There are billions of websites on the internet. Unless you are Amazon or eBay, you are probably struggling to attract motivated shoppers to your
Creating your website and social profiles is just the first step to increasing your visibility. What you do with these platforms will ultimately dictate how much traffic you are generating.
In this article, I will tell you the steps to take in order to drive more qualified traffic from your target audience.
1. Decide How Many Visitors You Need Daily
If you dive into any marketing strategy without a goal, it can be overwhelming and disorganized. So, first, you should set a goal of how many daily visitors you want to see on your site.
To decide on an attainable goal, let’s do some quick math.
Let’s say you are aiming to generate $100,000 in annual sales. Divide your total sales by the value of your average order, which we will say is $20.
The sum of that will tell you the number of annual orders you need to reach your sales goal. In this example, the number of sales you need is 5,000 (about 13 orders each day).
Let’s assume that you have a 2% conversion rate to attain 13 orders each day. That means you need about 650 daily visitors to reach 13 daily orders.
Now that you have a set goal in mind, you can shape your marketing strategy. Concrete numbers like this can help narrow your efforts to reach measurable goals.
Learn more: Online Store KPI: What It Is and How It Works
2. Start Your SEO
One of the main sources of your traffic comes from search engines, regardless of how
To get started with your SEO, you need to audit your site. Choose an SEO audit tool that can help you review and optimize all of your pages and products. Make sure you choose a tool that allows for competitor analysis and keyword tracking to maximize your optimization efforts.
A few popular tools that fit this description include Moz, WooRank, SEMRush, and aHrefs. Moz and WooRank offer a free trial to test the tool before you commit to paying, as well.
With a keyword tool, you will be able to see the volume and rank for each keyword you are targeting and how you are doing against your competition for that keyword.
WooRank’s Keyword tool displays the average monthly search volume for a particular keyword
Free keyword research tools can help you choose keywords for your
In order to rank for each product or page on your site, you need a solid keyword strategy. Every product page matters, so make sure you are optimizing each title, each meta description, and each keyword to make yourself more visible to your target audience.
If you need help with a keyword strategy, check out this helpful beginner’s guide.
Related: The
3. Craft Your Content for Your Target Audience
Don’t think just because you are an
Your product descriptions are a natural way to incorporate the keywords you worked so hard to identify. You can also choose the keywords that you know are easy to rank for and that drive conversions.
Urban Outfitters displays women’s jackets with product names
Urban Outfitters uses keywords in each product description
In order to craft your content to get seen by your target audience, follow these simple steps:
- Identify your target keywords using one of the keyword tools listed above.
- Write product descriptions that include your target keyword. For instance, if you are selling stain remover and you can rank highly for the keyword “stain remover for red wine,” you should include this long tail keyword in the product description.
- Add product images, and don’t forget to include the alt text for each image you use. Remember to only use images that are representative of the actual product and not something from the internet that is different from your actual product.
- Publish product videos on YouTube, like an unboxing video, using your target keywords.
- Share your videos on social media so that you get more exposure and clicks!
Related: How to Promote Your Online Store With Content Marketing
4. Tap Into the Influencer Market
Instagram has roughly 25% more engagement than other social media platforms — and the percentage of online shoppers that are influenced by social media recommendations is almost the same (23%).
You can actually capitalize on this platform to find influencers that could feature your brand or products to their thousands of followers. Finding the influencer is easier said than done, though. There is a tool called WEBSTA that is, essentially, a catalog of popular Instagram accounts and trending hashtags that can help you in your quest.
Search bar on WEBSTA
With WEBSTA, all you do is type your keyword into the search bar. The results will show you accounts related to that keyword; check the account’s followers to see if it would be worth reaching out and requesting a product feature. Obviously, provide a link that redirects to your site or product page.
Also read: How to Use
5. Run a Contest
Let’s face it
To run a contest, you should:
- Define your contest goals. Whether that’s driving traffic, building your email list or increasing social engagement, make sure you know what you are aiming to achieve.
- Decide who your target audience is for this contest, which can be defined by things like demographics, geographic location or social media usage.
- Choose your contest type, details, and prize. It’s easiest to run a sweepstakes contest that will garner lots of entries. It’s up to you how valuable you want your prize to be and how many winners you will have. For some prize ideas, check out this blog post.
- Create your Contest. Choose a great headline, write out the rules, deadline and how to enter, and pick a corresponding image.
- Promote, promote, promote! Send an email blast, change your website banner and post (frequently) on your social channels.
- Track your success using Google Analytics.
- Choose a winner, notify them, and post the results on your social channels.
You can also use a
While that is a good way to increase traffic to your
Learn more: 25 Proven Contest Ideas to Promote Your Online Business
6. Encourage Users to Leave Reviews
A recent study shows that 84% of shoppers trust reviews they read online. If you have users leave reviews (hopefully positive) you will rank higher in search results and users are more likely to click onto your site or social media page.
There are a few simple ways you can solicit reviews for your site without bombarding your customers.
- Ask! This might seem obvious, but ask your customers for feedback wherever it makes sense to do so. Don’t drown your site in CTAs, but if it is reasonable to ask for their feedback or opinion, don’t be shy!
- Email them — After a product has shipped and the customer has received their purchase is the best time to solicit a review. Ask them if they are enjoying their new iPhone case (for example) and make it easy for them to click onto your site and leave a quick review!
- Make reviews visible on your site — It’s important for users to know that they can leave a review without hunting for a place to do so.
- Publish the good and the bad — Your users need to feel reassured that their review will be published, no matter their opinion of the product. Censoring reviews will hurt your ability to earn new ones.
- Incentivize your customers — If you say that your product reviewers will be entered into a monthly draw or contest for a freebie, it will encourage them to participate.
User reviews can ensure your site has fresh and relevant content (a huge plus in Google’s eyes).
Related: How to Collect Customer Feedback and Use It to Build Trust
7. Siphon Your Competitors’ Traffic
Your competitors probably aren’t going to send you their Google Analytics
Using a free tool like SimilarWeb will give you enough to get started. You can see their estimated traffic, places in the world that their traffic is coming from, their referral sites and more.
The referral sites are something you should focus on, since obviously there are motivated customers coming from those places. Try to get featured on those sites with an advertisement placement or reaching out for a backlink to your site.
Similar Web shows the total visits, as well as other key stats
Similar Web shows your top referring sites as well as the sites your users are visiting from your site
Learn more: How to Analyze Competitors? 12 Questions and 9 Services
Conclusion
As with everything in digital marketing, whether you are an
If you know where your customers are coming from, and how many visits you need to get each day based on your conversion rate, you can start targeting them with specific keywords and
