7 Tips to Ensure Your Content Increases Traffic to Your Online Store


9 Min. Read

As an online store owner, you are continually looking for more effective ways to drive traffic to your site. The more people visit your site, the better your chances of making sales. 

However, getting people to discover your online store can pose a huge challenge in today’s competitive space. 

To help you overcome that problem, I have written this article to provide you with 7 tips to ensure your content increases traffic to your eCommerce storefront. 

Each tip is focused on creating and using quality content as a long-term strategy for driving organic traffic to your store. 

Read the rest of the article to discover what really works so you can generate increased website traffic to your store. 

But first, let’s take a look at what Google considers to be “quality content” so you can develop your content-driven strategy accordingly. 

What Does Google Consider “Quality Content”?

Google (and other search engines) reward high-quality content with higher rankings. 

Search engines want to provide their users with only the best and most relevant answers to their queries. 

So, they will give higher rankings to content that they consider well-written, relevant, and beneficial to users.

According to Google, your content must exhibit E-A-T (Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness):

Source
  • Expertise: To rank high, you must be viewed as an expert in your specific field. You must demonstrate and back up your skills via your credentials, author biographies, etc. across the web.
  • Authoritativeness: You must prove that you are an authority through signals or indicators that point back to your website, such as well-written content, backlinks from reputable websites, reviews, affiliations, awards, etc.
  • Trustworthiness: As an extension of your authoritativeness, everything on your site should be designed to instill a sense of trust in your readers. This can be done through reviews on your website and third-party sites, your website security, footprints across the web, etc.

These are the main signals that Google considers when evaluating the quality of your website content.

But why is this important?

  • Quality content = Increased search rankings;
  • Increased search rankings = More organic website traffic;
  • More organic website traffic = More leads and sales.

Your prospective customers depend on Google to help them find the exact products/services they need without having to sift through tons of search results pages.

For the most part, searchers rarely venture past the first page of the results, which means that the top-ranking pages with quality content will receive the majority of the website traffic.

There are other factors to keep in mind, and you would do well to follow the basic principles outlined in Google’s Webmaster Quality Guidelines, which include the following:

  • Indexed content
  • Adequate content length
  • An amount of content that satisfies the user’s query
  • Pages made primarily for users, not for search engines
  • Don’t deceive your users
  • No keyword stuffing
  • No copied, scraped, or automatically generated content
  • No tricks intended to improve search engine rankings
  • No errors on the page or sneaky redirects
  • Website is not associated with other people or sites with a negative reputation
  • Internal and external links (helpful sub-content)
  • Great page design or layout that doesn’t distract from the main content
  • Well-maintained and regularly updated site

You should also check the Google’s Helpful Content Update.

If your eCommerce store doesn’t have strong ranking positions for the various products or services you offer, then you can be sure that you are losing out on a lot of potential customers.

Improving your search rankings will bring increased traffic to your site, giving you more opportunities to sell your products to a broader market.

Now that you know how Google and other search engines evaluate your content quality, let’s take a look at how you can get better results from your content.

7 Tips to Ensure Your Content Increases Traffic to your Online Store

1. Craft Subjects Based on Keywords

As we’ve already discussed, your rankings in search play a huge role in the level of organic traffic you get to your online store.

One way to optimize your content and bring in more traffic is to create content (specifically blog posts) around popular products.

Choose important product keywords and craft your content around them. When you strategize your SEO (search engine optimization) in this way, you make it more likely that Google and other search engines will send lots more targeted traffic your way.

You can use a tool like Google Keyword Planner to help you choose the right list of words that are not only relevant to your product, but also have a healthy search volume.

Source

google keyword planner
Source: Benchmarkone

Here are some additional tips for using SEO to increase your online store’s discoverability:

  • Write catchy titles that match user intent
  • Craft irresistible meta descriptions that compel click-throughs
  • Leverage internal links to boost page rank and SEO value
  • Add longtail keyword phrases and variations to your content
  • Use rich snippets to make your content stand out

By regularly publishing interesting and engaging content on your site, you’ll be able to drive tons of traffic to your eCommerce store, capture new customers, and keep older ones coming back for more.

However, you don’t just want to select the best keywords and hope your post starts ranking first on Google. You have to monitor the performance of the pages that have been optimized for search engines. While this can be a time-consuming process, many of the best rank tracking tools make gathering and analyzing data about your website and each of its pages a breeze.

2. Publish High-Impact Content

The first tip is focused on search engine optimization, but it’s also important to note that not all search-optimized content is made equal. Some content has more impact on specific audiences than other types of content.

So, depending on your type of eCommerce store, as well as the audience you have, you must choose the right type of content that will have the biggest effect and compel readers to take action on your site – whether that action is to sign up for your email list, read more posts, make a purchase, etc.

Compelling copy attracts 7.8 times more website traffic and creates improved brand recall. This leads to higher engagement rates – and, ultimately, more sales for your eCommerce business.

The trick here is to create blog posts that your customers will actually want to read.

Search for interesting subtopics within your industry and cover them from a unique, exciting, or new angle.

  • Write blogs to solve problems or provide useful information
  • Create YouTube videos to entertain or educate your audience
  • Produce podcasts to help you expand your reach and improve your online store’s visibility

For instance, an online store for sporting goods might write about their products some of the time but also include posts and videos about recent games, league performances, and so on. Their target audience would find such content engaging and useful.

So while keyword research and SEO are important, it’s also crucial to choose the type of content that your readers will find compelling so you keep them coming back for more.

This assures you of more website traffic and, as a result, you will experience a boost in on-site engagement and sales.

3. Leverage the Power of Social Media

A lot of eCommerce store owners make the mistake of focusing too much on their websites and not enough on social media.

Social networks like Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest are crucial to your success these days and can be one of the quickest and easiest ways to drive traffic to your site.

You don’t have to be active on all channels, but a few well-chosen platforms where your target audience hangs out will serve you well.

Create business profiles on relevant networks. For instance, if you sell jewelry and other fashion accessories, Pinterest and Instagram might be the best places for you. If you sell books or online courses, you want to be active on sites like YouTube, and LinkedIn.

Here are a few tips to help you increase your chances of appearing in your audience’s feeds so you can drive more social media traffic to your online store:

  • Post content that is relevant to your target audience
  • Use scheduling tools to create a regular posting schedule
  • Don’t post too many salesy or promotional posts, mix it up
  • Use well-timed posts to increase traffic and sales
  • Post content on trending topics in your niche
  • Add relevant hashtags to your posts to make them more discoverable
  • Share time-sensitive discounts to get a boost in sales
  • Run contests and giveaways to get more followers and ultimately visitors to your store
  • Get a consistent flow of traffic from paid advertising
  • Practice proper channel management to ensure you’re optimizing every part of your digital marketing mix

4. Publish Content on Various Platforms

With your website and social media taken care of, now is the time to turn your attention to what to do to get more attention in other places across the internet.

For the most part, you want to join online conversations that are already taking place.

People love to talk, and you’ll find people chatting about your topics, products, industry, or brand on sites like Reddit, Quora, etc.

Use these types of forums to join in the conversation and help people overcome their pain points.

  • Get active on Reddit
  • Participate in relevant online forums
  • Join industry-specific Facebook groups
  • Write on Medium and LinkedIn
  • Use course platforms to sell your courses or PLR courses you’ve purchased

In short, get your name out in as many places as you can.

Use this extra exposure to introduce more people to your brand that you otherwise wouldn’t have been able to reach.

It’s a good idea to spend at least an hour each day taking part in conversations that are happening in different areas on the internet.

Offer to help, and, whenever appropriate, include links to relevant blog posts and products so you can gently steer people towards your brand.

5. Find Guest Posting Opportunities

Guest posting is yet another effective way to drive more traffic to your eCommerce store.

To make use of this tactic, simply go online and search for guest posting opportunities in your industry by typing “submit a post” + [your industry]. Target blogs that are frequented by your ideal customer.

This strategy is so effective because when you write articles and blog posts for other publications or companies, it helps your E-A-T score and shows Google that you are knowledgeable about your topic.

This results in more search traffic being sent to your website.

Guest posts also spread brand awareness and the more people who hear about your online store, the more visitors you are likely to get.

6. Run Paid Ad Campaigns

As an eCommerce store owner, you must have asked yourself before whether it’s really possible to boost traffic without buying ads.

The answer is, yes it’s possible and the tips outlined above will help you do so.

Having said that, eCommerce is growing at a phenomenal pace, with statistics showing the US eCommerce market size to be at a staggering $470 billion.

Source: Statistica

If you want to rise above the competition and get an instant flood of traffic to your website store, you can use paid ad campaigns to boost your traffic numbers.

Keep in mind that these are short-term traffic generation strategies.

In other words, you’ll get a ton of traffic and a great return on investment, but the traffic only flows as long as you keep paying.

  • Facebook/Instagram/Pinterest Ads: With billions of monthly active users on these platforms, advertising here will give you great opportunities to reach brand new customers and drive them to your store.
  • Google Ads: Unlike social media ad platforms, Google Ads offers you a unique opportunity to advertise your eCommerce store directly to the people who are searching for your products or services.

7. Use Analytics

All the work you’re putting in to get more traffic to your online store will go to waste unless you can repeat what’s working and do less of everything else.

The only way you’ll know how to optimize your efforts in order to maximize your results is by capturing web data and analytics from your eCommerce store.

This way you’ll know things such as:

  • Which traffic sources send the highest volume of web traffic
  • Where does your highest-converting traffic come from
  • Which is the source of your most engaged website traffic

… and much more.

From there, you can then find out why those sources are effective and double down on them in order to optimize your best traffic sources.

You can use a free tool like Google Analytics, or choose from the myriad of other web analytics tools for eCommerce.

Pro Tip: Outsource your content if you don’t have time to do it yourself. You’ll find experienced professional content creators on sites like Pro Blogger, Fiverr, and Upwork.

Conclusion

These days, SEO alone is not enough. If you want to compete effectively online, you must consider implementing all the tips outlined here so you can get more from your content and drive more traffic to your online store.

Over to you. How many of the tips outlined here are you already using, if any? Let us know in the comments section below!

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Ron Stefanski

Ron Stefanski

Ron Stefanski is a college professor turned online business owner. He’s helped hundreds of thousands of people create and market their own online business. You can learn more about him by visiting OneHourProfessor.com
You can also connect with him on YouTube or Linkedin.

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