Having a website isn’t enough to be successful online. You need to draw in new customers by increasing traffic to your website. E-commerce marketing sounds daunting for sure, but you can get great results with just a few simple strategies. Let’s take a look at eight effective e-commerce techniques you’ll want to start using for your website today.
Use Images
Written content will always be important. Aside from providing info for the reader, the keywords in your written content help increase your position in the search results. However, you want to remember to spice up your written content with images.
These can be photographs, cartoons, illustrations, infographs or more. You can create your own or use images you find online. Images are a great way to convey complicated info plainly and universally. They also break up long blocks of text, which can be intimidating to readers.
Organize Your Site
According to Statistica, roughly 25% of all online shoppers will leave an online store if the navigation is too confusing. Your site should be clear and organized. Even a first-time user should be able to find what they’re looking for quickly.
Focus on labels, filters and parent categories. Keep your site map accurate, too. This will help search engines direct users to specific pages within your site.
Be Consistent and Memorable
Keep your website address simple and easy to remember. Also, keep your messaging clear across your entire web presence. Use the same logos, images and slogans across your site, social media pages, emails and everywhere else.
Describe Your Products in Detail
In a retail store, customers can see and touch a product. Of course, this isn’t possible when shopping online. Instead, you’ll need to use words and images to entice shoppers.
Keep your descriptions detailed but not too long. A maximum of 250 words per product description should be enough to convey information without making the reader lose interest. Using accurate and detailed bulleted points of key information makes product descriptions easily scannable by readers, so be sure to pick out a product’s most unique values.
Have an Active Blog
An active blog is great for two reasons:
- You create a connection between your brand and your customers
- Your site’s position in search engine results will increase
Blog about your industry. Don’t focus too much on promoting your own business or products. Instead, keep your reader up-to-date about general topics related to your product or service.
Inform your readers, too. Blog about current industry events. Ideally, you want readers to make reading your blog a regular habit. This helps build a long-term relationship between your brand and newly minted customers who will remember you for the long run.
Guest Blogging
You don’t want to restrict yourself to publishing blogs on your own site. Publishing blogs on other sites can be a great way to connect with a whole new audience as well as establish yourself as an authority in your industry; a valuable resource by users and in the eyes of search engines.
You’ll need to identify industry influencers. These are bloggers, reviewers, social media stars and others who are well-known in your industry. Ideally, you can build a relationship with an industry influencer and have your content published on their site.
Email Campaigns
Email is an effective way to reach someone. The idea is to connect with a customer by addressing their personal concerns. You’ll develop a series of emails. As customers respond to various calls-to-action in each email, you’ll then send additional emails to move the person through the conversion funnel.
Creating content is usually a great way to obtain email addresses from interested parties. Offer a how-to guide, white paper, podcast or something else related to your industry in exchange for the user’s email address. These can be great leads. After all, the person is already at least somewhat interested in your industry.
Highlight Satisfied Customers
People trust satisfied customers. Include testimonials on your website and social media pages. Over 80% of marketers believe testimonials and social proof directly contribute to increased sales.
Along these same lines, you also want to encourage customer reviews. Major review sites often prohibit directly asking for reviews. But you can still make reviewing your product easy by including direct links in a “Thank You” email sent out following a purchase.
The Secret to Success
Internet marketing for e-commerce purposes can seem like an ever-expanding topic. But you can get great results just from consistently executing numerous small steps. Keep the above strategies in mind. Smaller, simpler marketing efforts can pay off big!
Do you have any “must-do” e-commerce strategies? How have they helped your marketing efforts? Share your favorites in the comments below.