In France alone, there are more than 207,000 online stores compared to 300,000 physical stores. E-commerce is on the rise, it's not new and above all, it's not about to stop!
For your business to thrive, your site must attract prospects or customers. Organic traffic is an indicator for measuring the number of visits to your website.
But how do you face the competition and attract some of the 40 million French people who have adopted online shopping on your site?
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| increase traffic on your e-commerce site |
Understand what organic traffic is.
To make the strategy you want to bring people to your site more effective and face your competitors, you must, among other things, improve organic traffic. So what are we talking about?
This traffic corresponds to the number of people who arrive on a site from a request made on search engines. This does not include clicks on commercial ads that correspond to paid traffic. They are generally recognized by their mention “announcement”. They are most often placed before natural links. This way they are more visible.
Your goal should be to increase organic traffic to your website. The goal is to reach more people. To do this, you need to become visible to search engine robots…
Why increase organic traffic?
There are a number of actions to take to improve your organic traffic. If you do what is necessary, you will benefit from advantages for your business:
- You will improve your SEO (natural referencing). Indeed, it is a virtuous circle. The better your organic traffic will be, and provided that your entire site is well configured for natural referencing, the more you will be visible to robots. This is how you will have the best chance of being positioned in the best places in search engines. This will generate better organic traffic…
- This will bring you prospects who are highly interested in your products or services because they will be well targeted.
- A well-selected target and qualified prospects lead to a better conversion rate
- If your site is in the first results of search engines, you will be considered by Internet users as "serious". You will therefore gain popularity and credibility.
- If you are in the best search engine placements, you gain an advantage over your competition
- The result of all these advantages will be a better conversion rate and therefore an increase in your sales and therefore your turnover.
15 techniques to increase the traffic of your e-commerce site
You have just discovered the benefits of growing your organic traffic. It's time to put it into practice.
Let's discover 15 techniques to increase traffic on your e-commerce site !
Register your e-commerce in an online directory
Online directories play an important role in the referencing of your e-commerce. They remain, again and again, an effective way to improve your visibility and increase traffic to your site.
The E-commerce Directory, Google My Business, Yellow Pages, the WebRankInfo directory, FranceSurf, Supernova… you have many platforms on which to register your store. You can take advantage of their authority to increase your ranking, provided you follow these tips:
- Make a list of those that are relevant to your industry and products.
- Add a link to your e-commerce to your profile.
- Include all the relevant information about your store to make people want to visit your merchant site.
- Regularly update details about your offers, prices and services.
Organize a promotion in the local press
Local publications and websites are always on the lookout for interesting stories. You can take advantage of this to increase your visibility and attract highly qualified traffic.
Find websites, newspapers and other media with a significant audience in your area. Contact them to propose a publication that brings value to the community. You can tell your story and emphasize the social engagement of your e-commerce.
For example, if your shop donates part of its profits to a local charity or participates in an ecological action, use this angle to promote yourself. You can, at the end of the article, offer a coupon for readers, and thus encourage them to visit your merchant site!
We can cite the site “Go see elsewhere”, which donates 20% of its profits to associations.
Create region-specific campaigns
Another way to take advantage of local marketing is to create region-specific advertising campaigns. Choose the one where your visitors come from the most.
To identify the cities or regions where your customers are located, analyze:
- Traffic to your website and blog
- The audience of your PPC campaigns
- Social Media Insights
- Your mailing list data
Then create geo-targeted campaigns on top locations. Depending on the channels already used, you can launch your campaigns on Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, LinkedIn Ads or Google Ads.
For this strategy to work, personalize the message by directly appealing to the target. For example, if you're running your ad in Paris, the message might start "Exclusively for Parisians" or "Dear Parisian friends..."
Another strategy: you can localize the content to publish on your blog. For example, if you sell clothes, you could write an article like: "10 comfortable pants to take the Paris metro in style".
Write top selling blog posts
43% of traffic to an e-commerce site comes from organic search. Take the opportunity to increase visits to your e-commerce!
How ? By creating consistent, useful content that meets the needs of your consumers. To do this, focus on your most popular products, then create content around those items.
Several formats are available to you (feel free to alternate them!):
- A how-to article related to the product
- A comparison with the competition
- A guide to choosing the right product for your needs
- A tutorial on how to use it well
In addition to promoting your bestsellers in these articles, also consider offering alternatives in case your stock runs out.
Transform your Instagram feed into e-commerce
Instagram is 21 million users each month in France! 69% of Internet users aged 15 to 24 use this social network.
What if you take advantage of this success to increase traffic on your e-commerce? There are apps that turn your Instagram feed into an online store . If a product appeals to one of your followers, it is redirected to your merchant site to make the purchase. An effective strategy to boost sales!
How does it work ? Platforms like Like2Buy, Snapppt or Like2Have.it include a link in your bio that duplicates your Instagram feed. You must, for each photo, tag the product(s) shown with a link to the product sheet. This allows Internet users to quickly navigate to the page of the articles that interest them.
Publish your e-commerce on Reddit or on forums in general
Reddit might not be the first platform you think of for promoting your e-commerce. However, it includes forums and groups that constitute a qualified niche to attract traffic to your site.
Passionate consumers meet there to discuss, ask questions and share advice. Take the opportunity to promote your products. How ?
- Share tips and tutorials
- Always include a link to a product on your store
For this strategy to be effective, you need to join channels discussing topics related to your industry. This will be all the more effective if you are in a niche market that brings together passionate people.
Build Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp Lists
Messengers like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are an excellent alternative to emails and SMS.
Especially since these platforms generate a significant open rate: 70 to 90% for Facebook Messenger. In addition, a Messenger user generates 4 to 5 times more income than a subscriber to your mailing list!
As for WhatsApp, deliverability is approaching 100% and the open rate is 70%, as explained in our WhatsApp marketing file .
To build a list of subscribers and promote dialogue via these messaging applications, here are some best practices to follow:
- Target audiences similar to email subscribers with Click-to-Messenger or Click-to-WhatsApp ads.
- Use the “Comment-to-Messenger” feature to contact users who comment on your Facebook posts. Be careful, however, to do it in a subtle way, bringing added value, so as not to spam your subscribers.
- Offer to inform about the availability of products via Messenger or WhatsApp.
- Create a landing page dedicated to your Messenger campaigns.
- Add your WhatsApp number to the Facebook page and embed a widget on your site.
For example, Gemmyo jewelry encourages visitors to its e-commerce site to ask their questions via WhatsApp. This allows users to collect their personal information and integrate it into their lead nurturing list.
Leveraging Pinterest Rich Pins
Pinterest influences the purchasing decision of 53% of French people. 58% of users discover a new product or brand on the platform. To increase traffic on your e-commerce, this is the social network to bet on!
An option to use in particular: the rich pins ! They automatically pull information from your website to add to your posts. This makes users know your product information and want to visit your online store.
Your e-commerce can benefit from 2 main rich pins:
- Article Rich Pins to drive traffic to your blog posts
- Product Rich Pins to send users to your listings,
But that's not all ! Pinterest also offers you to download your product catalog to allow users to browse all of your items. A powerful feature to generate visits to your site from the social network.
Take advantage of Outreach Marketing opportunities
To increase traffic to your e-commerce, you need the help of experts and influencers in your industry. This is where Outreach Marketing comes in!
You establish a relationship with bloggers, sites and other influencers so that they promote your products, and your e-commerce in general.
You can try several strategies:
- Guest posts on recognized blogs
- Invite an expert to your blog or social networks to share advice related to your business, or their favorite products
- Developing an Affiliate Marketing Strategy
Collaborate with an influencer
There are many techniques in influencer marketing. For example, you can:
- Ask influencers to post their opinion on a product on their blog or social networks.
- Co-host a live with an influencer, on your social networks or theirs.
- Interview or be interviewed.
- Gather opinions or advice from influencers in content.
Optimize broken links on your store
Broken links remain frequent on an e-commerce. They usually come from expired promo code, invalid affiliate links, unavailable products, etc.
In addition to hurting your customers' experience, they reduce traffic in the long run. Remember that these links are referenced in Google. So if a user arrives on an error page, he will immediately leave the site.
Perform regular audits to detect and fix broken links. You can also :
- Use 301 redirects to relevant product categories
- Refresh error pages with product suggestions
- Offer a live chat to provide personalized assistance
Enjoy podcasting
Podcasts help you attract new traffic . Few e-commerces offer their own show, so it's a way to stand out and attract consumers.
Podcasts accompany daily life, they are listened to at the gym, on the bus or during a walk at lunchtime. However, unlike a blog post or social media post, there is no call-to-action to click while listening.
To generate traffic, you must therefore use other techniques:
- Include links in your podcast descriptions
- Transcribe the episodes on your blog and integrate calls to action
- Retarget your listeners via remarketing campaigns on Google Ads or Social Media Ads
Maximize your product sheets
When a user clicks on your site's link, it's because they want to see your products. It is therefore more than important to make your product sheets as attractive as possible.
They must include all the information necessary for the decision-making of your prospect or client. We must find there the price, the number in availability, the modes and delivery times as well as the price of this one.
A detailed description of the product with the possible variables (sizes, colors, etc.)
If there are possible options, indicate them in such a way as to arouse the desire to inquire or to buy.
Pay attention to the quality of your photos and offer several so that the prospect has a precise visual of the product. You can also opt for a video presentation of your product.
Use emailing
If the trend seems to highlight this strategy system less, it is not to be thrown away. Sending well-directed and targeted emails can really increase your traffic.
Indeed, while the use of lists in order to send a maximum of mail to a large audience is not very viable, because more often than not, they end up in spam.
The best thing is to target your audience well to reach them and improve their traffic. For this, you can collect emails through newsletters, or by allowing them to register on your site.
Make an interesting promotional offer by registering on your site or on the newsletter.
To collect e-mails from prospects before they have visited your site, consider visiting specialized blogs and offer them a partnership to be able to access their visitors' e-mails.
SEO (natural referencing) and SEA
This is the secret weapon for well thought out and effective organic traffic. There are 2 types of SEO:
- SEO
We are talking about positioning on search engines in the best rankings, and all this completely free of charge.
Several techniques allow you to create a well-referenced site in a natural way.
- Paid referencing
The SEA (paid referencing) allows you to position yourself in the first places of the search engines by paying. This technique has the advantage of being almost instantaneous and therefore you will receive leads more quickly on your site.
On the other hand, you have to pay as much time as you want to appear in the first places.
There is also an auction system with your competitors. Indeed, if someone offers a more interesting bid, it will pass in front of you. This can then be quite expensive.