You’ve been living under a rock if you haven’t noticed that eCommerce sales have been booming. Each day more and more consumers rather do their shopping online, which presents a dilemma of sorts for retailers. They certainly have their work cut out for them if they want to get noticed and/or keep their business above water.
The problem is – what if these retailers don’t have the funds or budget for paid ads? Are they fated to becoming obsolete? No! The answer is absolutely not!
Approximately half of the population of consumers prefer to shop on online eCommerce stores. Awesome news for retailers, such as yourself, right…?
However, with the rapid generation of online marketplaces and an abundance of options provided to customers, it is quite difficult to get the recognition that is required to drive traffic and revenue to your website.
Fortunately, you won’t need an enormous advertising budget, which will increase the traffic of your eCommerce store.
Below we are going to give you 10 methods that will increase traffic to eCommerce stores without purchasing ads:
Referral Marketing Programs. If you haven’t acquired a referral program to place for your eCommerce shop – then it is time that you get one going!
You see, approximately 81 percent of consumers have said that referrals from family and/or friends have had a great deal of influence in the places where they make certain purchases.
It doesn’t have to be complicated. Simply add an easy and quick way for your customers and/or visitors to be able to see recommendations and/or reviews. It will take a little effort and dedication on your part – but this is important and should matter to you:
Customers, who that you’ve acquired via referrals have a lifetime value that’s 25 percent higher than any other of your customers.
In fact, this was the case for Dropbox. Within a period of fifteen months, they grew from 100,000 users to more than four million users and this was all accomplished by their referral program.
You can simply offer a 5% or 10% discount on your website to refer a friend which can start the chain of referrals.
Pins That Are Buyable. For instance, Pinterest provides its users with a one of a kind feature, which allows their uses to look for products and purchase them directly on their Pinterest website.
The majority of Social Media networks are “pay for play” in regards to direct links and ads. Thus far, this unique feature on Pinterest is absolutely free to you. So, put it to good use!
Online retailers have access to buyable pins for free and they can simply set up an easy way for visitors to search and find products quickly. Did you think that Pinterest was simply some kind of a virtual, window shopping experience? No, it isn’t… In fact, 87 percent of Pinterest users make purchases based on something that they have pinned. This method is called Rich Pins which lets you display price and availability of the product. You can also show a recipe ingredient, map and phone number.
Image source: Searchengineland
Upselling! Smaller eCommerce online shops disregard one of the most attainable selling tools in their stock, which is up selling!
There’s a major misconception that this method isn’t worth the effort, however, that’s not the case… When you upsell you will drive approximately four percent of more sales with just your current customers alone. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it sure does add up if you consider your whole revenue stream.
For example, the 1st year that Amazon dabbled with upselling on their platform – their sales increased by 35 percent!
It is 68 percent more costly to acquire a new customer than to upsell to a customer that you already have. Upsell works when you list related products on the product detail page or the cart page. This way customer can view similar items with different prices and variety.
Create Content With An Edge. When creating content in regards to your products, always include your one of a kind value proposition in mind…
What is a “Value Proposition?”
Value proposition may sound like some made up, fancy term that’s making a buzz. However, it is the one thing that makes your company absolutely unique! It represents your take/perception on the service and/or product that hundreds of other businesses may also be offering, but none of them do it in the fashion that you do or hold the same values.
The visitors on your website may spend about 15 to 20 seconds on a page. You need to utilize each of these seconds to emphasize why your products and/or services provide something that no else can possibly offer or guarantee. It can be a payment plan, financing, free shipping or a free gift that drives sales and decreases cart abandonment.
Website Speed. How’s the speed on you eCommerce website? If you haven’t checked it as of late, then maybe you should…
If your eCommerce website takes longer than three seconds in loading, you can potentially lose approximately 50 percent of your visitors. People are in a rush. Your website needs to keep up with the pace.
Unfortunately, once a visitor leaves – chances are that you won’t be able to lure them back. About eighty percent of users who become impatient and frustrated with a website won’t be visiting again.
Check the performance on the speed of your website using free Google tool.
Use Social Proof. About 92 percent of consumers rely on the reviews and recommendations from peers. 70 percent of users trust the recommendations made by complete strangers.
Social proof is exactly what it implies… It’s concrete proof from peers or a large portion of the population, who have gained respect and trust from a particular brand enough to purchase it.
All the product pages on Amazon contain social proof via reviews. Social proof will drive in sales, as people searching for products want to read about other people’s experiences with different products. If a product has a nice amount of favorable reviews – users will most likely end up buying your product based on positive reviews. The most popular and free tool for reviews is Google Reviews. Once you create a Google My Business Page, customers can find you on Google and write reviews. This also helps with the search. The more reviews you have, the easier your customers can make a quick decision.
Mobile Apps. An estimated 60 percent of mobile devices have made purchases online from their mobile devices. No matter what, do not neglect to optimize your eCommerce website for mobile consumers and/or shoppers.
What does mobile optimization look like?
Below you will see some of the features that are considered important by consumers who use their mobile devices to shop online.
- 78 percent of consumers only want 1 or 2 clicks for additional information.
- 76 percent of consumers want mobile sites with small screens that fit their mobile devices.
- 78 percent of consumers bar simple to search and use mobile websites.
- 74 percent of consumers like to have the option to go to the full non mobile eCommerce website.
- 74 percent of consumers like clear, efficient eCommerce websites.
- 69 percent of consumers like large, finger friendly buttons to click on.
- 73 percent of consumers like feature, which allows them to save information for a later time.
- 73 percent of consumers prefer mobile websites with non scrolling forms without too many fields.
- 64 percent of consumers prefer scrolling on just one direction. Either up or down or left to right.
- 66 percent of consumers like the option of a “click to call” the company.
Once you begin adding features such as the ones suggested above, you’ll begin to notice an increase in traffic and in sales. If you want to know how your mobile, eCommerce website is doing – go to the Google Mobile Friendly Test and enter your website’s URL and you’ll see just how well your website is performing.
Strategic (SEO) Search Engine Optimization. As you all may well know, SEO is vital, yet at times it seems as we let it go accidentally and neglect to give it the attention it needs and deserves.
93 percent of the traffic on the internet comes from a search engine. Less than 5 percent of searches on the web make it to the 2nd page of search results. You need to get on that first result page!
Remember to always pay close attention to product keywords that you are utilizing. You can use a tool, such as – Google Keyword Planner, which will help guide you to the ideal list of keywords, that are relevant to your products and/or services. There are some free keyword search tools like Google Adwords or ubersuggest
Clear and Easy to Use eCommerce Websites. When a user comes to your eCommerce website – do you think they can tell by a mere glance how your company will handle/solve any issues they may experience?
More than 75 percent of people that shop online have said that their first impression of an eCommerce website will be a determining factor and influence on whether or not they’ll be making a purchase on your website.
The fashion in which you present your products will make a significant difference in the way your website visitors feel about your products and/or services. Rather than using long and boring product lists – create product descriptions that are catchy and fun; attractive and engaging.
Another way that you can keep users from bouncing off your page is by acquiring a smooth and user friendly navigation interface. Design your entire website to be simple to utilize while also, being interesting and alluring.
The key to a successful homepage are
Clear Messaging
Simple Navigation
Awesome Images
Remeber less is more
Email Users About Abandoned eCommerce Carts. With eCommerce one of the most frustrating things that can happen is when a visitor reaches the checkout/payment page and decide to abandon their carts. Although, it is extremely frustrating and incomprehensible – all is not lost when a user abandons an eCommerce shopping cart. The fact is that 30 percent of abandoned carts are typically recovered, as users leave their email addresses behind as well…
Best of all, there are tools like Get Response, Mandrill from Mail Chimp which will support you in automating your abandonment email campaigns and often regain lost revenue.
The emails are automated by using the tools which simply states that you have noticed that the user has left an item in the shopping cart. This style of writing/communicating is casual and engaging. It’s a reminder, but it’s not pushy. Chances are that the visitor will return and finalize the purchase.
You’ve just read 10 simple methods that will increase traffic to your eCommerce website. Begin implementing these strategies and you’ll soon realize that it isn’t necessary to pay for ads to have a successful eCommerce business.
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