How do I increase web traffic to an eCommerce website?

Running a successful eCommerce website is an uphill task, especially if you are trying to do-it-all by yourself or with minimum help.

I have been helping organizations develop and market their online stores for the last 17 years, but the scope of things that one can do or improve regularly is humongous; the more success you get out of your e-commerce store, the more opportunities to attract traffic start unfolding in front of you.

I presume that if you are running or managing an eCommerce portal, you are already somewhat aware of paid and free methods to attract traffic, so let me share a different perspective that we apply to our client success in multiple projects.

To Grow A Tree (Traffic), You have to Take Care of Soil & Seed

Just like when we want to grow a tree, it's a process that starts with the basics that are preparing land by ploughing and fertilizing.

Similarly, you start with checking a couple of things for your eCommerce store:

1. Your eCommerce website/app Hosting - The hosting is often too slow or restricted that even moderate traffic is turned away because the site is not working or has reached its bandwidth limits.

2. Check your Navigation: Before proceeding with any marketing, check your website navigation, category pages, and product pages. They should be appropriately linked and easy to find.

3. Add your website to Free Google Analytics & Google Console for websites - These tools start gathering and sharing data related to your website and help you draw a baseline on the average user activity on your website so that you can set achievable targets.

Now start watering & nurturing to grow the Tree (traffic).

It's essential to understand if your eCommerce store is relatively new the tactics are very different from someone who is already running a store for a while and want to increase traffic & conversions; for that, you may get in touch with Refresh Ideas, an eCommerce agency run by myself to help businesses grow their traffic & revenues.

Let's focus on the online stores that are relatively new or have low budgets; after all, the trees can even grow without huge budgets, so why not your store?

Consistency is the name of the game!

You need to be aware that consistency in picking and working on anyone marketing activity is much more critical than picking ten things and doing it once or for a few days. We are talking about daily consistency on any e method or channel, one consistent effort for a minimum of 45 minutes for at least 5-6 months, and I promise you that your efforts will bear good traffic to your website.

What all you can choose to do to build traffic:

1. Make your friends & family aware of your Ecommerce Store - Consistently! No one is going to buy on your first ask! Or recommend you.

2. Make new friends consistently, so this effort does not dry up. Yes, I am talking about all those social channels you frequently visit. If you are familiar with Facebook or Instagram, start using that to amplify your messaging. At the start of your journey, do not try to be a corporate type, big company; try it from your accounts, build a story, click those pictures, go to friends get-together and take your products, click photos, record videos, make it fun, le them curse you or love you - but in both scenarios, that's the REAL content for others.

3. Again be very, very consistent!

4. Once you have some followership & actual customers, use a service like MailChimp (2000 email id free) account, and start sharing some of your content that you are creating on social channels with them periodically, send them that video or pun that your other friend made about your product - and ask them do you agree! All this creates relationships that can best be created when you are small and starting, don’t try to impose a big daunting corporate image; that's a futile exercise, most large companies that we manage would love to be this person without being fearful with their customers, and you have that advantage, use it as much as you can.

5. Optimize your product pages - well, some people will love to use terms like SEO for eCommerce stores; I rather like you to focus on only one thing, your customer, and optimizing everything around her while you optimize anything on your e-commerce website. Let's look at that description of the product; how can I make it better for my customer? Can I add a video to show how this looks in real? Can I add a few more products in use pictures? Can I add a story to that product that educates my friends on the origin, craftsmanship, or engineering required to make this product? After using this product, other customers were saying, can I gather those inputs and put them on the page. The list of things you can do is enormous, and you know you can put to shame any eCommerce SEO expert if you can keep doing that for your business -Consistently!

6. Start sharing stories for your product. If you are good at writing a paragraph in your local language (not strictly English), go ahead write that imperfect paragraph, you don’t want to write - ok, then record your message on your mobile and post it on YouTube and Instagram - the thing is if you are not going to talk about your products no one else will care as much, so start with yourself. And do it consistently!

Make it a morning ritual to water your eCommerce business by publishing or doing anything that goes out in the open public domain and not just in your head or on your screen. We have to keep watering and nurturing every day, and we shall find the Tree (traffic) growing in our eCommerce store.

Let me know how you found these suggestions, and I would love to contribute more. 

Written By: Gaurav Dhingra