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Whether you’re building a business from scratch or expanding an already existing one, you have to compete for traffic. While paid advertising on Google is one of the fastest ways of getting traffic, it comes at a price. With a bit of work and dedication, you can easily cut your expenses. Here are the best ways to increase your website traffic.

Optimizing your assets

As it is often the case, your best bet is making what you already have worked better. Improve your existing assets, and your website traffic will increase. Here’s where you could improve.

Audit your website to see if it’s optimized for Google. If it has a slow loading speed due to bad hosting, oversized images and code, more users will leave it upon discovery. In fact, if your website loads over 10 seconds, visitors are 123% more likely to leave than with websites that load in one second.

Apart from lowering your sales, this signals to Google that your website doesn’t satisfy visitors, making it go down in the SERPs. Improve your website to load fast, and its position is going to grow. Your choice of hosting provider can impact the loading speed greatly. Follow this link to learn more about the nuances of hosting.

Then, you have to improve the content you have already posted. Look for underperforming pages that may have a chance of ranking if improved, and work on them. Updating website content is good in and of itself, but making your evergreen content better for visitors is going to increase the amount of traffic you receive.

Focus on long-tail keywords

When you’re just starting out, it’s tempting to focus your efforts on the keywords that create the most value. However, high-competition, high-traffic keywords like “buy furniture” are very hard to rank. Especially so, if your website is new to Google.

Instead, focus your efforts on ranking high on a wide range of low-traffic keywords like “what material to choose for reupholstering.” Despite the low traffic, these keywords will bring a lot of people to your website if you rank well on many of them.

Local search

If your business has a physical location, focusing on local search may prove more beneficial than doing the regular SEO. The thing is, Google ads and the map dominate the SERPs for many keywords.

Source: Google

This makes local SEO extremely relevant for your success. Establish a consistent name, address, and phone, build citations across the web with this information and work on getting reviews on GMB. With this, you don’t even need to rank on organic search.

Guest Blogging

Even though it was considered to be a questionable tactic in the past, now everybody in the world of SEO will tell you that guest blogging is the way to go. Regardless of your opinion about it, it’s one of the most effective ways of getting backlinks. Even small businesses that have had zero publicity can use it.

Find websites that have an audience of people who may be interested in your products, and offer to share expertise on the platform. You’ll get some direct traffic from the blog as well as authority in the eyes of Google crawlers because of the backlinks.

Try writing for platforms like LinkedIn and Medium to get more exposure. The links from these sources may not be as valuable, but you may get more traffic.

Creating a linkable asset

The best way to get traffic is when you don’t even have to do anything. That’s rather hard to accomplish, but if you succeed, you will receive hundreds of backlinks, thousands of unique website visits, and a considerable number of leads.

A linkable asset can be a detailed long-read, a free e-book, or a tool. The last two can be a better choice since you can get lead contacts in exchange for using the asset. Put all your efforts into promoting your linkable asset, and it will be working wonders for you for months or even years.

Social media marketing

With nearly a third of the world’s population being on Facebook, and other social platforms amassing a considerable audience as well, social media has become one of the best marketing channels. A deep insight into customer behavior allows you to create a highly targeted ad campaign. 

This makes social media campaign a worthy investment. Figure out what platforms have the audience that closely matches yours, consolidates all the social media accounts of your brand in HR software, and promotes them both organically and via paid ads. Consider influencer marketing as a more potent alternative, especially for the younger audience.

The bottom line

Paid advertising on Google is not the only way to get traffic. Optimize your website, improve your website’s link profile by working with guest blogging platforms and creating linkable assets, and make the most of social media marketing. Combined, these tips will bring you a huge increase in traffic.

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Digital marketing was once considered a relative niche area for online businesses, but it’s now an integral part of nearly any marketing campaign. With so many purchases made and ads viewed online, companies simply can’t afford to ignore the latest trends in digital marketing.

It’s impossible to predict what marketers will be doing in five or ten years, but 2019 has seen some clear trends that indicate where the field is moving. These are some of the most important things for digital marketers to keep in mind for the rest of 2019.

#1. The Rise of Omnichannel

Most businesses have expanded their online presence from a single channel to multiple, but omnichannel marketing represents an entirely new transformation. Rather than using each channel to communicate the same message, omnichannel marketers see platforms differently and tailor the content on every channel to each customer’s unique experience.

With omnichannel marketing, for example, you might see a Facebook ad for a given product after adding it to your cart on a brand’s web store. Customers expect more fluid and personal experiences than ever before, and omnichannel marketing is the perfect way to live up to those expectations.

Unsurprisingly, the data shows that using more than one channel can help you achieve significantly better results. In fact, businesses that leverage at least three channels see 90 percent higher customer retention and 250 percent more engagement. If you’re still using a single channel or failing to integrate multiple channels, you’re already falling behind the competition.

#2. Audience Segmentation Becomes More Important Than Ever Before

Audience segmentation goes perfectly with omnichannel marketing, and dividing your audience into smaller categories allows you to target each group more effectively. Customers who are no longer engaged, for example, should receive different messaging from those who just signed up for your newsletter.

While readers open just 18 percent of non-segmented emails, that number rises to 28 percent for segmented campaigns. Audience segmentation is another strategy that every marketer should be using—generic, irrelevant content will lead your readers to ignore your emails or even unsubscribe.

While this is far from a new trend, email blasts are still very widely used. A common mistake for those new to the digital marketing sphere is to neglect segmentation and targeting in favor of the bulk newsletter blast.

#3. Dynamic Subscription Forms Better Engage Customers

You probably think of email content as a higher priority than sign-up forms, but dynamic sign-up content is more likely to catch your audience’s attention and increase subscriptions. Traditional sign-up boxes convert just over one percent of users, leaving nearly 99 percent of them to leave your website without subscribing.

Pop-ups are much more noticeable than a standard box, so it makes sense that they convert almost four times as many readers. That said, landing pages remain the best option for email capture. While pop-ups are a big step up from sign-up boxes, landing pages achieve a much higher open rate at nearly 25 percent.

#4. Video Content Seeps into Each Step of the Customer Journey

Internet users see more ads than ever before, which makes it extremely difficult for brands to develop messaging that stands out from the competition. Video content is one of the best ways to get your audience’s attention quickly, and people tend to continue watching videos for much longer than they would read a text ad.

If you implement video content into your digital marketing practices, remember that many of your subscribers won’t be able to hear the audio. Make sure that every ad is easily understandable with or without sound to keep your entire audience interested.

You can use videos on nearly any platform, including email, social media, SMS, and more. Rather than thinking of video ads as an occasional change of pace, you should make them a core part of your marketing approach. Experiment with tutorials, testimonials, demonstrations, and other forms of content to see what your audience connects with.

#5. Automation Workflows Go Further in Personalization

Automation is key to any marketing campaign, especially for companies with large contact lists. These two workflows are an ideal starting point for anyone new to marketing automation.

But today, personalization counts for more than ever before. Customers are looking for a completely immersive experience, and they’re willing to reward the brands that give it to them.

Think about personalizing each step of your customer journey to take advantage of this digital marketing trend. For example, you wouldn’t send a brand new customer the same kind of message you’d send to a year-over-year loyal customer. That wouldn’t make sense.

Instead, think about what your customers are looking for at each step of their purchase journey and adapt your message around those steps, the channel your customers would be using, and your customers themselves.

Digital marketing practices are constantly changing, and it’s critical for marketers to stay up to date on the latest trends. Keep these ideas in mind to build more effective campaigns and update your approach to digital marketing for 2019.

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Even before “growth hacking” became a thing, retail store owners are diligent in finding ways on how they can increase their revenue.

Now that e-commerce is booming, business owners still eye the same goal ‒ increase their e-commerce conversion rate.

In fact, some would dive headfirst on to Google Advertisement and Facebook Ads just to drive website traffic and leads. However, this is not always cost-effective.

According to Matt Janaway, “E-commerce brands are increasingly reliant on Facebook Ads and Google AdWords to pull in traffic. That approach is not only costly, but it can also leave you too reliant on advertising spend. It could result in too many costly first-time clicks, without enough actual buyers to make a profit.”

So, how can you growth hack your conversions? Learn from the tips and tricks below:

Narrow down your target audience

Sure, market research can be time-consuming. But you have to realize that the days and weeks you spend on determining and narrowing down your target audience could help save you tons of money when it comes to cost per acquisition.

Knowing who your target audience is can help you focus your marketing efforts. For instance, your market research revealed that your target audience is mostly on Instagram. That means you should focus your marketing activities on Instagram rather than on Facebook.

To narrow down your target audience, think of someone who would benefit most on your products or services.

Scrutinize the sales funnel

Pronto Marketing defines “sales funnel” as an illustration of your target audience’s ideal buyer’s journey.

The reason it is called is a funnel because you can market and attract thousands of internet users to your website. However, only a percentage of those would be willing to leave their contact details. And among those who leave their details, only few will buy from you.

That said, it is important how your site visitors are going through their buyer’s journey on your e-commerce site.

You can start by using web analytics to measure where they usually fall out or leave. See if that particular web page is causing friction and prevents site visitors from converting. It can be as simple as missing call-to-action button or as complex as “product not available” page.

But basically, what you need to do is to fix your exit pages. Remove whatever it is that causes friction in your customer’s buyer’s journey.

Create high-quality product pages

While it makes sense to a lot of web developers and designers to improve the homepage, it is also important to put the product pages into consideration.

Here’s the thing: When you search for a product on Google, you do not type the retailer or manufacturer’s name. You would rather type in the product name itself. Thus, you are more likely to come across a product page.

That said, creating high-quality product pages allows you to make a good first impression. This can encourage conversions, which has a positive impact on your e-commerce business’ bottom line.

Improve your product descriptions

A good web design, high-quality imagery, and succinct product description can convince a site visitor to buy from your online store. In fact, a well-written product description can help boost your e-commerce conversions.

According to Brianna Cryar, “The best product description will not only convince customers that they want your product but that they need it and can’t live without it! A product description is your chance to tell people why your company is the best and why they should purchase your product.”

Here are some quick tips on how you can improve your product descriptions:

1. Make sure that each of your product descriptions is unique.
2. Proofread your product descriptions.
3. Write product descriptions based on your target audience’s vocabulary.
4. Tell how your products can help their situation.

Showcase social proof

Just like growth hacking, social proof is not really a new concept.

Imagine you are backpacking in a foreign country. What would be your gauge of the best place to eat? Most of the time, you would go where there is a queue of people. That’s social proof.

The same thing goes for e-commerce. Unlike when you are in a retail store, you get to hold and test a product. Shopping online means you have to rely on other people’s opinion ‒ social proof.

Customer reviews and star ratings can sway a customer’s buying decision. After all, these are people who already bought and get to experience your product.

Simplify the checkout process

Sometimes, no matter how awesome your e-commerce store’s design is or how well-written your product descriptions are, not all customers are ready to buy.

But according to a study conducted by the Baymard Institute, here are the top three reasons for cart abandonment during checkout:

1. Extra costs, such as shipping fee, are expensive
2. Users are required to create an account
3. The checkout process is long and complicated

These reasons are something that you can actually control. Other than scrutinizing the sales funnel, you might also want to take a look at your online store’s check out process.

Remember that check out is a crucial point of the purchasing process. And if you do not mitigate and minimize friction, you are less likely to generate conversions.

Utilize live chat software

Apparently, e-commerce customers like to ask a question or two before making a purchase. On the other hand, Live Chat makes it easier for them to get the answers they seek.

And when it is easy for them to ask questions and get answers, the higher the chances that they will convert.

There are a few ways on how you can include Live Chat in your conversion rate optimization efforts:

1. Live Chat: Allow customers to ask questions that can help them with the checkout process.
2. Live Chat and Phone Call: Allow customers to drop their questions through live chat, ask for their contact details, and contact them to explain the checkout process better.
3. Live Chat > CRM > Follow Up: This is ideal if you have a long sales cycle. Follow up is integral if you are offering a product with a high perceived value.

Ensure sensitive data security

According to a study conducted by the TNS PLC, a market research company based in London, 75 percent of online shoppers abandon their online shopping cart for security reasons.

Come to think of it, would you provide your credit card details and billing address to someone with questionable credibility? Definitely not.

However, changing your URL from “http” to “https,” as well as placing security logos, are not enough to build trust among your customers. Thus, it does not necessarily boost conversion.

But as Eric Leuenberger points out, “From the perspective of improving website conversion, presenting a security logo is only a small piece to an overall credibility-building strategy. Building trust effectively with customers that results in increased conversion require additional testing.”

Wrap up

In turns out that are a handful of tips and tricks that can help increase your e-commerce conversion rates. But what’s cool about the aforementioned growth hacks is that you do not necessarily have to increase your website traffic. It all boils down to providing a great user experience to your customers.

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