Having an online store is no longer enough to start generating sales. Because there is so much content and competition on the Internet, it is naïve to expect users to stumble upon your website without running a solid Internet marketing campaign (be it organic SEO or pay per click advertisement). In this blog post we will share five recommendations which can help you to increase online sales, engagement and create loyal customers.
1. Revamp Your Website UX/UI
The online world has turned into the attention market where businesses need to quickly grab the users’ attention as soon as they land on your website (ideally within the first 2 seconds). A generic web design from a template can no longer be sufficient to get a user's attention, and poorly designed user experience will only frustrate someone regardless of how pretty the page looks like. To start selling online, you need a website that looks professional and works well from the conversion optimization point of view. If you ask me how to get a well optimized site built, my recommendation will be to either hire a UX/UI and Web Developer in-house (if you plan to invest in your digital solutions on a long-term basis) or outsource your project to a trusted ecommerce partner (e.g. BigCommerce).
2. Increase Community Engagement
Once you have a perfect website and a fully functional online store that users trust, you need to build up your community engagement. Create profiles on the main social media platforms and start publishing great, unique, and valuable content which can be shared. For example, take custom photos of your products, share relevant articles about your industry, create video campaigns, etc. You need to create an online persona to directly communicate and engage with your prospective customers.
3. Build a Blog
One of the best ways to market your website is to get high rankings in Google search results. One of the best ways to increase your organic search results ranking is by using the white-hat technique of back-linking. You can do this by creating relevant, valuable, keyword optimized and shareable content on your website and that is where a blog can help.
4. Do Not Focus On One Platform Only
A common mistake that businesses make is that they focus on one platform only or not providing a unique experience on each platform. Facebook and Instagram don’t work the same, and to get the most engagement you need to use different techniques (e.g. Facebook posts can benefit from call-to-action buttons; whereas, Instagram mainly focuses on images or videos that can prompt users to read the post and build a relationship with your brand so that they can later manually find your website and make a purchase).
5. Use Email Marketing
When you do get traffic on your website, you should focus on getting users to sign up to your mailing list so that you can then drive them back to your site via email marketing campaigns for special promotions or opportunities.
I hope these five tips will be a good foundation for your evolving ecommerce strategy, and remember that no matter what you do, you always need to focus on creating a credible online brand reputation.
