover both free and paid strategies, some of which you probably never heard of before, so let's dive right in!
Who doesn’t like free? Here, we’re going to be discussing ways you can drive traffic for absolutely free so you don’t have to break the bank. These strategies are especially great for small e-commerce stores that are just starting out.
SEO is a powerful tool for getting more traffic because of how much leverage you can create when you start ranking higher on Google.
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, refers to the practice of improving your website's visibility and ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs), such as Google. Good SEO allows more internet users to see your website because you show up higher on their search results list.
Why is this important? Because the top three results after the sponsored website ads get 75% or more of users to click on their site. The rest is pretty much split alongside the rest of the results on page 1 of Google. As for page 2 and beyond? Well… when was the last time you visited page 2?
Implementing SEO involves various tactics, including keyword research, on-page optimization, acquiring links back to your site from popular websites//blogs, and content creation.
Start by conducting thorough keyword research related to your niche and incorporating those keywords strategically throughout your website's content, meta descriptions, and headers. You can use tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, or Semflow to research your keywords. Next, ensure your site is mobile-friendly (Google uses the mobile version of sites to check your SEO), has fast loading speeds, and includes internal and external links to improve overall user experience and search engine rankings.
Although SEO can take anywhere from 3-12 months to show results, the long-term gains are worth it for driving traffic to your e-commerce store. If your SEO is optimized thoroughly and you rank in the top three for multiple keywords, then you could see 10,000+ people visiting your store every month. As a result, you don’t need to worry about your stream of clients going dry and instead, you can focus on running your store. You practically have passive advertising, what more could you ask for?!
If you want to learn more about SEO, then check out Search Engine Land’s article where they explain SEO in more detail. If you need help implementing SEO as a strategy to drive traffic for your e-commerce site, then feel free to book an appointment with me on my portfolio.
Blogging has become very popular in the last decade with over 77% of users on the internet being blog readers. Since so many people read blogs, Google prioritizes websites that keep their content fresh when ranking them for SEO. Creating valuable, informative, and engaging blog posts regularly will help with this. Also, blogs are fantastic because you can target virtually an infinite number of keywords as long as you write regularly, targeting a new keyword each time.
If you choose to write blogs for SEO, ensure that you write high-quality content that your ideal audience will enjoy reading and find informative. Valuable content will increase the chances of your audience becoming regular readers, subscribing to your newsletter, and turning into regular traffic for your e-commerce store.
A bad practice is to publish mediocre blogs for the sake of keyword targeting because people will spend much less time reading your content and bounce. If this happens often, Google will take notice and your ranking can be penalized due to poor content quality.
Cross-promotion is a fantastic way to tap into audiences beyond your current reach. By partnering with businesses and influencers who are in the same or complementary niche as your business, you can expand your brand exposure and drive targeted traffic to your e-commerce store.
Did you know guest blogging was a thing? What is guest blogging? Essentially, you collaborate with non-competitor bloggers in similar niches and of similar audience sizes to write valuable and engaging content for them. In return, they give you credit and link the blog back to your site to increase SEO rankings.
Although guest blogging is great for SEO, you can take it a step further. Ask the webmaster (owner of the site) if they would like to be a regular guest blogger on your site and you a guest blogger on theirs. Now, you both get the benefit of SEO from linking to each others’ sites, and you get access to the other person’s audience which you can then turn into traffic for your store and vice versa.
Blogs aren’t the only method of traffic swapping, you can go even further by asking the webmaster to place promotions and offers in their newsletter and they do the same for yours. Now that’s what I call great exposure!
Pro tip: Place your offer in the P.S. section because people hardly ever use that in the newsletter section and it’s the most clicked/viewed spot
This method is self-explanatory, but like the blog strategy, you first find someone of similar size and niche on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Next, you ask them to promote your products in their stories or give you shoutouts in posts and videos. If they agree, you offer to do the same for them. After they create and upload the content, make sure to reshare it or post it on your story and tag them with a little thank you message.
Social media traffic swapping is not only a great strategy to drive traffic to your e-commerce store, but it also allows the new audience you’re targeting to follow you on various platforms and gain long-term exposure to your content.
Pro tip: Post content late at night on Instagram and TikTok (12 am - 6 am). You and I know very well that everyone and their parents are lying in bed at 3 am watching TikToks.
Partnering with another brand to release a new product or bundle deal creates excitement and generates buzz around your collaboration. Don’t have a new product idea? No worries! You can also find someone who sells products that complement your own and create a sort of kit that is only available at both stores and you split the earnings at an agreed amount. For example, if you sell custom keyboards, you can create a deal with someone who sells custom mice and mats.
After the product is made, you can both promote it on your various platforms and use the traffic-swapping methods above to maximize awareness.
Social media isn’t the only way to build an audience or make connections, YouTube is a phenomenal platform for putting yourself out there and showcasing your work. The best part? Unlike platforms such as Facebook and Instagram where posts are feed-based and disappear or become irrelevant over time, the content on YouTube can be evergreen. What does that mean? When you make a video or short, it can get recommended to people for years to come. Essentially, you have a ticking viral video time bomb!
When making content for YouTube, make sure it is related to the niche your store is serving and provides value! You can make videos showcasing the process of creating your product (if you do handmade stuff). People go viral from this all the time. I followed a creator who made shorts of him making embroidered hoodies and his business blew up after a few months of consistent posting.
You can also make informative videos about your industry that educate your audience on a specific topic like how to create the optimal skincare routine for oily skin if you sell skincare products.
Whatever you pick, start by making one good quality video per week and focus on slowly increasing that when you stay consistent for long enough. A big mistake people make is trying to crank out too much content too fast and as a result, they burn out and stop posting altogether.
If you have a blog or heck, even a website at all, you should be using newsletters. Why? Because newsletters provide you and your brand with a direct line of communication to your target audience regularly. Unlike social media algorithms that dictate reach based on ever-changing rules, newsletters allow you to maintain control over how you engage with your subscribers and what kind of content you share. Additionally, you can track what emails get opened to gain valuable insights on what to promote and what to cut loose.
Here’s how you can start leveraging newsletters to drive traffic.
Who doesn’t like a good discount once in a while? When someone purchases a product from you or even reads your blog, you can ask them to subscribe to your newsletter and offer something small in return like a 10% discount on their next visit. This not only helps grow the size of your audience but also fosters a sense of exclusivity among new members.
As time goes on, some subscribers might start engaging with you less and less or become interested in something else. If this happens, you could start to see a dip in the traffic coming from your newsletters. Monitor open rates, clickthrough rates, and engagement levels to pinpoint those who stopped interacting with your content and analyze why this is happening.
Consider why they subscribed to you in the first place and see how you can leverage that knowledge to create what is known as a retargeting campaign. Essentially, when someone loses interest in your emails, you send more personalized emails in hopes of getting them back to your website. Retargeting campaigns are great because they are an easy way to drive up conversions since the open rate of these emails is around 57% compared to the 21% open rate of emails sent to new customers.
You can utilize tools like Sparkloop to advertise your newsletter to other people’s audiences. Every time someone subscribes to another person’s newsletter who also uses Sparkloop, your newsletter is recommended to them.
This can be combined with the guest blogging strategy discussed above to start swapping traffic via newsletter and really grow your audience.
One of the hardest parts about growing an online presence is the effort and energy required to market your brand and continuously reach new people. You have to make content, learn SEO, and even run ads, all to drive traffic to your e-commerce store. Why not bypass the learning and have someone else do it?
Now I know what you’re already thinking “Abel, are you crazy?! Hiring affiliates is really expensive and you said these are free strategies!” Who said anything about paying them, at least upfront? Affiliates are great because you don’t pay a single cent unless they make a sale and even then, their payment comes from a percentage of that sale, so technically, this is free!
Pro tip: Give your affiliates a 40-50% sales commission if you can afford it. While this sounds like an absurd amount, it motivates affiliates to maximize their efforts and skills to get you leads. This works really well on expensive products.
Now, where and how can you find affiliates you might ask? Look for them in online communities that relate to your niche or industry or in skill-based communities like e-commerce and marketing/SEO Facebook groups. If you have a following already, then you probably have a handful of skilled people who would love to help you market your product. Use your online intuition to ensure they are legit. Next, offer the commission and identify interested people who again, seem legit. Create a guideline or rules for these affiliates to follow, ensuring they promote your products legally and ethically. The last thing you want is someone representing your brand in a poor fashion.
In addition to finding affiliates on communities and forums, you can simply have your customers become affiliates! Yes, and it’s simple. All you have to do is add a referral incentive where you give customers a 15% or more discount (the more generous the better) every time they refer someone. This is a win in two ways since you get new traffic and rapidly growing word-of-mouth marketing for your store.
Credibility on any site be it a landing page, business site, or e-commerce is crucial if you want to build trust with your users. How do you build credibility? You leverage reviews and testimonials from past customers to make new users aware of the quality of your brand.
Did you know that over 99% of online shoppers read reviews? They play a huge role in determining if someone chooses to buy something from you or someone else so it’s important to ensure you have top-notch reviews. But how do they drive traffic?
When customers look up a product on Google, they are more likely to see your store because Google uses ratings as a ranking factor when displaying search results. Having a higher rating also allows you to stand out amongst competitors who do not. As a result, more people land on your store and also spend more time reading the positive reviews, hence more traffic for you.
How can you improve your ratings? One way is to create a review page that acts as a filter for negative reviews. Encourage customers to visit that page to leave a review, if it is a poor rating (< 3 stars) then display a dialogue box that asks them to leave feedback on what you can improve. If they leave a positive rating (> 4 stars) then direct them to Google to write their review or to a review page on your site. Also, make sure to address negative reviews on Google so people can see you care and reply/like the positive ones.
You might be wondering “What’s the difference between a review and a testimonial?” Reviews are typically simple, being only a few words to a couple of sentences and using stars as a rating system while testimonials can be paragraphs long and contain images or videos.
The purpose of testimonials is to tell a story of success and break a new customer's limiting beliefs about why your product might not work for them. What’s great about this is that you can not only post these testimonials on your site, but you can showcase them on social media, YouTube, and even in ads. When new people come across these testimonials, they can instantly connect with your brand on an emotional level because they probably relate to the past customer’s story. These customers will have an easier time trusting you because they see you have credibility and as a result, be more likely to click on your site and turn into traffic.
In conclusion, there are many proven strategies to drive traffic to your e-commerce store and today we only covered half of them. These strategies, as you’ve read, can be combined with one another to grow traffic exponentially and reach new audiences that you otherwise could not without the strategies. To recap, here are some key takeaways.
That concludes our guide's first half to driving traffic to your e-commerce store. Stay tuned for part two, covering six advanced paid strategies to amplify your store's online presence. Coming up next, we'll delve into hacking SEO, tracking pixels, Google Shopping and PPC campaigns, and leveraging remnant ad spaces in magazines, YouTube channels, and podcast episodes.