Having an ECommerce store can be an absolute dream once you begin to fully establish your online presence and customer base. However, getting there requires a significant investment of either time or money or both.
Black Buffalo has established an online presence for its tobacco free chew over a short period of time because of the uniqueness of its product, it’s well-defined branding, and its content that reaches the right audience. In this article, we are going to take a deeper look into what will help you most in your efforts to increase organic traffic to your store.
Branding
Of course the first thing we are going to talk about is branding. It needs to be completely recognizable so that people will think of your brand when they hear your company’s name, as well as when they want to buy the products your company sells.
For some, this may be one of the most difficult parts of the journey. Deciding on your branding is like picking your child’s name. You put care and thought into it, and you want it to be a representation of your pride and your efforts.
Unlike picking your child’s name, however, it matters what others think of it. Fortunately, you can tweak your company’s branding over time, so if you find that you’ve messed something up, you can always change it.
With enough research, however, you should be able to create a recognizable presence. You want to pick colors, a logo, fonts, and a web personality that speaks to your customers. Something your target audience understands and appreciates. Branding that helps them know without much effort, what you want to sell them, how you’re going to do it, and why your company is better than the others.
Social Media
If you don’t have a presence on social media, you need to get one. At the very least make profiles on Instagram and Facebook. LinkedIn is also an excellent place to network and may drive traffic to your website. Consider a profile on any local or industry networking sites as well.
It’s tedious work, but these are marketing avenues that are virtually free except for the time it takes to set them up and maintain them. You can pay for advertising on most social media platforms as well, however, having a great Instagram can go a long way even without paid ads.
The key with social media is engagement. When your posts are engaging; you respond to followers’ comments; and you like, follow, and comment on other people’s posts, that boosts your rankings on social platforms. This means that your posts will be shown to followers more often, and your page will be recommended to people who are not already following your company.
Create Plenty of Content
When you constantly add new, relevant content to your website, then you give search engines something to find when people do a search. For example, when you create a blog full of posts for purple widgets, your website is more likely to show up in a search for purple widgets. You just need to make sure your posts are optimized for Google or Bing to find them (which we will address in the next section).
Your content should be informative and well-written to keep customer interest. The point is to establish your company as an authority on the subject of your product, and to get people to spend more time on your website. These factors will bump up your position in search rankings as well.
Keywords
If you don’t choose the right keywords for your pages, they will never show up in a search. Select keywords that are relevant to your topic, and mention those words in your post at least a couple of times. If you choose purple widgets as a keyword, then write about ringtail lemurs without ever mentioning purple widgets, Google will pass right over you.
Keywords also need to be unique in order to compete with other websites. Maybe there are a thousand websites that sell purple widgets, but few of them ever mention fuschia thing-a-ma-bobs. If people who are looking for the thing-a-ma-bobs are also interested in the widgets, you sell both by writing about the thing-a-ma-bobs.
A Word on Paid Ads and Emails
These days, it seems that Google is giving more search page space and preference to paid ads. No matter how brilliantly you execute all of your content, you may need to pay for some advertising to at least get your site established and recognized.
Another route is to start building that email list. This is not organic traffic, but a regular email newsletter will get people visiting your site, which in turn boosts your ranking. Make sure your emails provide useful information that your customers want and need, and include links to your site so they know where to find more information.
