As of 2023, there are more than 2.6 billion online buyers worldwide, and close to 275 million in the US alone. Let’s think about that for a minute. E-commerce has become such an integral part of consumers’ lives that more than two-and-a-half billion of us shop online—the same as the population of the entire world back in 1950 (Census).
With more e-commerce customers than ever before, attracting high-potential website visitors has never been more critical. There’s a huge opportunity for businesses and brands to draw buyers to their online stores. With the right online strategies and some established tips, marketers can improve their website traffic over time to drive sales from new shoppers while also increasing revenue from existing ones.
That said, taking steps to increase website traffic is only part of the solution. Why? If you really want to grow your e-commerce business, traffic is only really useful if it converts. When you’re turning consumers into customers, and keeping them coming back in the long-term, quantity takes a back seat to quality. To get qualified visitors to your e-commerce store in the first place, you have to understand your audience, know where and how to reach them, convince them to visit your website, and deliver a compelling message once they’ve come.
It should come as no surprise that site design and optimization play a part in all of this. Both can have a huge impact on conversions and sales. When you build an e-commerce website that’s easy to navigate and responsive, and show your visitors products relevant to their needs, you demonstrate that your brand speaks their language. A user-friendly website design for e-commerce and strong calls-to-action (CTAs) can go a long way toward driving results.
If, despite these principles, you’re still wondering how to boost sales in a meaningful way, read on. We’ve got 14 strategies perfectly suited to help your business thrive online.
Tactics for Increasing E-commerce Traffic
Before we get started on how to drive traffic to your website, here’s something to note: there’s no “one-stop shop” for quality visitors. Valuable and profitable visits can originate anywhere on the web, from organic traffic to paid ads, affiliate programs, social channels, testimonials, and partner brands, so it’s important to weave multiple channels and platforms into your strategy.
Use the following e-commerce marketing best practices to drive relevant traffic to your website.
1. Invest in Organic Search
You don’t need us to tell you that online search is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal—but did you know that search remains the primary method for both individuals and businesses to explore new products and services within search queries? Search engines like Google provide a platform for people to search for your products and services, and they can get a lot of information—and motivation—from organic search results.
That’s where Search Engine Optimization (SEO), the process of improving your site’s visibility by optimizing pages and content so they’re easier to find, comes in. Implementing SEO best practices can improve the quantity and quality of traffic to your site, making SEO traffic a reliable channel for ongoing visits and one of the best-rated e-commerce traffic solutions.
Increasing your exposure on search engines by achieving high rankings and top results will help drive potential customers to your site. Because search engines, and therefore SEO, are built around keywords, using relevant words related to your product or service throughout your site is key. That means incorporating carefully selected keywords into your page headlines, product descriptions, titles, meta descriptions, and your URL (all of which is also known as metadata). This approach will deliver better search engine recognition, so when consumers Google your brand, or search using keywords related to products and services like yours, they’re more likely to find your site.
2. Create Blog Posts Around Popular Products
As you’re learning how to drive traffic to your e-commerce site and begin to tackle SEO, take a closer look at your content. Site content is crucial to the search engine optimization process, since search engines crawl that content to determine how to rank your site.
An excellent way to get your content in front of customers is through blog posts. Blogs can work wonders for improving organic visibility, while also providing your customers with useful and entertaining information. Your content strategy should include keywords and topics that are pertinent to your audience. A mix of both short keywords (broad terms with a high search volume, consisting of 1 to 3 words) and long-tail keywords (longer, more detailed search queries that help customers home in on products as they’re getting ready to buy) can drive the right kind of traffic to your site.
BuzzSumo is a useful site for sourcing keywords and creating lists, as is Answer the Public, which allows you to view actual questions and search queries used by consumers.
Here’s an example of the keyword selection process, with 28 consumer-generated questions around the topic of “best blenders.”
3. Optimize Your Online Store for Users, Including Mobile
Let’s revisit the user experience. Having a site that’s optimized for search is vital, but it needs to be optimized for mobile as well.
Today, mobile accounts for 60% of all e-commerce sales in the world (Statista) as consumers continue to rely on their smartphones to make purchases. Providing a user-friendly design with a simple navigation menu, a prominent search bar, high-quality images, and responsive visuals that visitors can zoom in on will really improve your site. Be sure to include mobile-friendly videos.
Speed matters as well. Pages that are slow to load can deter shoppers from converting; in fact, increasing page speed by just one second can lead to a 7% increase in your conversion rate (Crazyegg). How do you trim the fat so your site pages are quicker to load? Compressing images, removing broken links, and reducing redirects are all good strategies.
Another way to better your site is by giving your customers different payment options, simplifying your forms and checkout process, and making your positive reviews more visible. All of this can have a huge impact on future sales.
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4. Run Email Marketing Campaigns
Despite the popularity of social platforms like Instagram and TikTok, email marketing remains an effective means of reaching potential customers, and averages a return on investment (ROI) of $36 for every dollars spent (Hubspot).
Since 47% of US consumers prefer their emails from brands to contain deals and promotions (InsiderIntelligence), personalizing your email content can set you up for success. Make email a part of your cross-channel marketing model, and maximize every email campaign’s impact by personalizing the content.
Growing an email subscriber list can be time-consuming, but it’s worth the investment; once you have a list that you can segment, you can customize your mailings with special promotions and exclusive product offers to boost your e-commerce revenue. Be sure to track your results using a time decay attribution model, which credits all of the channels that played a part in those conversions. This way, you can optimize for even greater future success.
5. Use Affiliate Marketing
No strategy would be complete without affiliate marketing, which can dramatically increase e-commerce traffic through external links to your site. Affiliate marketing lets other businesses and brands promote your products in exchange for a commission based on the traffic they direct to your online store. It’s a top acquisition channel because it exposes your products and brand to a broader audience, thus increasing your visibility and expanding your reach.
In other words, affiliate marketing—which includes content monetization platforms like Skimlinks—can open a new revenue stream from your commerce content. It’s one of the most unique ways to increase sales and send e-commerce traffic your way.
6. Run Native Advertising Campaigns
Under the umbrella of paid marketing strategies, native ads are another tool you don’t want to overlook when you’re ready to advertise your website. Native advertising channels range from search and social to the open web, like that provided by Taboola. Native ads are a superior solution for driving effective traffic to an e-commerce site, because they resonate with audiences without being as intrusive as traditional online ads.
Reports show that 70% of consumers prefer to learn about products through content rather than traditional display ads (Inc), and native ads mimic the look of editorial content (which is where the “native” reference comes from). On top of that, more than half the consumers who click on native ads intend to purchase something, compared with 34 percent who click on banners. With Taboola, you can reach nearly 600 million daily active users in a brand-safe environment, and partner with some of the top digital properties in the world—from CNBC and BBC to Business Insider and El Mundo—so consumers can discover your site and visit. Naturally, you can track and measure those interactions to optimize your results, too.
7. Target your Audience on Social Channels
With a staggering 3 billion monthly active users, Facebook’s success says it all: social channels are still growing, and they’re a massive part of consumers’ lives. There are many other advantages to social media marketing beyond audience engagement, from brand recognition to—you guessed it—increased website traffic.
Unlike traditional media like radio, television, newspapers, and magazines, social media also allows customers and businesses to interact almost in real-time. That means you can get near-immediate feedback on your products and services, and quickly gauge the effectiveness of your ads.
But as every social platform attracts different users, knowing where your customer base spends their time is the best way to build a social strategy that delivers, and the most reliable way to target them so you can promote your website. Get to know the major social sites and their demographics, and run A/B tests on your ads to gauge which ones are resonating with potential shoppers. And don’t forget to engage with your followers to build an affinity for your brand.
8. Work With Influencers
Just as with social media and affiliate programs, influencers can be a major asset when it comes to driving the right audience to your e-commerce site. Partnering with influencers allows you to align your brands with popular public figures, boost your credibility, and increase your exposure, all while providing an opportunity to turn their followers into customers.
Experticity research shows that 82% of consumers are “highly likely” to take the recommendations of an influencer, while just 73% would act on a recommendation made by a fellow consumer. The average ROI for influencer marketing is an impressive $5.78 for every dollar spent (InfluencerMarketingHub).
You can launch campaigns by approaching influencers directly, or work with a platform like ShopYourLikes, which is designed to connect creators and influencers with top retailer brands to drive content monetization
9. Optimize Product Pictures for Google Images
Optimizing your content for search is important, but so is optimizing your product images. Just as it does with site content, Google crawls images and shows them in its search results. Today, 75% of consumers rely on product photos when making a purchase (OnlineDasher), so ensuring your images appear in searches is crucial to garnering sales.
Use high-quality product images and optimize your file names and alt-image descriptions to increase your chances of your image appearing first. This approach also boosts site traffic, because when users click on your picture, they’re redirected to your product page and primed to buy. Finally use HTML image elements to embed images, along with an image sitemap and responsive images to create an engaging visual experience for your customers. Best practices like these can help Google discover and index your site pages.
10. Invest in Paid Search
While we’re on the subject of search, don’t ignore the significance of paid search advertising to your online store. Sponsored listings on search engines where businesses pay to be featured in search results are a great way to raise visibility and drive high-value traffic to your website.
Paid search results look a lot like organic ones, but they empower brands to secure a prominent search presence. They’re also cost-effective, as advertisers only pay if and when their ad is clicked. Even so, monitor your ROI to make sure you’re getting the desired results. Conducting additional keyword research can work wonders for maximizing your budget by concentrating on high-value, high-performing words.
11. Use the 80/20 Rule Focusing on Top Conversion Sources
As you continue to build out your strategy, the Pareto principle should be top of mind. This concept dictates that 80% of sales come from 20% of visitors, products, or marketing channels.
What this means is that you should use data to identify the channels, products, product categories, and landing pages that produce the most sales, and invest your time and effort there. Then, follow the same process by determining which keywords, campaigns, blog posts, and discount codes bring the most traffic.
While conversions are the ultimate measure of website traffic value, other numbers matter too. For example, traffic to your landing page can indicate how much time visitors are spending on each site page, and where they link to after arriving on your site. It’s also important to know what happens to visitors who arrive but don’t stick around. For example, your bounce rate (the percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page) can reveal that your landing page may need to be re-evaluated.
12. Show Off your Business on Instagram
One of those aforementioned social channels bears special mention: Instagram. Now boasting over 1.3 billion monthly active users worldwide, Instagram can drive immense amounts of e-commerce traffic as users flock to the social platform to engage with others and discover products. That means you can use Instagram to cultivate your brand, showcase your product line, and encourage visits to your e-commerce site.
Aside from posting engaging photos and videos of your products and enlisting the help of influencers to praise them, an easy way to drive more traffic is by optimizing your Instagram bio. Make sure you include a link to your online store. Other strategies include syncing your Instagram feed with your online store so customers can shop your products directly from Instagram. This way, consumers can instantly make an online purchase from your business when a product is on their mind and they’re motivated to buy.
13. Ask Customers for Reviews
Considering that more than 99% of consumers read reviews when they’re shopping online (Powerreviews), and 98% feel reviews are an essential resource when making a purchasing decision, inviting your customers to share their feedback on your product or service is a must. Another perk? Positive reviews provide brand credibility and “social proof,” which can help improve your SEO and drive even more traffic.
One way to incentivize your customers to review is by offering a thank-you in the form of a discount on their next purchase or the chance to win a gift card. You should also consider the format you’re using to collect information. The easier you can make the experience of sharing feedback, the better. Society6 offers the ability to review a product without navigating away from the email, even going so far as to provide two review style options.
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14. Promote a Giveaway
Giveaways go hand in hand with social media, so consider incorporating one into your social strategy to gain some added exposure and boost traffic to your e-commerce site. By requiring social media users to visit your site in order to enter (which can also help decrease the likelihood of fake email addresses), you can attract some of the follower base you’ve been building on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Encourage consumers to earn extra entries by sharing the contest with their friends, and let users know whether or not the contest is limited to a specific region.
While giving away one of your products can be a great approach, you can also get creative and incorporate a product you know your customers would be interested in. In the case of Coconut Bowls, that was a Vitamix blender. Coconut Bowls also let entrants know it would be alerting the winners by email—which, if you invite them to opt-in when they enter the contest, can also provide an added opportunity to grow your email list.
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On the hot topic of e-commerce traffic, we clearly have a lot to say. Interested in learning more about how to boost your online sales through tools like native ads? Contact Taboola today.