As the owner or founder of a business with an eCommerce website, you understand the importance of bringing traffic to your site. With your website responsible for your sales, you need to attract users to your digital store in order to make a profit.
Not only should the layout of your site be appealing and draw in your clientele, but your site should also have an accessible layout and fast loading time. While these are features that ensure your customers have good shopping and browsing experience, they don’t immediately lead to an increase in online traffic to your site.
So how can you acquire more traffic? Top business founders and owners with their own successful eCommerce websites weighed in on the topic and offered their best advice for increasing site traffic. Their tips can be divided into two clear sections: social outreach and search engine optimization. Keep reading to learn their recommended methods to bring new users to your site.
IMAGE: PEXELS
Social Outreach
Social outreach is an essential method for attracting customers to your business by spreading the reach of your brand. The methods for gaining traffic to your site that fall under this category are detailed below.
Build Digital Relationships
“In the time you’ve been in business in your local area, you’ve developed relationships with local business owners. Why not extend this relationship to the digital world, as well? If you have a good relationship with another business owner, consider an agreement to link to each other’s websites. These relevant links are more valuable than other types of links, according to Penguin Strategies. Instead of just posting a link to the homepage of the other website, however, consider connecting to pieces of their content. Exchanging links in this way is a solid, ethical, white-hat method for getting more local results with your content marketing. To easily build digital relationships with others in your local area, you can include links to articles by your peers in each piece of content you publish. Let those people know (either in person or online) that you included their content in your posts. Over time, this strategy will help build natural links to your website.”
- Neil Patel, Co-Founder of NP Digital
Send Email Newsletters
“Email newsletters are a fantastic way to drive traffic to your site. Firstly, they target a group of dedicated users who choose to keep up to date on news and discount incentives from your eCommerce store. Secondly, when you include links back to your site accompanying product advertising and deals, you are already contributing significantly to your site’s traffic; let’s admit it that even the strongest willed person can be enticed to follow the link to a great deal when it shows up in their inbox from a brand they love.”
- Adelle Archer, CEO and Co-Founder of Eterneva
Have An Active Social Media
“You must be active on social media in today’s era of technology and popular social channels. Social apps like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter are where the majority of potential customers are active, so your business needs to make a name for yourself in the digital world too. Being active on social media through engaging with users and posting content draws more attention to your brand and promotes your products at a faster pace than without using social channels.”
- Riley Burke, Growth Marketing Manager of Ohza
Invest In Advertising
“Why is it that everywhere we turn in 2021 we are bombarded with advertisements?–commercials, billboards, ads that sneak onto our social media feeds; the diverse range of what advertising looks like today is widespread. The reason why is simply because advertising creates results. Large, established companies pour thousands of dollars a day into their marketing strategies, but small businesses striving to make a name for their brand need to be investing in advertising at a rate competitive with their larger counterparts. Be prepared to devote large sums towards your advertising budget, because in this sense you truly do need to spend money to make money. Luckily, the statistics are clear about just how successful advertising can be for growing your audience, so take heart that you will begin to see the results of your expenses soon enough.”
- Lance Herrington, Founder, CEO, and Head of Design of UNICO NUTRITION
Work With Influencers
“Influencer marketing is a fairly new concept but one that helps businesses reach a larger audience, particularly of the younger demographic. Influencers are people with a vast following that look up to them for brands, products, looks, and lifestyle hacks they can imitate. As such, having an influencer promote your brand or product can be extremely beneficial for gaining customers. Influencer-business relationships need to be two-way streets, though, so don’t expect your product to be promoted for free. Businesses most help influencers by paying them with products or funds, and by sharing their review of your product on your various pages you can help them spread their reach as well.”
- Heidi Streeter, Founder of Holiday St.
Be Active On Twitter
“The biggest unused Twitter resource for small business owners is the search.twitter.com function. You can search for what people are talking about in real time, which is very powerful. I can search for ‘drugstore mascara’ and see the people doing anything using those words. So if someone is at a drugstore wondering what mascara to buy, I can say, ‘Hey, did you see this article we wrote on the best drugstore mascaras?'”
- Alexis Wolfer, Founder, and Editor-in-Chief of com
Outsource Social Media Content
“Why develop all of your own social media content when you can enter into an agreement with content creators who will make and promote material for your social pages? The answer is, there’s no good reason not to outsource your social media content. Sometimes businesses employ content creators to design and make posts specifically for their brand, while other times businesses simply collaborate with content creators by sharing their material relating to the company’s brand. Either way, businesses come out on top by having less on their to-do list and by then reaching all of the content creator’s followers. The original maker also benefits when highlighted on the business’s pages, thus increasing their audience as well.”
- Seb Evans, Co-Founder of Banquist
Collaborate On Social Media
“You might look at the other brands on your social pages as competition, and they may well be, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a working relationship where you both benefit. I’m talking about when brands collaborate on social media to increase their combined reach and follower count. You probably have seen examples of this before, but maybe you didn’t realize it was a collaborative agreement between businesses. Sometimes brands will join together to offer giveaways, sometimes they create a joint product, sometimes they post group photos after attending the same event–the possibilities for collaboration are endless, and you don’t need to stick with the options you’ve seen done before. If you find another brand you work well with, take your synergistic relationship as far as it can go. Maybe your brands will even become widely known in relation to each other, which just leads to a broader audience reach.”
- Miles Beckett, CEO & Co-Founder of Flossy
Use Giveaways
“Giveaways present a solid incentive for people to begin following or promoting your brand. Even if users enter a one-time giveaway by, say, following your brand, sharing a post, and engaging with your content in some way–common giveaway entry steps–their actions benefit your business immensely. When they engage with your content, they’re helping elevate your status in the social media algorithms. When they share your post, they lead their own followers to your brand. And when they follow you, they begin to see regular updates from your business, becoming part of your clientele. For these reasons, giveaways are useful tools for acquiring more online traffic.”
- Mike Pasley, Founder of Allegiant Goods
Engage With Your Audience On Social Media
“Businesses have a unique opportunity to connect with their audience in this age of technological advancement and digital communication. Brands can establish a voice and tone in ways they never could before; customers can directly reach out to your business and receive a tailored response to their inquiry in your brand’s unique voice, which fosters a sense of connection. For example, a company that does an exceptional job at connecting with its followers is Taco Bell. The people behind Taco Bell are active on Twitter in a way that has them regularly responding humorously to their audience’s questions and feedback. Just as they are known by their voice, your brand can become equally as personable.”
- Steven Vigilante, Head of New Business Development of OLIPOP
Utilize Video Marketing
“Video is the new expectation. Large chunks of text may have been enough to draw and capture people’s attention in the past, but now that the digital world is just as real to us as the authentic one, nothing quite catches our attention like video. First you can draw in users’ attention and then promote your site or products through the video’s content. This is why video advertising is so effective. Definitely don’t skip on video marketing to bring traffic to your business.”
- James Ville, Chief Product Officer of GunSkins
Search Engine Optimization
The other key way to bring more traffic to your website is through utilizing search engine optimization, or SEO, tactics.
Use Keyword Research
“One of the best ways to raise your site on the search engine algorithms is by incorporating keywords into your pages. For instance, if you write blog posts answering questions surrounding your products, you should be adding the keywords that are most popular and searched for into your writing to help increase the chance that people will come across your website. Do your keyword research to find out which words receive the most attention on any given day, and then go from there.”
- Jeremy Goldstein, CEO of Navitar
Include Internal Links
“Google raises your website in its algorithm for several reasons, and one is based on the amount of credible backlinks present on your site. Therefore, if you want to increase the traffic flow on your website, a great practice to follow is including internal links.”
- Jason Wong, CEO of Building Blocks
Use Website Analyzing Tools To Know Your Audience
“There are a number of fantastic websites analyzing tools available to business owners so they can assess their traffic statistics. For instance, Google Analytics is one such site analyzing platform that can give you incredibly detailed information on all aspects of your site, including what demographic visits the most, where they are located, what they look at, and how long they browse. You can use this valuable information to structure your marketing strategy, appealing to what products and content your visitors most appreciate and steering away from what they find least enticing. Use these metrics to guide you.”
- Jason Sherman, Founder of TapRm
With the knowledge of these very helpful strategies for acquiring more online traffic to your site, as shared by top business owners, you can now incorporate their advice into your website’s new direction. Happy marketing!
IMAGE: PEXELS
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