Once you’ve identified your target audience, you’ll need to attract them to your e-commerce site. One of the most effective ways to do this is through traffic generation. In the past, many e-commerce stores have used SEO (search engine optimization) and paid search advertising to attract visitors to their websites.
However, other traffic-generating strategies are becoming more popular these days. These include Tik-Tok marketing (a mobile app), video marketing, and gamification (where your customers earn points for purchases).
By understanding these emerging trends in online marketing and applying them in your e-commerce website promotion strategy, you’ll be able to increase visitor numbers and boost sales for your business. This article explains the latest developments in traditional traffic-generating marketing approaches. You’d also learn how to apply the latest tactics to increase your website’s visibility among shoppers so you can increase sales.
50 Ways To Drive Traffic To Your eCommerce Site
Traffic to your website can come from either paid or organic sources. Both types of traffic require a different strategy—from SEO optimization to advertising on search engines. This section will cover 50 ways to drive traffic to your eCommerce site using organic and paid sources.
Website Optimization Strategies
You can drive organic traffic to your e-commerce store by optimizing it for search engines. Here are a few strategies that work:
1. Optimize your website for mobile devices
If you don’t have a mobile-friendly website, you can lose a lot of traffic from people using smartphones and other mobile devices. Google has been pushing for a universal web experience since 2015 when it introduced its “mobile-friendly” algorithm update. Your site needs to be coded to allow users to easily navigate through your content while on the go. You can optimize your site by ensuring it loads quickly on all devices and using responsive design to adapt automatically to different screen sizes.
2. Improve your website load speed
Your website’s load speed is a huge factor in your search rankings. Google considers a site’s speed when ranking it in its search results, so if your site takes too long to load, you can end up with lower rankings than you deserve. There are several things you can do to improve your site’s loading speed:
- Use a content delivery network (CDN) to serve your images from a location near your visitors
- Minimize the number of resources needed to load a page by reducing the size of images, scripts, and stylesheets
- Minimize the number of redirects on your site
- Avoid plugins that slow down your site (e.g., ad blockers)
- Enable browser caching to reduce the amount of bandwidth your site uses
3. Create better product descriptions
The better your product descriptions, the more likely you are to improve your organic traffic. You should include a detailed description of what each product does, its benefits, and its features. This will help you rank higher in search results. The average product page is around 1,000 words and contains an image, a title, and a description. If you have more than one product, create a separate page for each. Search engines will index each individual product page, which will help you rank higher in search results.
4. Improve Your Product Photography
Product photos are the first thing a customer sees when looking for a product, so making them as appealing as possible makes sense. The more attractive your photos look, the more likely users will click through to your website. If your products look unappealing or cluttered, you’ll lose sales. The best way to improve product photography is by hiring a professional photographer. You can also use a solution like PhotoShop, which lets you easily edit and retouch images.
5. Incorporate Live Chat Functionality Into Your Website
Live chat is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your website. It’s an effective tool for customer service, but it can also be used as a sales tool. When your customers are looking for information, they may search online and find your site’s live chat icon. When they click on it, they’ll see an instant conversation box where they can ask questions or inquire about products or services.
6. Install the best eCommerce plugins on your site
You can use many plugins to make your eCommerce site better. If you want to attract more traffic, your site must have all the necessary tools before setting up shop. Select an SEO-friendly eCommerce plugin, such as WooCommerce, that will allow you to create product pages, optimize the checkout process, tailor the shopping experience, and more.
7. Add User Generated Content
Many buyers attest that reviews have helped them make purchase decisions. You can generate more user-generated content by
- asking your customers to write reviews
- submit product photos and videos, and
- answer questions about their experience with your products.
You can also run contests for users to submit the best photos or videos that showcase your products. Adding reviews and testimonials can also help you increase organic search traffic. You can add user-generated content to your products and services pages.
8. Add Trust Signals to the Website
When people are presented with many options online, trust can distinguish you to get more traffic. Trust signals for eCommerce websites include badges like TRUSTe and BBB, reviews from third parties such as Yelp and Google reviews, and social media engagement on Facebook and Twitter. The more trust signals you have, the more likely people will buy from your site. Adding a behind-the-scene video is also a great way to show people you’re legit. Having a video of your e-commerce store in action can help build trust and credibility.
Content Marketing Strategies
You can drive organic traffic to your e-commerce store by producing high-quality content that addresses the needs of your target audience. The more relevant and valuable your content is, the more likely it will be shared on social media and other websites. When people share your content, they also share links back to your site—which drives traffic directly to your product pages.
Here are a few content marketing strategies to drive traffic to your eCommerce site:
9. Publish a Blog and Populate It With Helpful Content
Your blog is a great way to build your brand, establish yourself as an authority in your field and drive traffic back to your eCommerce store. You can write about anything relevant to the products you sell—from how-to guides and tutorials for using them to personal stories about their benefits. Use tools like Google Analytics or HubSpot’s Website Grader to measure how much traffic each post generates and which content performs best with different audiences.
10. Use Your Product Descriptions To Tell Stories
The best product descriptions tell a story about what the product does and how it can help your customers. Use this space to share anecdotes and case studies from actual users of your product who have experienced its benefits firsthand. This helps build trust with potential buyers and makes them feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves.
11. Publish An Informative, In-Depth Guide
A guide is a great way to share your expertise with potential customers. It allows you to showcase your knowledge of a particular topic and can be used as a lead generator for sales pitches down the road. Use your buyer personas to help you create a guide that addresses their specific needs. This will ensure that your content is relevant and valuable to them.
12. Get Involved In Online Groups And Forums
Join online groups and forums relevant to your business, and participate in discussions. If you can answer questions or provide helpful information, people will often link to your website or share your content with other groups they belong to. This is a great way to build relationships with influencers in your industry. It’s also a great way of driving traffic back to your site.
13. Do Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is another great way to drive traffic back to your site. If you write a blog post for someone else’s website, and they link back to your website in the article, it will help increase your rankings in Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). You can also use this strategy to drive traffic from other sites by creating content that answers questions on topic-specific forums or LinkedIn groups.
14. Distribute Your Content Widely (Cross-Channel Content Marketing)
You can use the same content on multiple channels to drive traffic and increase your web presence. This is an excellent strategy for getting more eyes on your website, increasing lead generation, and boosting sales. If you write an article about how Instagram Stories can improve customer engagement—and why brands should be using them—you could share it on LinkedIn groups where influencers are discussing these topics.
15. The Use Of Infographics To Simplify Complex Information
Infographics are one of the most effective ways to simplify complex information. An infographic is a visual representation of data that can help readers understand information more quickly and easily. Infographics can be used in any industry, but they’re beneficial for eCommerce sites that sell complicated products or services (like computers or plumbing). Another way to use infographics is by creating an infographic that compares your products with your competitors.
16. Podcast & Videos
Create a podcast or video series on a topic related to your brand and use it as a way to promote your products. For example, if you’re an online retailer of travel accessories, consider creating an online travel podcast where you interview influencers in the industry. Or, if you sell fashion accessories such as hats and scarves, make videos showing how women can style them into different looks.
17. Answer Customer Questions and Complaints
If your store sells the same products as competitors, you’re probably familiar with the issues that frustrate your customers. Maybe it’s an issue with shipping times or prices or a question about return policies or product defects. These are things that people need help with, and they will turn to Google when they can’t find a solution. Use keyword research tools like Ubersuggest to see what questions people ask about your products. Then write blog posts addressing those questions.
18. Create Listicles
People love to read lists! If you have an extensive catalog of products, or if your store sells many different types of things, create a listicle highlighting the best-selling items in each category. If you can make a listicle containing keywords related to your products, you’ll help build links for those pages while boosting their search rankings
Search Engine Optimization Strategies
Another way to organically drive traffic to your eCommerce site is with search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. These longer-term strategies will help your site rank higher in search engines like Google and Bing.
Some of the simplest SEO strategies are listed below, but our experts can help you craft an individualized content marketing strategy to get you the results you seek.
19. On-page Optimization
This type of optimization refers to how your site’s content is written and coded. It covers site architecture, page titles, meta descriptions, and keyword density. Analyze your website for on-page optimization issues, and then make changes to your website’s content and code. This can involve hiring an SEO expert or learning how to do it yourself.
20. Link Building
Links from other websites are a great way to get traffic to your eCommerce site. You can earn links by creating helpful content that inspires others to link back to yours, or you can buy links on sites that allow paid advertising. There are many different types of links that you can use to increase your traffic, including:
- Internal links link from one page on your website to another.
- External links, which link from your website to another site.
- No-follow links don’t pass along the power of a backlink but still help with search engine optimization (SEO).
21. Get listed in Local Directories
Getting listed in local directories is an excellent way to drive traffic to your eCommerce site. These directories include sites like Yelp, Yellow Pages, and Google My Business. These are important because they will help you get found by local customers searching for businesses in their area.
22. Be Consistent With Your Audits and Evaluations
You don’t only need to drive traffic to your eCommerce site, you also need to keep it. Evaluating your eCommerce site for broken links, duplicate content, and other issues affecting how search engines rank it is essential. You should also regularly audit your site for technical SEO issues like using proper extensions for files, having valid HTML code, and using Google’s cache manifest to speed up load times.
23. Use Alt Tags On Images
Use alt tags on your pictures to help search engines understand what the images are about. This will make it easier for people who can’t see your site (like visually impaired users) to find it in search results. Also, alt tags help Google, and other search engines determine which products are most important on your site and display them at the top of the page.
24. Create a Sitemap
Sitemaps are the best way to get your site indexed by search engines. A sitemap is an XML file that contains the list of all your pages on the site. It includes their titles and URLs. It also contains links to these pages, images, videos, and other media files. The sitemap should be placed in the root directory of your website and submitted to Google Search Console.
25. Use Keyword Placement To Rank Higher
Knowing what keywords your customers are searching for when they visit your site is essential. You can use a free tool like Google Keyword Planner Tool to find out which keywords are relevant and popular with your customers. This will help you focus on optimizing the content of your website, including product descriptions and titles, for those keywords.
Paid Traffic
Paid Social Media Marketing Strategies
Although social media can generate organic traffic to your website, it is much more effective to drive paid traffic. Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram allow you to target specific audiences and optimize ads based on their interests.
If you want to generate more targeted traffic to your e-commerce site, here are some paid social marketing strategies:
26. Pinterest Sponsored Pins
Pinterest is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms and is especially popular among women. To reach this audience, you should consider running a sponsored pin campaign. This advertising allows you to promote your product on Pinterest by targeting specific interest groups like “women’s fashion” or “home decorating.”
27. Use Instagram Sponsored posts
Instagram allows you to create sponsored posts that appear in your target audience’s feed. These ads can be videos or photos with a link to your website. Sponsored posts on Instagram are more effective than other social media platforms because they are less disruptive and more visual. They allow you to showcase your products in action, making them appealing to the Instagram user base.
28. Create Facebook Ads
Facebook ads are a great way to generate traffic to your eCommerce site. You can target specific audiences based on their interests, location, and other demographic factors. Facebook’s targeting options allow you to reach users who are most likely to convert into customers for your business. This is one of the reasons why Facebook ads are so effective.
29. Run LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn is a popular social media platform among professionals. To target this audience, consider running a paid campaign on LinkedIn. You can use it to promote your products or services by targeting specific industries, like “marketing and advertising” or “technology.”
30. Snapchat and Tiktok Ads
Snapchat and Tiktok are two of the fastest-growing social media platforms. They have millions of users, mostly between 18-35 years old. Although Snapchat is known for its disappearing messages, you can use it for advertising your products by creating sponsored snaps and stories. If you have an e-commerce website that sells clothes or accessories, then Tiktok would be a great place to create videos with product demos and tutorials on how to wear them.
Email Marketing Strategies
Emails have long been used as a method of promoting e-commerce websites. It can be used to drive free or sponsored traffic to your store.
Here are some email marketing strategies that will increase eCommerce store traffic:
31. Send an email to your list of subscribers and ask them to visit, share or buy from your store.
32. Create a giveaway contest and promote it in your store emails. You can offer free products as prizes or even free shipping if they spend a certain amount above their current cart total.
33. Start sending out regular newsletters. The newsletter should be content-rich, including tips and tricks for using your store.
34. Use email marketing platforms such as MailChimp or ConvertKit to send out newsletters regularly.
36. Use social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to promote your emails via paid ads.
Influencer Marketing Strategies
Influencer marketing can help you drive traffic to your e-commerce store. It involves working with influencers who have a strong following on social media. You can also use this strategy to drive traffic, increase brand awareness and generate leads. The idea behind it is that people trust recommendations from their peers more than they trust brands.
Here are some common influencer marketing strategies that can drive traffic to your e-commerce site:
37. Work With Micro-Influencers
Micro-influencers have anywhere from 1,000 to 100,000 followers on social media. They usually have a very niche following that is highly targeted. You can work with micro-influencers organically by asking them to share your content or product on their social channels. This strategy works best when promoting a new product launch or a sale event where the influencer can recommend what products to buy and how much they cost.
38. Get a Celebrity Endorsement
Celebrities have a huge following, so they can be an effective way of driving traffic to your e-commerce store. You might consider working with a celebrity who is interested in the niche you serve or is known for endorsing products.
39. Collaborate With Famous Bloggers In Your Niche
By connecting with a blogger, you can tell them about your business. How you can collaborate to create content you can share with their audience. This strategy is particularly effective if the blogger has a large, engaged following on social media. Once they write about your product, people will see it and be more likely to visit your e-commerce store.
40. Use Social Media Influencers
Like bloggers, social media influencers are trendy in today’s market. Both bloggers and social media influencers can help each other gain publicity for their products or services by creating posts around the same topic.
41. Use Influencers To Test and Review Products
It’s a common strategy to use influencers to test and review products. The influencer can then post their reviews on social media channels, driving traffic to your site. You can also have them share links to your site with their audience.
42. Offer Influencer Partnership Deals
Suppose you want to work with an influencer but don’t want them reviewing your product. In that case, you can offer them a partnership or affiliate deal. This means you give them a percentage of sales that come through their link or social media posts. You can also offer a one-time fee for them to promote your product in their posts.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising Strategies
PPC advertising is one of the most popular ways to drive traffic to your eCommerce site. It’s also a very effective method, as you can target specific groups of people based on their location, demographics, and interests.
There are two main types of paid advertising:
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Display Advertising.
- SEM includes pay-per-click advertising on search engines like Google or Bing; it may consist of sponsored listings within organic search results.
- Display advertising is a form of paid advertising that appears on websites and within applications. It can be highly targeted but tends to cost more than other types of paid advertising because it reaches more specific audiences.
Since using PPC to promote your e-commerce will cost you money, it’s critical to have the plan to minimize waste and increase performance. The following PPC marketing tactics can assist you in increasing traffic:
43. Google Merchant Center ads
Offer products in a niche market. Google Merchant Center ads can be an effective way to attract new visitors to your site. This is because Google will crawl your site and pull product data into its database. It is then used to display relevant ads on other sites where people are searching for similar items. The click-through rate (CTR) for these ads can be as high as 2%, which is significantly higher than regular search traffic from Google.
44. Focus on Search Ads
You need to focus on search ads to drive traffic to your site. The reason is that they’re the most effective way to drive traffic to a site. In fact, 65% of all visitors who visit an e-commerce site do so through search engines like Google or Bing ). You can target specific keywords that people use to search for products or services similar to yours. By bidding on these keywords, you’ll be able to show up in the top results and drive traffic directly from the search engine results page (SERP).
45. Product Listing Ad
Product listing ads are a great way to drive traffic to your website. These ads appear at the top of search results, next to organic listings, showing a product image, price, and description. You can also target these ads by category or keyword for maximum ROI.
46. Use Remarketing Ads
Google remarketing ads and Facebook retargeting options significantly increase traffic and conversions. Using these tools, you can create ads that will show up on the pages of websites people visit after visiting your site. This allows you to reach out to individuals who may not have been ready to purchase when they visited your e-commerce store. But might be interested in buying later on down the line. Remarketing ads are highly effective because they allow you to reconnect with potential customers at the right time as they browse through different sites online.
47. A Pay-Per-Click Campaign With Email Marketing Software
With the right email marketing software, you can create an email marketing campaign that automatically sends promotional offers to customers who have made purchases from your online store. This is a great way to get more sales and increase brand awareness. When people see that they’re receiving exciting information from your company, they’re likely to visit again to learn more about your offer.
Try eCommerce Gamification Strategies
eCommerce Gamification uses game mechanics to drive user engagement and increase sales. The basic premise is that by rewarding users with points, badges, leaderboards, and other types of achievement badges, they’ll be more likely to return
Gamification can also increase traffic by incentivizing users to share content on social media and drive traffic through links often embedded in badges or leaderboards.
Here are the most successful eCommerce Gamification strategies and how they can be used to drive traffic to your site:
48. Points for Sharing Your Content on Social Media
The most basic way to use eCommerce Gamification is to reward users with points for sharing your content on social media. This can be done using a leaderboard, which shows how many shares each user has earned and where they rank relative to their peers.
49. Make use of Competitions
Competitions are a great way to drive traffic and increase engagement. You can use them as a reward for reaching certain milestones in your site or even just as an incentive to get users involved with your brand. To create competition, first, decide what you want your users to do—this could be anything from making a purchase or sharing content on social media. Create some sort of leaderboard that tracks their progress towards this goal. Then, reward the top performers with badges or prizes (if you’re giving away physical items).
50. Use Gamification To Drive Traffic Through Social Media
More potential customers will see your product if your existing customers share the buzz about it on social media. However, It’s not enough just to have a loyalty program. You have to incentivize your customers with points, badges, leaderboards, and other achievement badges. You can also use this method to drive traffic by showing off your favorite customers and the most loyal shoppers.
Drive Traffic to your eCommerce site: Paid vs. Non-Paid Strategy
Ecommerce attracts visitors to their shops by paying for it or promoting their store on social media and other platforms. Both are equally important, but you should know how to use each strategy effectively to maximize your revenue without spending too much.
What is Paid Traffic?
Paid traffic is the act of driving visitors to your eCommerce store using paid advertising. There are many different ways to do this: search engine marketing, social media advertising, retargeting, and remarketing.
Paid traffic requires you to spend money. The more you spend and the better your ads are, the more likely you will get visitors who buy something.
What Is Non-Paid (Organic) Traffic?
Non-paid traffic is when people find your website on their own without you paying for it. It can include search engine optimization (SEO), social media promotion, and building relationships with influencers. This is often more beneficial to an online store, as visitors finding you organically are genuinely searching for you and your products on their own. As such organic content marketing strategies are some of the best ways to drive traffic to an eCommerce site.
You can also earn non-paid traffic by getting links from other websites. This is called “link building,” a pervasive way to get new visitors to your site.
You can use Google Analytics to see how many people come to your website through organic search results (instead of paid ads).
Here are the advantages of organic traffic:
- This type of organic traffic is much cheaper than paid traffic. Note we are not claiming it to be “free” traffic, as you will have to invest in quality content writing services and content marketing strategy or learn to master these skills on your own.
- You can get quality leads from organic traffic because it comes from people actively looking for your product or service.
- This type of organic traffic is much less likely to be affected by changes in Google’s algorithms.
- You don’t have to worry about click fraud or bots (which can be a problem with paid traffic).
Key Differences Between Paid and Organic Traffic for e-commerce
Cost
Paid traffic is more expensive than organic traffic. The exact price will vary based on your industry and location. Still, on average, you can expect to pay about $1 for every 100 impressions (or CPM), which means that a 1000-view video ad would cost around $10.
Quality
Paid traffic is more likely to be high-quality. This is because you have more control over who sees your ad and can exclude people who aren’t likely to convert. On the other hand, organic traffic may attract people more interested in entertainment than buying a product.
Traffic Volume
Paid traffic tends to have a higher traffic volume than organic. This is because you can pay for a certain number of impressions daily, and any views beyond that are accessible. On the other hand, organic traffic is only as good as your content and how it performs on social media. If you post something that goes viral, it might attract more viewers than paid ads. However, this isn’t likely to happen unless you have an established audience already.
Targeting
This area where paid traffic has a significant advantage over organic traffic. Paid traffic can be targeted based on demographics, interests, and prior purchases. This means that you can reach people who are more likely to become customers than simply relying on your content’s performance.
Impact
Paid traffic is more likely to directly impact your business than organic traffic. As we mentioned, paid ads can be tracked and measured based on how much they cost per click or impression. This means that you can easily see if your investment in advertising is paying off.
How To Test Your Ecommerce SEO Strategy
When considering traffic strategy, an eCommerce business must consider its resources, how they want to present itself, and its target audience.
Often a blend of paid and non-paid traffic is often what is used, always prioritizing non-paid content marketing to drive the vast majority of traffic.
Nonetheless, no matter what type of campaign and strategy you try, testing and measuring results is essential. Data can give you a good insight into which traffic strategy brings more success to your e-commerce store.
Here is how to do that:
1. Your strategy in a nutshell
Your strategy should be based on two things:
- How much can you afford to spend on your first test, and
- What type of traffic (paid or non-paid) will give you the best results?
You have to create a list of potential traffic sources. The best way to do this is by brainstorming where you could find people online who may be interested in your products. Once you have a long list, start narrowing it down by choosing only the relevant and cost-effective ones for your budget.
2. Decide on your objectives
You should know precisely what you want to achieve with your traffic. Is it just brand awareness? Or do you want people to buy something right away?
Your objectives will help guide the rest of your decisions. If your main goal is to increase revenue, then paid traffic might be a better fit for your business. With this approach, you will have to pay for every click from an ad on Facebook or Google AdWords.
However, free organic traffic may be your best option to build brand awareness and customer loyalty through organic search engine optimization (SEO).
3. Metrics you should track
Once you have a solid understanding of your goals, it’s time to track the results. You should track the types of traffic coming to your site, how much time they spend on it, and which pages they visit.
You can also measure how many people are clicking on your ads and where they’re clicking. Finally, you need to know what actions people take after seeing your content—making a purchase or simply leaving the page.
To test between paid and organic traffic, metrics you need to track include:
- Sales by source
- Average order value by source
- Customer lifetime value by source
If you aren’t tracking these metrics yet, some tools can help:
- Google Analytics: This free tool lets you understand how customers use your website. You can see where traffic comes from and what they do once they land on your site. It also allows you to create custom reports based on different audiences (such as mobile users or customers who visited multiple pages).
- Google Search Console: This free tool helps you understand how customers find your site. It gives you data on the number of impressions. It clicks your site receives from Google search results, plus information about how people interact with your website when they land there.
- Facebook Analytics: This free tool helps you understand how customers use Facebook ads. It shows your audience’s demographics, where they’re located, what types of devices they use, and what interests them (such as travel or food).
You should track the types of traffic coming to your site, how much time they spend on it, and which pages they visit. You can also measure how many people are clicking on your ads and where they’re clicking.
Finally, you need to know what actions people take after seeing your content—making a purchase or simply leaving the page.
Need help reading and understanding the data you are collecting? Learn how to read an SEO report here.
Create a testing framework
When testing paid and organic traffic, try an A/B test. This is a great way to determine which traffic source works best for you and your store. Set up your testing framework by creating two identical pages that are different in only one aspect: the traffic source.
For example, if you want to test paid vs. organic traffic, you can create two identical pages and build a landing page for each. Then, you’ll need to set up a tracking system to see how many visitors come from paid and organic sources. Your testing framework will be complete when you can tell which traffic source is more profitable for your store.
Set up your full-funnel tests
After setting up your testing framework, it’s time to run full-funnel tests. These tests check how different traffic sources perform at each stage of the sales funnel: from a visitor entering your store through making a purchase.
To do this, you’ll need to set up tracking for each page. This will tell you how many visitors came from organic search, paid search, and social media sources like Facebook and Twitter. You’ll also want to track where those visitors go after they land on your homepage or landing page.
Paid vs. Organic traffic: which is the best strategy for eCommerce?
Ecommerce must consider its resources, how they want to present itself, and its target audience when considering traffic strategy. A well-balanced mix of paid and organic traffic is the best way to drive more traffic to your eCommerce site.
However, an organic content marketing strategy is always the first choice for any website, including online stores. If you properly implement SEO and produce high-quality optimized content, driving a steady stream of organic traffic to your site will come naturally. You can then build out your paid search campaigns and use them sparingly for specific, punctual goals. This allows you to see what products resonate with your audience and which don’t. Furthermore, you can use data from your SEO and content marketing campaigns to guide your paid search strategy, if you do decide to implement one later on and obtain better results from it.
Need help getting started? Let our experts help you drive organic traffic to your site using optimized content writing and landing page copy.