Strategies for e-commerce: how to increase traffic

The boom in online sales through e-commerce that we have witnessed in recent years has made competition on the web even tougher, but it has also opened up new communication channels and new opportunities from a marketing point of view. Increasing sales of your product or service through the website is now possible only by planning an adequate set of advertising strategies capable of attracting the interest of new targeted visitors and increasing direct traffic to the online store.

Identifying and planning effective solutions increases the visibility of your brand and your products, which will consequently be available to a wider customer base. It is important to invest in quality traffic, capable of generating a continuous and trustworthy relationship over time: it should not be forgotten that the primary goal is to bring people who are really interested in what your site offers closer. The higher the quality of traffic, the higher the conversion rate, i.e. the percentage of visitors who perform the planned action for them, whether it is a purchase or subscribing to the newsletter.

Let’s take a closer look at what are the best strategies for e-commerce, how they are applied and what results can be guaranteed in the short and long term.

How to optimize an e-commerce

SEO

SEO is often talked about, but what is it really referring to? We are talking about the set of strategies that improve the positioning of a site in search results so as to increase its visibility. An SEO strategy optimizes the structure of the site and identifies the keywords that characterize its products and services. If everything is done correctly, your e-commerce will appear among the first Google results, consequently attracting a larger number of visitors. In an e-commerce site, in particular, the SEO strategy must necessarily also apply to product sheets, for which descriptions, images and attributes become fundamental elements for correct positioning on search engines, in different languages and reference markets.

Quality content

It is essential to have a good positioning on search engines, but it is equally important to offer customers quality content, not only at a textual level but also in terms of images and videos. To create relevant material and achieve an increase in sales of your e-commerce, it is necessary to implement a targeted content marketing strategy based on user profiling and understanding of potential ones.

Mobile version

Consumer habits around the world are changing rapidly, today not only do most purchases take place via smartphone, but customers who use their mobile phone tend to buy and spend more. In fact, we are talking about Mobile Commerce or more briefly m-commerce: based on data provided by Shopify, in 2021 m-commerce purchases exceeded $359 billion and it is estimated that Retail sales worldwide will reach $739 billion by 2025. This means that your e-commerce must necessarily also be optimized in the mobile version, otherwise it will be excluded from the largest sales network in the world.

How to increase the sales of an e-commerce

Communicate on social media

The latest data shows that almost half of the world’s population is now present on social media. To increase the visibility of your e-commerce and therefore potential sales, it becomes essential to develop a multichannel advertising campaign. There are many platforms that offer you the opportunity to create an effective communication strategy both through free tools and tailor-made paid ads.

Facebook is the most used social media in the world: thanks to Facebook Ads you can implement a targeted advertising campaign by customizing, for example, the target of users according to interests and geolocation or highlighting new products and offers.

Instagram is the social media of the younger generation, characterized by a smarter and more interactive user base and a strong multimedia imprint. The platform provides you with various marketing tools such as hashtags, photos, stories and new reels. In this case, paid ads are a resource to use especially if the main slice of your site’s clientele is between 15 and 40 years old.

Google remains, however, the real platform useful for pushing and advertising your e-commerce site. Its operation is different from that of social media: a Google Ads campaign aims to reach users who have searched for those specific terms, called keywords, that you have chosen based on the services offered. The ads created thus appear among the first search results worldwide, with the additional possibility of also publishing them on YouTube.

What can not be missing in an e-commerce

Design

We have seen that in order to achieve an increase in sales of your e-commerce, it is necessary to increase daily traffic and how this passes through the implementation of some online marketing strategies capable of improving positioning, optimization and visibility. However, we must not neglect the browsing experience experienced by each user; it is in fact demonstrated that a pleasant design has the effect of prolonging the time spent. Today’s trends show a preference for scrolling sites and that large images encourage purchases, as do CTAs, buttons that invite customers to perform certain actions.

E-mail marketing

A widespread advertising campaign must also take advantage of communication via email. By inviting visitors to subscribe to your site’s newsletter, you will be able to reach them more easily, encouraging them to visit product sheets, sending them information on offers, promotions, new items in the catalog, etc.

CRM and Marketing Automation

To achieve maximum performance from your online sales channel, it is essential to have a clear and timely vision of your customers’ behavior. CRM therefore becomes an essential tool for managing an orderly database of your customers and contacts, the first step for data-driven marketing actions.

Marketing Automation strategies are able to support the marketing activities described in the previous chapters, pushing the user towards the last step of conversion: the sale. Thanks to automated workflows, it is in fact possible to define and automate follow-up processes that do not require time and human resources.

One of the main criticalities in the world of e-commerce is the abandoned cart, that is, a user who visits the site, adds a product to the cart but does not then convert into a purchase. Through a correct strategy and integration, it is possible to track abandoned carts and send automatic and profiled communications to reinvigorate interest and encourage final conversion.

Customer service

Compared to traditional stores, e-commerce is active 24 hours a day, so a user has the possibility to complete a purchase at any time of the day or night. This entails a new approach, with many people who want to always have detailed information on products, services and purchasing methods at their disposal. It is therefore convenient to equip your e-commerce with a 24-hour customer service to which your consumers can refer for any requests and clarifications. Today there are also interactive chats that provide quick and intuitive assistance.

Do you have an e-commerce or do you want to expand your business also towards the online world? Contact us!