As an ecommerce business owner, every dollar you spend you wonder: will this result in increased sales? Increased sales equal more profit for you, and profit is why you’re in business in the first place. So what should you do if your ecommerce store is struggling to make sales? How can you position yourself to drive more traffic to your site and ensure you’re converting that traffic? In other words, how do you scale your ecommerce business? We put together 8 tips that ecommerce experts suggest will increase your store’s sales. 1. Know your customer base It’s very important that you know who your prospective customers are. By this, we mean that you should understand your target demographic and have a solid grasp of your niche market. For example, if you’re an ecommerce store based in the United States that sells CBD products, you’ll want to market to demographics that are likely to be interested in buying those products. And with modern technology, it’s becoming simpler to do so. Targeted marketing is one of the benefits of ecommerce. Once you know your audience, you can market directly to certain consumer profiles located in designated regions. Whatever the criteria, you can get your products directly in front of the right shoppers at the right time. But first you’ll need to know your customer base. If you’re an existing ecommerce store with a significant sales history, you can use Google Analytics to figure this out. Otherwise, consider using data from competitors or industry benchmarks to better understand your target market. 2. Get customer reviews The value of customer reviews is well-documented. The theory is that reviews are one of the foremost ways you can build trust with visitors to your website who might not know about your business or products. If they see a lot of positive reviews from prior shoppers, they’ll be more confident in their decision to make a purchase. This is why the presence of online reviews increases a product’s conversion rate by 270%, according to Northwestern University’s Spiegel Research Center. It's safe to say that more reviews leads to increased customer traffic and greater trust, which equates to more sales and the growth of your business. This is the principle that guides Kliken’s Google Merchant product reviews solutions. 3. Create SEO-driven website content To gain any traction with sales conversions or positive reviews, you’ll first need to drive more traffic to your website. A great way to do this is by creating search engine optimized website content, like a blog. Blogs serve many purposes.
But a blog’s primary function is to drive traffic to your website. And not just any traffic. The purpose of optimizing your blog with SEO keywords is to attract the exact shoppers who are browsing for products like yours. 4. Take advantage of Google Smart Shopping marketing or paid Google Ads Possibly the best tool out there for increasing your ecommerce store’s sales is Google Smart Shopping. Because with Google Smart Shopping, you can target the best types of online shoppers: high-intent shoppers. With Smart Shopping campaigns, Google promotes your products directly to shoppers who are likely to make purchases at your store. Using AI and machine-learning technology, this is the best way to effectively place advertisements for your products. 5. Simplify your website Complicated, clunky websites get in the way of shoppers. They put obstacles between your customers and the checkout process. Simplified websites are straightforward. They whisk shoppers along to checkout by never asking for a login or email sign-up as a requirement before making a purchase. The user experience of their sites is seamless: shoppers know where to find the products they want and can easily locate their carts at any time. Simplifying your website will not only lead to more sales. It’ll also improve your shopping cart abandonment rate in the process. A win-win for ecommerce store owners. 6. Start regular email marketing campaigns Email marketing is an effective way to build interest in your store’s brand. But before you start email marketing campaigns, you’ll need a way to collect emails on your website. A newsletter sign-up banner is a great way to get your customers to sign up. You can even entice visitors to your website to sign-up by offering a conditional sale or discount. Once you’ve got your email database, then it’s time to start marketing. Sending out a weekly or monthly blast can result in more clicks on your website and, as a result, increased sales. 7. Build trust with shoppers using trust seals Trust is a major factor in shoppers’ buying decisions. Customers usually determine if a website is trustworthy within milliseconds after clicking on it. Established, well-known brands earn the trust of consumers through their notoriety. Take Nike, for example. Practically everyone in the world recognizes this sneaker company and its products. Few people will need reviews to be confident about making a purchase from a brand like Nike. But if you’re a small ecommerce store, you won’t be able to rely on brand recognition for trust. You’ll need to distinguish your trustworthiness in other ways. So how should you go about doing that? Customer reviews are a great start. But if you want to take your trust-building efforts to the next level, consider obtaining trust seals. Simply put, these are icons that announce to shoppers you are a legitimate, vetted business. There are dozens of different types of trust badges you can obtain. But here are the 5 that are most recommended by experts, including a Safe Checkout Guaranteed badge. Trust seals are reported to significantly reduce shopping cart abandonment as well as increase sales by up to 17%. 8. Social media Maintaining a dynamic social media presence can increase your store’s brand engagement and build trust with shoppers and this often leads to increased sales. So while social media doesn’t directly equate to sales, it can drive traffic to your store, which leads to conversions. Having a social presence is also a great way to promote your business’s offerings and build an email database. Google Shopping powered by Kliken for your ecommerce store Whether you’re just starting out or you want to take your existing ecommerce business to the next level, Kliken makes the process of syncing your store with the Google Shopping & Ads platforms seamless. So you can start running Google Smart Shopping campaigns almost immediately — we deal with all the headaches of onboarding. Regardless of your individual goals, Google Shopping & Ads powered by Kliken can help you to meet them. We'll handle your Google Merchant account set up while you get started prepping for your next Smart Shopping campaign. As the world’s #1 Shopping and Ads marketing platform, Kliken has helped over 1,000,000 small businesses worldwide grow their sales on Google and get a return of up to 7x their original ad spend. Its proven marketing solutions can help you to unleash the potential of your ecommerce business. Learn more about how customers use Kliken to grow their businesses online here. Author: Michael ArnoldMichael is a freelancer from New York City. When he isn’t writing about how Kliken unleashes the marketing, you can find him reading, writing for pleasure, or traveling the globe.
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