How To Attract Customers To Your WordPress e-Commerce Store

starting an e-Commerce website has become much easier thanks to WordPress. Businesses all over the world are using different WordPress e-Commerce plugins to set up fully functional online stores.

However, setting up an e-Commerce website is just one part of the equation. You also need to devise a traffic generation strategy that can create a steady inflow of visitors and potential customers.

Every traffic generation strategy starts with setting up a strong SEO structure. But there’s already a lot written about it, so I won’t discuss this in too much detail. Installing a good WordPress SEO plugin should give you a steady SEO foundation. Read this post if you want some guidance on which plugins to use.

In this post, however, I’ll focus on some of the other traffic generation and conversion strategies that the majority of e-Commerce website owners either ignore, or don’t consider important enough to invest time in them.

In reality, if you focus on these techniques, you’ll become almost completely independent of search engine traffic and have much greater control over your online assets.


1. Build Your Email List Through Incentives

Building email lists is crucial for any online business. But for e-Commerce websites, it’s a matter of survival. Without a thriving and engaged email list, you’ll find it extremely difficult to drive repeat sales from your customers.

You don’t just need traffic. You need visitors that convert into subscribers and potential customers. An email list will help you achieve that and allow you to work on your subscribers and drive sales.

A smart way to build your email list is by offering something that holds immediate value to the user. For online shoppers, nothing is more lucrative than a discount coupon. Offer this as an incentive to sign up for your mailing list.

Place your opt-in box at a prominent place, preferably in the header, of your website. You can also promote it with a pop-up box plugin.

Converting your existing traffic into customers is much more effective and easier as compared to generating completely new traffic. Incentive based email signups are the perfect way to boost conversions.
2. Use Blogging To Attract Links and Traffic

Any e-Commerce store that’s not blogging is missing out on hundreds of potential customers. Blogging has to be a fundamental component of your traffic generation strategy.

The purchase decisions of almost 62% US customers are influenced by blog content. Customers have become much more aware and do a lot of research before purchasing anything online.

Blog content will give you greater exposure in search engine results and send you much more qualified traffic. To take full advantage of blogging, break your content into different categories.

    Industry News: Share the latest developments and news from your industry.
    Success Stories: Share success stories of your previous customers who’ve benefited in any way from your products.
    Resource Posts: Create detailed 1500-2000 word posts that cover individual topics of your niche in detail. Make these posts as actionable as possible. Resource posts attract a lot of social shares and traffic.

Your blog content should complement the nature of your business and the type of products you sell. It should demonstrate your industry knowledge and present you as a credible voice in your niche.


3. Use Guest Blogging for Brand Awareness

Guest blogging is one of the best ways to enhance your brand image, get high quality backlinks and attract qualified traffic. A lot of people use guest blogging for SEO only. In my opinion, that’s a bad strategy. You can get so much more out of guest blogging.

Identify the most popular blogs in your niche, study their posts and reader comments. Try to understand what your potential customers are looking for. Then create a high quality guest post and offer it for free to your target blog.

To boost your traffic and email subscribers from guest blogging, offer something special for the readers. For example, you can add the following offer at the end of your blog post.

“I’m a huge fan of (YourTargetBlog.com), so I’m offering an exclusive 30% discount coupon on all our products. Click here to get your discount!”

Route these readers to a squeeze page where they’re required to enter their email address to access the discount coupon. The main idea here is to drive as much action from the readers as possible.


4. Use a Responsive eCommerce Store Design

Online shopping is quickly moving to smartphones and tablets. Mobile visitors constitute the majority of ecommerce traffic and are almost twice as likely to make a purchase. For this reason, your website and online store must use a responsive design to accommodate mobile and smartphone users.

Failing to do so will provide a poor browsing experience to your users and increase the bounce rate of your website, which of course will directly hurt your search engine rankings. Google downgrades the rankings of websites, not using responsive web design, in its mobile search results.

To avoid this, make sure your WordPress theme uses responsive design.


5. Create Content Rich Product Pages

For most eCommerce websites, the product pages attract the highest traffic from search engines, since most users search with product names and models. To take advantage of your product pages, make sure they have the right structure, along with lots of relevant content.

    Titles: The title should contain the main product name, its model number and color
    Description: Product description is the most crucial part of the product page. Make sure it is quite detailed and includes all the relevant information about the product. Break it down into bullet points to increase readability.
    Images: Few high quality product images from different angles not only improve your user experience, but also give your products added exposure in Google Image Search.
    Reviews: The more reviews your product has, the better for its search engine visibility.
    Similar Products: Displaying similar products at the end of the product page can greatly improve the internal link traffic of your website.
    Related Blog Posts: Show links to related blog articles on your product page. This will increase internal linking, give exposure to your blog content and help your users make the right purchase decisions.


6. Create an Integrated Social Media Strategy

eCommerce and social media go hand in hand. But to really benefit from social media, you need to use it as a part of a broader traffic generation and branding strategy. Instead of stretching yourself too wide, focus on the most engaging social media platforms for your niche. Usually, for eCommerce websites, they are Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google Plus.

Here are a few points to keep in mind for each of these platforms.

Facebook

    Create a Facebook business page.
    Use Facebook advertising to your advantage. It can be more effective than Google Adwords sometimes and has a much lower CPA (cost per lead acquisition). Start with a small budget, test different ads and then gradually increase the investment. Special discount offers and direct product advertisements usually have the highest impact. But you should try different ads to see what works best for you.

Twitter

Enable Twitter cards on your blog and product pages. Twitter cards display additional product information with each Tweet and increase the purchase probability.


7. Get Referral Traffic Through Influencer Outreach

Another extremely effective way to increase your online store traffic, is by connecting with the influencers in your niche. This is a slightly long term technique, but its returns are worth the time and effort.

The basic idea behind influencer outreach is to build relationships with the key professionals in your niche, and then use their influence to drive more traffic to your website.

There are a number of ways you can do that:

    Make a list of all the influencers in your niche. Select the ones you want to target for outreach.
    Follow them on all their social media accounts – specially Twitter.
    If they have blogs, subscribe to their list.
    Study their blog content and social media updates, and try to understand the kind of content they like.
    Respond to their Tweets and Facebook updates, and comment on their blog posts. Get in their radar.
    Create round up posts on your blog – for example, posts like “The best posts of the week in (your niche)”. Include posts from your target influencers in the list. Send a quick Tweet to let them know about it.
    Create interview posts by sending one question to all the influencers in your niche. Compile their answers in one post, and publish it on your blog. Let all of them know about it.

To simplify influencer identification on Twitter, you can use Followwonk. This tool helps you identify the most active users in your niche who’re getting the highest engagement on their Tweets.

Relationship building takes time, but if you’re consistent with it, even one recommendation or endorsement from a niche leader can send a lot of visitors to your online store.

How To Boost Your Ecommerce Sales With Effective Twitter Marketing

Twitter is any marketer’s dream platform. With more than 284 million active monthly users and a monthly volume of more than 500 million Tweets, Twitter allows businesses of every size to monitor their target customers closely, engage them regularly and drive more sales.

For e-commerce businesses though, Twitter is a gold mine. If you know how to use this platform to your advantage, you can convert it into a major revenue generation channel for your e-commerce business. It’s not just about knowing the features that Twitter offers. It’s more about using those features to drive business value. And this is what I am going to tell you in this post.
1. Understand the Platform and Your Objective

Before diving deep, understand how Twitter can contribute to your business. Twitter is a fast moving micro blogging platform. It has given voice to common men and women around the world, who actively use it to engage with their friends, celebrities and their favorite brands.

It is not primarily an ecommerce platform, and people do not come here to buy and sell products. To take advantage of this powerful tool, you need to learn the rules of the game. Instead of trying to sell products all the time, you need to join conversations, build relationships, establish trust and then drive sales.

Don’t expect immediate results from it. It won’t open floodgates of revenue and traffic immediately. But once you establish yourself on it, and earn the trust of your followers, things will start happening.
2. Build a Strong Brand Image With Your Profile

Your objective on Twitter is to make sales. For this you need to establish trust by building a strong brand image. Your Twitter profile is a great place to start your branding activities.

    Twitter Handle: Use your company name. If it’s not available, add a number at the end. But try to keep it simple and easy to remember.
    Profile Picture: Use your company’s logo as the profile picture.
    Header Image: Use an image of your team or your office building as the header image. In this virtual space, showing your physical existence can really help you stand out. If you don’t have a physical existence, use an image that reflects your business.
    Bio: Twitter gives you 160 characters to describe yourself/your business. Use this space wisely. Without being too fancy, describe in clear words what your business is all about. Use the keywords that resonate with your target audience. For example, here’s how KitchenAid, a leading kitchenware portal, describe their profile.
   
  Location: For e-commerce websites, location often matters. So mention it clearly on your profile.

 3. Enable Twitter Cards For Product Pages

Twitter cards is a powerful Twitter feature that really comes handy for ecommerce websites. If enabled on your website, Twitter cards will show additional information when someone Tweets your product pages. The standard Tweets are limited to 140 characters, but Twitter cards expand that limit by showing a snippet of your product page that includes the product price and quantity in stock. This will simplify the buying process for your buyers and increase the probability of making sales.


4. Attract Followers the Smart Way

Once you have the basics in place, you should focus on attracting relevant followers. Target people who shop online and who’re likely to purchase from your ecommerce website.
Avoid two mistakes,

a) Don’t buy followers from any Twitter marketing company. They’re mostly inactive followers who are of no use.
b) Don’t mass follow people in the hope of getting follow-backs. This will hurt your brand image.

Instead focus on the following activities.

    Become a knowledge source: Accounts that share high quality and actionable Tweets regularly, attract followers naturally. Make sure your Tweets serve a purpose. Make them actionable. Share tips, advice and best practices. Become the go-to account for everything related to your niche.
    Target your competitors’ followers: Your competitors’ followers are the best place to start. Attracr them to your profile by engaging with them. Go through your competitors’ profiles and see if there are any unanswered Tweets or questions that you can answer. Enter your competitor’s name in Twitter search and see what people are saying about them. Respond to their Tweets to let them know you are a better option.
    Cross-network promotion: Route people from your Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and other social media profiles to your Twitter account. Do this by adding your Twitter handle in all your introductions and by regularly posting about it on different platforms.
    Market with guest blogging: Guest blogging is a great way to attract followers. Target the top blogs in your niche and offer them high quality guest posts. Add your Twitter handle in the author bio and ask people to follow.
    Influencer outreach: Follow the top influencers in your niche (people who’re regarded as experts). Respond to their Tweets and try engaging them. The more you engage with influencers, the more exposure you’ll get.
    Acknowledge RTs: When you get ReTweets, favorite them as an acknowledgement and send a small thank you message in reply. This will help you win more followers.
    Twitter Chats: You can host Twitter chats on different topics of your niche to boost engagement. Choose a hashtag, for example #kitchentalk, and ask all your followers to Tweet with this hashtag. Hosting Twitter chats can be fun, and can win you lots of new followers.


5. Structure Your Tweets for Maximum Engagement

Each Tweet has only 140 characters, but it still involves a lot of science in driving engagement (ReTweets, Replies, and Favorites) on Twitter. The structure of your Tweets is crucial for your chances to attract new followers. Here are a few things you should keep in mind.

Note: The stats used below are based on a research by Dan Zarella, a social media scientist at HubSpot.

    Tweet Length: Tweets between 110 and 115 characters attract the highest engagement and RTs.
    Link Placement: If your Tweets have links, place them near the start of the Tweet. An analysis of around 20,000 revealed that Tweets containing a link in the first 50 characters attracted more RTs and a higher click through rate (CTR)
    Hashtags: Tweets with hashtags get 55% more RTs. Use up to 3 hashtags with every Tweet.
    Quotes: Tweets with quotation marks get 30% more RTs.
    Images and Vines: Tweets with images and visual content get almost 200% more RTs.
    Tweet Timing: Tweets between 9AM – 6PM get the highest engagement on weekdays.
    Mentions: When tagging someone in a Tweet, make sure the Tweet does not start with a Twitter handle. Otherwise only the tagged person will be able to see it.


6. Track Your Performance With Twitter Analytics

Twitter analytics is a relatively new feature. But it gives you great insights on your Tweets and engagement levels. It shows you a timeline of your previous Tweets highlighting the Tweets that attracted the highest engagement and the users who showed the most interest in your content. Looking at these stats, you can make changes to your Tweet structure and content mix.


7. Encourage Sharing on Your Website

You need to make it as easy as possible for your website visitors to share your products and website pages on Twitter. You can do this by:

    Adding social media sharing buttons on your product pages. You can use services like AddThis or DiggDigg to embed sharing buttons.
    Add a statement like “Share with your friends” or “Sharing is Caring!” with your social media buttons. Simply asking your visitors can also increase your sharing numbers.
    Add a Twitter follow button on your website.

8. Use Twitter Lists to Monitor Your Target Audience

Twitter Lists is another feature that can help you target your customers much more effectively. Twitter is a noisy place and it can be very hard to focus on your target customers with so many people Tweeting at the same time.

With this feature, you can add specific people to a Twitter list and monitor them in isolation. You will only see the Tweets of the list members. This will cut the noise and help you focus on your target users.