Starting a new online store can be quite daunting. However, you know what’s worse? Not getting traffic to your store!
There is no point in having the perfect online store when no potential customer even visits it. Since we care about you and we don’t want you to end up with no sales, here are 6 practical and proven ways to drive traffic to your stores and eventually converting all that into great sales.
Table of Contents
1. Create an online presence
Everyone who is anyone has an online presence today. Why wouldn’t they anyway? Be it Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or any other social media platform, they have become a source of validation for a lot of online stores to survive. In fact, having an online presence is a boon as with little or no absolute investment, you can build a brand around your business and ensure maximum customer engagement.
For this, all you need to do is set up social media profiles of your business and create content that is consistently marketed. The first thing that you need to do is create an attractive profile on various social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc for your online store that features everything that your store and your brand, in general, is all about. Make sure your profile shares the story of your brand.
Once you have done that there are quite a few ways you can engage with your potential customers driving them to your store and even building a loyal following with those. You can achieve that by posting engaging content like pictures of the products/services available or writing a few related short article like content. These posts can even include the links to your website. The best part is that you can post as much content as you want. In fact, the more active you are, the better!
You can also run advertisements on social media platforms to target relevant audience bases. Apart from these, you can even hold contests or give discounts on social media for an immediate drive of traffic to your store. Who doesn’t like free stuff anyway?
2. Start marketing through Emails and SMS
Once you start building relationships on social media platforms or even through your blog, getting the contacting information of potential customers gets quite easy. You can use all that information to market your store for email and SMS marketing.
In fact, through email and SMS marketing you can send all the important information of your store along with special deals and offers to the potential customers in bulk.This is a great way of not only reaching the potential customers but also reminding the old customers of your existence. Believe it or not, email and SMS marketing are way cheaper than other traditional forms of marketing
3. Start a blog
Yet another way to make your store known in your niche is by starting a blog. Most products and services have a place in the market because there is a need for them. If you want to convince your target audience that what you are offering through your store is worth their time and money then contributing relevant content through your blog is a great way to start.
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Through your blog, you can not only post content that highlights your online store but also markets your brand in your niche. But, don’t just start a blog without understanding the fundamentals of it!
You need to remember that the ultimate goal is to drive traffic to your store through your blog. Remember, there is no point in creating a blog if the traffic isn’t converted into sales for you. So, you need to create a well-planned actionable strategy right before starting your blog.
What strategy?
Well, first of all, you need to understand that the best way of being successful with your blog is by creating quality rich valuable content for the audiences and constantly promoting it.
Your blog content can feature other bloggers and influencers or even happy customers that have chosen your brand over your competition and have been greatly satisfied. Also, make sure the content that you are providing is specifically targeted to your potential customers. Other than these factors, make sure your blog has a relevant domain name, is SEO friendly and helps your store stand out from the competition.
4. Search engine optimization (SEO)
It’s undeniable that no matter what we are looking for, most of us do not go beyond the second page of Google search results. Almost always, we find what we want on the top of the results page itself. So, it’s quite obvious that you would want your online store to be among those results to ensure maximum possible traffic. How do you ensure that?
SEO!
Well, you need to understand that when people search about things online, there are certain specific common keywords that they use. And you need to target those keywords in order to be in the organic search results.
The basic idea is that you want the search engine to think that your store can be a relevant choice for your targeted audience based on the keywords they use while searching online.
For this, you can start by optimizing your website and every part of it by making it user-friendly and by enticing an easy navigation. Also, make sure that your website loads faster. You don’t want your visitors to leave your site due to this issue. Other than these basic ways, you should also ensure that your online store is optimized for all devices and browsing channels.
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You can even take a few pointers and understand the guidelines surrounding SEO from various search engine tools such as Google Webmaster. However, you are going to require patience and will have to put in constant efforts to make SEO work for your store.
Above all, be realistic and don’t expect the search engines to put your store on the top of the search results, after the first day itself!
5. Chase the influencers
Let’s just take a minute to address the new rave that the digital world especially the social media revolution has brought upon us.
The influencers!
Influencers today are those people who not only have great knowledge about their niche but have also become the trendsetters. These influencers have created a trusted brand of themselves in the world where their opinions matter with sheer hard work and by providing relevant quality information. The followers quite often blindly follow them for their reviews and suggestions for this very reason.
Believe it or not, the influencers have the power to drive a ton of their followers towards your online store, driving your sales upwards altogether. In fact, since you are still not quite known in your niche, the influencers can introduce your brand and provide you with all the attention that you definitely require in the beginning.
However, don’t just knock the doors of any popular influencer. Do your research and find influencers that fit perfectly with your brand. Once you have found the right influencers then, there are quite a few ways you can approach them.
For starters, you can always create affiliate programs for influencers that have a moderate reach of your target audience. By making them your affiliates, you can work with them on a commission basis. You can even create unique codes and give discounts to their followers.
If the influencers you are approaching have great popularity and a large amount of following then, sponsor the influencers to inform the visitors about your store. Apart from these two obvious ways, you can always send free products to influencers to review your stores or products/services.
6. Generate traffic through PPC
So, now that you have reached towards the end of this article, we present you with PPC (Pay-Per-Click) which is nothing but a way of getting paid traffic to your site. If your budget is quite loose, then we definitely recommend trying PPC to drive relevant visitors to your site.
So, what’s PPC anyway?
To begin with, while surfing for things online you must have seen relevant advertisements displayed on your screen. In fact, there’s a high possibility that you must have even clicked on those advertisements and would have been taken to those respected sites.
Now, various advertisers bid on relevant keywords to get a chance for their advertisements to get displayed to their target audience to ensure maximum engagement. Once the right keywords are known, all that’s left is for the advertisers to create attractive click-worthy advertisements.
Even though this is quite an expensive method, as an advertiser you will only have to pay when a visitor clicks on your advertisement. This way only people who are genuinely interested in your products/services and who are most likely to make a purchase are going to visit your site.
Apart from these above-mentioned ways, you should always remember that if you genuinely provide good service to your customers and keep creating content that’s worth their while, nothing can stop you!
