How to get traffic to your ecommerce store

Now, more than ever, shoppers are buying products and services online and the competition is getting bigger, giving high-street retailers a run for their money. In this article we’ll share some of the various ways in which you can drive more consumers to your site and grow your online business.

Ways to increase ecommerce traffic

There are several routes you can take in order to drive more traffic to your ecommerce site and you can combine more than one marketing method to maximise results if it’s the right move for your business’s individual needs.

Run paid ads

Pay-Per-Click advertising (PPC) allows you to get instant traffic to your site and is an effective way for ecommerce businesses to increase their online visibility to make more sales. PPC is a conversion focused form of advertising which allows you to target specific groups of people and at the prime stage of their buyer journey, maximising your marketing budget by showing your ads to those who are most likely to convert. Moreover, it's easy to monitor the success of your PPC campaigns so you can make any tweaks to your ad campaigns which you see fit to prevent wasting your budget on ineffective tactics.

There are different types of paid ads you could use to drive traffic to your ecommerce store, including:

• Shopping ads, which are displayed on search engines with the product description, image and price.
• Amazon advertising, which allows you to create various types of ads on one of the world’s largest ecommerce stores (for example, you can pay for the placement of sponsored product ads which appear when users enter a relevant search).
• Search ads, where you select the keywords you wish to appear for and create attention-grabbing ad copy to accompany it.
• Display ads, which appear in front of users viewing web content (for example, your ad could appear as a banner on a third-party website).
• Remarketing ads, which are shown to users who’ve previously visited your site.
• Paid social ads, which involves advertising to target audiences on social media platforms. More on this in the proceeding section.

Whichever paid ads you choose to run, learn how to optimise your ecommerce PPC campaigns with these five handy tips.

Benefits of PPC include:

• You can get instant traffic when your PPC ads go live
• You can target specific audiences - as PPC has multi-layered targeting options, you can spend your budget targeting specific groups who are likely to be interested in your products. You can target based on audience (such as demographics), content (such as displaying ads on the sites your customers visit) or by device (such as targeting users with smartphones).
• It can help your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategy - you can use PPC data to identify the keywords your audience converts well on, test keyword strategies in PPC before committing to a long-term SEO plan and increase your online exposure to name a few benefits! Find out more about how PPC and SEO can work together.
• You can retarget users who have previously clicked on your ads and already shown an interest in your products.
• It’s easy to monitor the performance of your PPC campaigns so you can make any necessary adjustments to your ads to help improve your ROI and make important marketing decisions based on data.

Essentially, PPC enables you to target the right people at the right time and send them directly to the pages that will benefit you most.

Read our blog on how ppc can help your business here.

Utilise social media channels

Social ads for ecommerce sites are a great way of raising brand awareness, which can have a real impact on the amount of traffic your site sees as your target audience are already familiar with you and your key offerings. You can integrate your social media and search campaigns to give you more cross-channel data to better understand your customers and inform your marketing strategy.

Types of social media ad campaigns include:

• Video - these ads can be very effective in attracting the attention of prospective customers as you can show off your product and what it does/how it looks in a short video.
• Carousel - these ads enable you to showcase multiple products at the same time which can increase the likelihood of users clicking on the ad to find out more about the product at hand.
• Shopping - these ads enable you to tag products in your social media posts so that it’s easy for users to reach the product page and make a purchase.
• Static images - these display an image of the product and you can usually add a brief description of the product along with a link to the respective product page.

Benefits of social media include:

• You can promote blog content which helps to demonstrate your expertise and draw attention to your products.
• You can build brand awareness - social media is great for creating a buzz around new products and services and you can get your unique brand voice across in creative, attention-grabbing ways. Video ads can be particularly effective as you can tell your brand story clearly and quickly to audiences who are unfamiliar with your offerings.
• You’ll be able to create a community around your brand and also improve customer service which could encourage customer retention.

All of the above can help with successfully advertising your company and its products to your target audience and current customers so that they are the first to hear about exciting new offers and items that interest them.

Why not read our blog on how to advertise your business on social media to get an insight into how different social media platforms allow businesses to reach their target audience and increase their revenue?

Improve your online visibility with SEO

SEO ensures that your product and service pages are visible to online users on search engines such as Google - if your pages aren’t ranking well for relevant keywords, how will users discover your brand and products? It’s important not to neglect your organic search strategy to ensure your product pages rank well on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) as competitors can easily sneak ahead and gain more clicks from users who are ready to convert.

Types of SEO techniques which help to drive organic traffic include:

• Page optimisations - optimising your current content gives you the opportunity to rank better for target keywords. You can research what your competitors are doing and use valuable SEO tools such as Semrush to determine which keywords you should be optimising your product pages for.
• Researching and developing a keyword strategy which ensures the keywords you’re trying to rank for are relevant, have good search volume and ranking potential.
• Conducting technical SEO checks and implementing changes - from duplicate content to broken links, there’s many technical issues that could be going under the radar and negatively impacting your site performance (which Google analyses when ranking pages on the SERP). Performing technical SEO checks allows you to fix these issues and keep your website running smoothly, improving user experience.
• Building links and outreach - you can find opportunities to build links with other relevant sites which will help to give your site more authority and indicate its trustworthiness (providing you’re earning links with credible sites).
• Content writing - writing good quality articles is a great way to demonstrate your brand’s expertise and to point users to products relating to your blog.
• Local SEO - if your ecommerce business operates in a local area or multiple locations, you can use SEO to increase your visibility in certain areas which can drive more of the right traffic to your site.

Benefits of SEO include:

• It’s a long-term investment - your rankings won’t suddenly drop if you ‘stop paying’ for your SEO efforts and you can build your organic positions over time to dominate your market.
• You can stay ahead of your competitors who are ranking for similar keywords.
• It can be a more cost-effective option in comparison to PPC campaigns as you won’t see traffic drop when you stop paying to advertise.
• You can improve user experience by finding and fixing any technical issues such as page redirects and improving the site’s speed which helps to lower the bounce rate.
• You can build trust and credibility - for example, this can be done through effective outreach where other credible sites point users to your site you get what they need. Remember, Google is always looking to provide users with the best results so will take your site’s Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness (E-A-T) into account when ranking you on the SERPs. Find out more about E-A-T and how you can improve yours here.

Why not read our blog on SEO tips for ecommerce sites to find out more on how to improve your online visibility and boost sales and conversions?

What method is best for your business?

The strategy your business decides to take will be dependent on a number of factors and you’ll want to consider the following:

Your budget

The costs to implement marketing efforts will inevitably play an important role in your brand strategy and the tactics you choose to employ.

If you decide to work with an agency, you’ll also have to consider their marketing retainer model and whether that works well for you (i.e. will you be paying monthly? Will you pay based on the work completed? etc.).

To find out more about the services we offer and their costs based on the scale of your project, please get in touch with us for a bespoke quote.

Whether you need instant results

As mentioned, PPC advertising can earn your ecommerce business instant clicks, whereas, SEO can take time before you start noticing results (sometimes this is a matter of months). That said, SEO is essential for your long-term marketing strategy and once you’ve established your website has authority, is trustworthy and performs well for users, you won’t have to worry about suddenly losing traffic when you ‘stop a campaign’ which is what can happen with PPC ads that are paused or stopped.

How much time and effort you’re able to put in

You may have some skilled digital marketers in your team already who you’d like to help push your brand out there, but you’ll have to factor in the available time they’ll have as well as their level of expertise to ensure your marketing efforts aren’t wasted. Partnering up with a digital marketing agency can help to save you time and effort, plus, you can rely on their years of experience and expertise to help deliver results.

Want to start boosting traffic to your ecommerce store?

Here at Adido, we specialise in helping commercially-focused companies to evolve their business and maximise their ROI from their marketing spend. If you’re looking to give your site the competitive edge and boost more traffic to your ecommerce store to increase sales, you’ve come to the right place. Get in touch with us today to see how we can help.