There a lots of reasons to love owning an ecommerce store: You don't have to pay fees, you don't have to adhere to strict rules, or feel constantly on edge about whether your buyer will leave you fair feedback.
However, the main drawback is that, compared to other marketplaces such as eBay, traffic to your site can be very slow, especially to begin with.
This is because when most buyers go looking for an item they want to buy online, they do a quick Google search, and click on one of the first 3 websites that are generated in the search results.
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The trouble is, it is very difficult to get your site ranking as one of those top 3. Many site owners spend years, and invest thousands of dollars on hiring search engine optimization (SEO) experts to help them get there.
But don't fret! There are some simple things you can do to get targeted visitors to your site.
Here are my top 3 easy ways to get more visitors that you can start implementing this weekend!
Just keep in mind that it's not at all typical to achieve immediate results once you have implemented these steps. Instead, you can expect that over the next 3 months or so, your site will start ranking better in the search engines (depending on how competitive your niche market is).
1. Offer free and original content on your site.
Search engines love when you do this and will favor you over sites that are similar to yours that do not offer any original content.
For example, if you are selling hair brushes and hair care items, include articles about hair care or other topics that your buyers will be interested in. At the end of each article, you can include a URL to the product related to the article you are writing.
Never, ever copy and paste content from another site into yours. Search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing can detect this very easily and will penalize you harshly by shoving your site down to the bottom of the rankings.
The other benefit of having free information on your site is that users will return to it more frequently to check out your blogs or articles.
Hot Tip: Your site visitors will love articles or blog posts that review new products, teach them new techniques (these can be either beginner or advanced so that you reach out to a varied audience) and overall, provide them with short, snappy how-to-style information.
2. Optimize your meta tags and meta descriptions
Meta tags are essentially notes or a short list of keywords that search engines such as Google read when deciding which sites to show a user when they enter keywords.
Search engines try to match the user's search query with websites that best match what they are looking for. Meta tags are one of many things that a search engine checks, but most site owners consider this an essential step in their overall SEO plan.
Your meta description is the snippet of text that appears in your listing when you are listed in search engines like Google.
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For example, in the screenshot above, you can see that dog kennels.com's meta description is visible below the title "Shop Dog Kennels, Dog Crates & Runs - DogKennels.com.
This description gives the person searching a better idea of what DogKennels.com offers. It's a great way to entice buyers into your site, so make sure you carefully consider what you want to include in your description.
The best meta descriptions strike a balance between being highly optimized (by including keywords that your buyers will search for) and attracting buyers to your site.
How to optimize your meta tags and descriptions
Meta tags appear in the <head> part of your website's HTML code. Meta descriptions go in your <meta name> tag. If you have made your own site, you'll know where to put these, however, if you hired someone to make your site for you, talk to them about adding in meta tags for you. It's a simple job, and shouldn't take them long.
3. Optimize your keywords
You can really help your site rank better in search engines by using keywords in various aspect of your website.
Keywords in your content:
For example, if you sell garden furniture and adornments on your website, you should try to use key words and key phrases in your website's content. For example, on your home page, you should include keywords related to the items you are selling such as garden gnomes, patio furniture, porch swing, and so on.
This helps buyers find your site when they go looking for items you are selling, by giving the search engine more information about your site.
Keywords in your photo titles:
You should also use keywords when creating titles for images that you add to your website. For example, if you have a product photo of a bird bath, label it as birdbath.jpg, rather than item_465 .jpg or 883946.jpg. This is another way of giving the search engines more information about the nature of your website, and therefore, helps to increase your number of visitors.
Keywords in your URL:
If you have a domain that includes important keywords, you have a great advantage over other sellers that do not.
Most SEO experts agree that having a URL with keywords that your buyers are likely to search for will increase your chances of it ranking well in search engines.
For example, if you are selling cameras, and your URL is www.camerashop.com, you will probably rank better than someone whose URL is www.cheapercams.com.
Perhaps even more important is having your keywords in the URLs of each of your product pages as well. For example, if you are selling dog kennels, don't call each product page something like http://www.yoursite.com/2398. Instead call it http://www.yoursite.com/large-dog-kennel-black.
This will help visitors find not just your homepage, but also come to your site through all your product pages as well.
Optimizing your product pages is pretty time-consuming and tedious, but that's exactly why you should take the time to do it (or get someone else to). So many people don't bother that it's a great way for you to get ahead of your competitors.
Which Keywords Should You Use?
The best keywords and phrases to use are ones you think buyers will enter into a search engine when trying to find items you are selling.
A great way to find out what buyers are searching for is to use the Google Keyword Tool.
By using Google's Keyword Tool, you can accurately pinpoint other key terms that buyers are searching for, and get some great ideas on keywords and phrases to use.
Using the garden furniture example, I would enter the keywords 'garden furniture' into the Google Keyword Tool and hit the search button.
Immediately, the Keyword Tool lists all other commonly searched for similar key terms such as garden patio furniture, teak garden furniture, aluminum garden furniture, wooden garden furniture and many more.
So now I know to include these keywords in my site content (if I am selling these items) and it will help get more targeted traffic to my site.
Lastly, just remember to be patient. Getting your website ranking well, and attracting more buyers takes time and requires a great deal of time and should definitely be one of your primary focuses.
Bonus Tip to Get More Traffic to Your Site Immediately: Create a YouTube video that pulls buyers to your site
YouTube is a fantastic platform for generating traffic. With around 1 billion views per day (that's around 41 million views per hour!) YouTube offers an invaluable opportunity to get some very keen buyers to your site.
Here's what you need to do:
Create an informative video that relates to an item you are selling. For example, if your site sells photography equipment, you could have a how-to video on tips for taking great photos at night time, or a review of a new product that you have in stock.
The video doesn't need to be long, and doesn't have to be super professional. Most YouTube videos are fairly amateur and most viewers don't expect much more than a video produced with a fairly average camera.
During or at the end of your video (wherever appropriate) include a soft plug for your store. You can simply mention that you have the items available at your website address. It's also good to mention any discounts or bonuses you have on offer, as this will help to encourage buyers to visit your site and make a purchase.
I hope this helps you get a better understanding of some of the more basic things that you can do to improve you SEO and get more buyers to your store.
As I mentioned, getting traffic to your site is one of the biggest hurdles ecommerce site owners have to overcome. It's important that you don't feel defeated if your site ranks poorly in Google or other search engines. Keep researching, and work towards creating a long-term plan for getting more traffic to your site.
Ecommerce site owners: how have your traffic levels affected your ecommerce business? What measures have you taken to get more buyers to your site?
Let me know by leaving a comment below.
Comments (19)
Yaacov gatenio on 19:35 27 Aug
Great for new e-commerence owners. first steps - explanations how to optimize your srore for SEO. open my eyes ThanksPauline Fredrickson on 22:29 27 Aug
Thanks so much for this information. I did know some of this stuff but did not understand meta descriptions so this will certainly help there. I think perhaps there is a slight typo in the section on "keywords in your url" where you suggest that selling cameras is better suited to a garden furniture url. I guess you actually that selling garden furniture would be better suited to such a url. Thanks for a great and informative article.LKH on 0:13 28 Aug
Fantastic Help! I will start implementing these ideas into my new website today.budakboy on 1:39 28 Aug
Good info, really help. Looking forward to join saleeho...Alice Delore on 2:49 28 Aug
It's great to hear from all you website owners!@ TravelingBuffalo, my point is that domains (URLs) which contain keywords that your buyers will enter into a search engine will rank better than domains that do not.
This is simply because buyers are not likely to search using the keywords 'Colorado + gardens' but are much more likely to use 'garden + furniture' - and this is one of the things that search engines look at when ranking websites.
I hope that's clear :)
Anita on 18:35 28 Aug
Great info, Thanks for sharing!Patricia on 8:01 30 Aug
Thanks heaps. Great info for a new website owner like me. Thks again!!Jose on 17:17 30 Aug
Thanks a lot... very important info for us...Claudette on 17:56 30 Aug
Great stuff. Info came just at the right time and has put an end to most of my worries. You guys are great. Thanks.John on 19:21 8 Sep
Great info. I just don't know how to do it. I am working on a gbbo site and need info on Buttons and linking. The difference between types of pages such as URL. I am very interested and will learn. Thankyou for your free information. It is good reading.adele gockenbach on 23:01 12 Sep
Super info for us newbies. I find i am havig a tendency to use one word keywords so now I need to get more specific keywords . You want to target specific keywords to get the buyers not the browsers . How do you make a you tube video ? Please let me know how I can make a you tube video . Adele GRichelle Monfort on 23:02 13 Sep
Hi arcollectables, May I suggest checking out one of our products, Traffic Travis, a desktop software designed to help online businesses boost their website traffic. It is an all-in-one tool for keyword research, search engine optimization, pay-per-click research and monitoring, and general website analysis. To learn more and download your free copy please go to: http://www.traffictravis.com Also, here are couple to links to help you create and upload a video on youtube: http://pcworld.about.com/od/graphicsmultimedia1/Make-Your-Own-Video-Mashups-fo.htm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPLWNnFy6AM Hope this helps. All the best!Gregory Cox on 8:39 26 Sep
The statement that I found most interesting was, “when most buyers go looking for an item they want to buy online, they do a quick Google search, and click on one of the first 3 websites that are generated in the search results.” I found myself asking... Really? Are most buyers really that dumb? I started buying online before Google existed have never have done anything like this to make a purchase. I might do it to establish a starting point or baseline. I think it is safe to say that I always check at least 4 or 5 different sites before I buy anything.Jennifer Cook on 12:41 14 Oct
This is a very informative article. I am currently using some of these tactics to get traffic to my sites, and they do work extremely well.Evan Davis on 5:01 15 Jan
This is excellent information. I would add, as well, that mass article directory and blog submission can drive large amounts of traffic almost immediately and allow for the steady increase in traffic over time. There are many popular submission tools such as spin distribute, iSnare, and Content Spooler. I personally have been using Unique Article Wizard (UAW) with good results. The point, though, is not which tool or software, but the large scale distribution of content over as many publishing sources as possible. Combined with rss feed distribution, social bookmarking, and social news sites such as Digg, Propeller, and Reddit, (to name a few examples), and skillful use of sites such as Facebook and Twitter, you can really develop a powerful flow of traffic. In addition, there are now a number of software tools available that effectively leverage the potential of profile links. The key, here, is to take action on as large a scale as possible over as long a period of time as possible.Miguel Cebrian on 2:10 17 May
Great! Excellent Info... now ill start with the right steps... ;)breezy808 on 2:50 27 Oct
Good information, since I am a newbie, it's just way high above me... I don't really understand how to do it.Irene Vallejo on 15:31 31 Oct
@breezy808: As Alice has mentioned, you just need to keep researching, and keep on working towards creating a long-term plan for getting more traffic to your site. :) Have a read on Affilorama's free lessons about meta-keywords tag and meta-description tag at http://www.affilorama.com/search-engine-optimization/on-page-seo-factorsmichelle johnson on 23:08 18 Dec
Great information especially about the keywords for your Homepage and Title and also about keyword research. This will come in very handy as I have an ecommerce website myself and I am also looking for ways to increase traffic.