Promotion is, by far, one of the toughest struggles small businesses face. In today’s internet world, expanding the business has everything to do with driving traffic, which is by no means an easy feat.
So, how do you drive traffic to your online store? Essentially, there are two ways to do it. The first is through free traffic sources, such as blogging, search engine optimization, email marketing, social media marketing, among others. The second way is through paid advertising, which can really drive traffic to your website.
However, it could get quite expensive, especially if you’re a small business on a budget. In this post, we’ll share with you actionable strategies that will help you understand how to drive traffic to your online store, but you need to understand that unless you pay for it, it’s neither quick nor easy.
How to Drive Traffic to Your Online Store
Getting yourself a consistent stream of visitors, which is the ultimate goal, will take both time and effort. Beyond that, you should also understand that the quality of traffic you get is far more important than the amount.
You see, it may feel good to have many visitors, but if they don’t convert and turn into sales, your strategies will have failed. The best way to go about this, which will benefit you in the long run, is to build a solid foundation, avoid scammers who promise thousands of visitors overnight, and be as consistent as possible.
Improve Your Website Speed
Did you know that website speed is a determinant in how Google ranks your website? 40% of consumers abandon a website that takes less than 3 seconds to load. You won’t be gaining much traffic if the majority of your potential customers don’t even get to your site.
Just one second of delay, and you’ll be facing a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction and a decrease in conversion rates, which will affect your ranking negatively. This, in itself, means that you cannot afford to overlook website speed if you want to increase website traffic.
Optimize for Mobile
If you haven’t already, you need to optimize your website for mobile users, and for very good reasons. You see, 49% of consumers shop through their mobile devices, so it’s only befitting that you prime your website for mobile viewing.
Leverage on SEO on Your Blog
You already know the importance of having a blog, right? Now, you’re going to use SEO to drive traffic to your website by giving customers exactly what they want. When people open up their search engines, most of the time they’re looking for answers or solutions. If you prove yourself to be a reliable provider, then customers will gladly come to your website and convert to customers.
The most important task for you here is to find out what your target market is looking for. Then, you need to write for search engine optimization so you can please Google as well. This is where you search for target keywords, which are essentially the phrases your audience type in the search bar of the search engines.
The trick here is to look for keywords your target audience is likely to use. They need to be high search volume with low competition and low cost-per-click to yield the best results. There are tools available out there to help you choose keywords.
Write For Customers, Not Google
One of the most significant mistakes brands make is placing too much effort into pleasing Google and not their customers. You not only need to have premium content, but you also need to write more for your customers and not search engines.
Google actually wants you to write useful and valuable content for your customers to rank you higher on search results. Do you want to know how to drive traffic to your online store? Well, write valuable content for your customers.
Leverage Facebook Advertising
Facebook is by far the biggest social media platform, and it’s only right that you take full advantage. With about 2.5 billion monthly active users, most consumers discover products on Facebook, which makes it an incredible source for eCommerce traffic. While organic posting is useful, with so much competition online, it’s getting harder and harder to reach audiences using organic posts alone.
Facebook ads are a much better option, though, even though you’ll have to pay for them. The advertising platform on Facebook has useful tools you can use to narrow down your target audience and drive more traffic to your website.
Leverage Email Marketing
Email marketing produces the highest ROI on most marketing platforms, and the only thing you have to do is continually offer your readers value, so they keep opening your emails. You may be thinking that the only way to leverage email marketing is to offer discounts and coupons, which you may not be able to provide for a small business.
However, there are other ways to keep people interested in your brand. Speak to their interests, offer them value, create compelling stories, and always add a personal touch that directly speaks to them, as your community.
Go For Influencer Marketing
Think of influencer marketing more like a celebrity endorsement. The thing is, an influencer can be just about anyone from a reality show start, to an athlete as long as they are great at social media. You’d be surprised at the number of people that trust and follow influencers.
Having them promote your product is an incredible marketing strategy. Even better, if you can get into a deal with a micro-influencer, you may get very loyal customers. You can find several influencer discovery tools on the internet that will help you discover the right people for your type of business.
Ready to Increase Your Website Traffic?
Now that you have a better understanding on how to drive traffic to your online store, the best thing to do is take one step at a time. Try different things and see what works best for you.
We hope that our post has provided you with useful ideas that will help you drive as much traffic as you can and widen your reach. Check out our website for more insightful advice on all things digital marketing.
