How do I get traffic to my eCommerce website?

So you’ve got yourself an eCommerce website, now what do you do? Well you likely want some customers so you can start getting sales, unfortunately this isn’t field of dreams. Paying customers aren’t just going to appear, they don’t know you and they can likely find what you’re selling (or something that fills the same need) elsewhere. You need to get your website and products in front of them, you need to market your website, whether you do this in-house or outsource to an experienced marketing agency, like say, I don’t know…isev :) But what options do you have to get people to your eCommerce website?

Get yourself found

About 90% of internet traffic starts on a search engine, that's a huge amount and if this is where people are, so should you. Increasing your search engine visibility can bring you new potential customers, there are a number of ways to do this like optimising your web pages, writing blogs to bring in more organic traffic. There's also paid search through Google Adwords and Bing Ads, PPC marketing is the prime example of this “you’ve got to spend money to make money”, you pay every time someone clicks on your ad (or Pay Per Click as it were). Whether you use Google, Bing or another PPC service, this helps bring potential customers to your website at the point of search and can start driving traffic straight away. This is ideal to start getting traffic to your website and works well in conjunction with your SEO efforts. See how we help with your SEO and PPC.

Be where your customers are

Having your customers trust you is an essential if you want them to buy from you, for instance, if you needed a new phone and someone on the street offered you one, would you buy it? Probably not, you'd more likely head into a shop, or online to somewhere you trust will reliably supply what they promise. Social media can help you build trust by showing your potential customers that you're more than just a money making machine, it can show your human side. It also helps you increase sales, now I could rattle off stats like 4 out of 10 people purchase a product they share on social media and 78% make purchasing decisions influenced by company social media posts, but it's said better here. Just remember, people don’t go on social media to be marketed to, it’s fine to put out some promotions from time to time, but make sure to mix it up with none-sales related posts, maybe share something interesting you've seen, or run a competition to draw more followers. If you keep your followers engaged and interested, they will be more interested in your promotional posts. There is also the option of paid promoted posts, to expand your reach and raise brand awareness. See how we help with your social media marketing

Keep them coming back

It's 4 times easier to sell to an existing customer than acquire a new one, for every visitor to your website, you should be striving to get an email address from them, whether that's from them placing orders with you or them signing up to your newsletter. With these you can entice repeat customers with promotions and limited time offers. Email marketing has one of the highest ROI (Return On Investments) of any marketing channel. See how we help with your email campaigns.

Expand your reach

As well as selling directly through your website, you can expand your reach even further by listing your products on other platforms such as Amazon and eBay, taking advantage of their popularity and huge user base, but how does this help you get visitors to your eCommerce site? Well a popular tactic to use is when someone orders one of your products from eBay or Amazon, send a gift voucher off their next order, that's only redeemable on your main website. If you've provided them a good service so far, why wouldn't they return? Remember this is not an exhaustive list and getting people to your website is only the beginning, you want to make sure that your visitors can find their way around your website, the check out process is easy and flows smoothly, you're competitively priced, testing your different marketing channels to make them as effective as possible, and of course, providing your customers with an excellent service. If you need any help with marketing your website, remember you can always contact us for an expert service and advice.