StoreYa's top 12 ways to drive traffic to your store

This guest post is contributed by StoreYa, which offers marketing and advertising apps to help increase sales, leads and social following. 

Bringing traffic to your site is the #1 goal for any ecommerce store owner. As ecommerce traffic experts, we understand how important that goal is and have the inside scoop in all the leading traffic sources that won’t cost you the earth. Here are the top 12 ways to cost effectively drive traffic to your store starting today!

1: Increase Your Discoverability with SEO

Upping your SEO game will help new customers discover you more easily. It’s a long game, but the ROI benefits are well worth the time investment. According to Social Fresh, 33% of people will click through to the first Google result they see, therefore working to gain spots on a search list is the key to getting qualified, sustained traffic.

There are a number of ways you can improve your SEO to improve your rankings. The first thing is to ensure your site is optimised correctly - Moz has a great SEO beginners guide to get you started. Another sure way is to add a blog to your store and post regular, relevant content. SEO is a long process and changes regularly, so keep track of updates by following the big guys’ blogs such as Google. 

2: Become the Go-To Person in Facebook Groups

Joining interest-based Facebook groups within your niche is a great way of ‘hanging out’ with potential customers, offer advice and relevant information about your store. Not convinced? Seasoned blogger Robert Farrington doubled his monthly traffic using Facebook groups. For example, if you sell women’s makeup, you could join Facebook groups about beauty tips. Or if you sell pet gear, you could join forums or groups of pet owners offering advice or post pet care advice blogs from the blog section of your store.

By getting into these conversations and sharing useful content without just trying to sell, you also build trust and position yourself as an expert in your niche. It’s always important to read the group rules and to appear as a helper rather than a spammer. And don’t be afraid of the smaller groups: having fewer members mean you have more chance of engaging one on one.

3: Get More From AdWords for Less

When it comes to PPC vs. SEO, we know that SEO is vitally important for the long-term game, while PPC will get you targeted traffic the quickest. Paid search will ensure that even if you’re a new or smaller store, you can place high in search lists. Navigating AdWords can seem like a tricky affair, and does take a lot of hands-on monitoring, but the rewards for getting it right are well worth it. If you don’t want to tackle it yourself, you have loads of agency options, or you can use apps like our own Traffic Booster that bring highly-targeted traffic, with one-click setup, far more cost effectively.

4: Engage More on Twitter

Twitter can be a great way of getting lots of free traffic to your store. By engaging with users about  your brand, posting cool content, showing where your brand stands on big issues to make it more relatable, and getting in on popular hashtags, you can reach a lot of would-be shoppers.about  your brand, posting cool content, showing where your brand stands on big issues to make it more relatable, and getting in on popular hashtags, you can reach a lot of would-be shoppers.

There are a number of tools you can use to engage and get more followers on Twitter. Followerwonk will let you find and connect with Twitter influencers in your niche or use Twitter’s Trending topics to see most popular hashtags for the countries you are selling in.

5: Reach Out to Bloggers, Vloggers and Online Publications

Popular bloggers, vloggersbloggers and online publications are an awesome way to build brand awareness and trust and bring , as well as bringing more cost effective traffic to your store. Finding the right bloggers to contact is as easy as doing a Google and/or YouTube searchFinding the right bloggers to contact is as easy as searching Google and/or YouTube. Say you’re selling women’s accessories, . Ttry searching for things like ‘fashion tips’ and ‘outfit advice.’ Reach out to bloggers by offering free samples of your products or get in touch with online publications offering a unique story about how you got started or highlighting a product that is different enough to get you noticed.

6: Engage Instagram Influencers with Free Samples

Partnering with Instagram influencers is a sure way to bring more traffic to your online store. According to Shopify, Instagram generates a higher average value than other platforms. There are a few ways you can find Instagram influencers:

• Look at who your followers are following. This is a great way to find popular accounts in your niche.
  
• Use tools such as WEBSTAGRAM. This tool lets you search the most popular hashtags on Instagram and popular accounts.
  
• Get in touch with companies like InstaBrand which will help connect you with influencers in your niche.  
  

7: Create a Referral Program for Your Store

Who better to bring in new customers than one of your already happy shoppers? Referral programs give you the ability to incentivise your customers to refer new customers, giving you highly targeted, trusting traffic. This kind of credibility is worth far more than its worth in gold. Start by sending out an email to all those happy shoppers who have purchased from you, making them an offer it will be hard to say no to, such as a discount, reward, gift card or a small gift. Even better, offer a new customer a little something extra as well.

There are a bunch of site plugins or add-ons, such as FriendBuy, you can use to implement and streamline your referral programs.

8: Get Traffic from Reddit

Reddit gives you the whole internet, divided into niches called subreddits, at your fingertips. Following and engaging in popular threads can help you engage with possible customers, offer tips in your niche and share your store with interested shoppers. Reddit’s 200 most active subreddits categorised by content list is a good place to start to find subreddits in your niche.

Let’s take the example of selling in the pet care niche again; r/cats has lots of discussions on all things cats. This is also a great place to curate great content for your other social media platforms.

Bonus: While you’re on Reddit, don’t forget to check out subreddits like /r/entrepreneur and /r/smallbusiness for some awesome tips, advice and info.

9: Host Contests and Giveaways

Contests and giveaways can help bring a lot of extra traffic to your online store. Plus, it allows you to capture a heap of new email addresses so that you can convert visitors into paying customers by boosting traffic through your email marketing campaigns. Tools like Gleam will allow you to define your contest goals, select a price and coordinate with influencers.

Nothing attracts people more than freebies, plus it’s a great way to engage your past and potential customers at once one time and bring back previous and new traffic.

10: Bring Traffic With Social Media Ads

Social Media PPC is one of your best sources of paid traffic, allowing you to target potential shoppers not only based on geographic information but interests and browsing habits. Facebook has 1.94 billion active monthly users and its advertising platform allows you to target traffic according to your available budget.

Instagram is a great place to target millennials - 73% of its half a billion monthly active users are between the ages of 15 - 35.

Last but not least, Pinterest ads offer you great advertising opportunities in niche groups: 52% have purchased something online after seeing it on Pinterest first.

11: Get onto Google Shopping

We would be remiss if we weren’t to mention Google Shopping as a leading traffic source. Differing from AdWords in the way feeds and products are chosen, Google Shopping relies heavily on an SEO approach as it draws from metadata you have on your product pages. Product listings are far more prominent and are ideal for those customers who already know exactly what they want.

Visit our Google Shopping Guide to get the full breakdown on what you need to do to cash in on Google Shopping traffic.

12: Up Your Email Marketing Game

Finally, one of the most cost-effective traffic-driving tactics you can use: email marketing. The first step in driving more traffic through your emails is by capturing as many current site visitors’ emails addresses as possible, with apps like our own Coupon Pop, to grow your database of possible buyers. You can then use newsletters, blog posts or flash sales emails to bring that traffic, for minimal cost, back to your store.  

By segmenting your list, you can increase your email open rates by 203%. Why? Because you can upsell, offer specific deals and/or content to segments in your market more likely to click through to your site.  

There you have it: 12 cost-effective ways to drive more traffic to your store. Have something to add? Get in touch in the comments below.

Nicole Blanckenberg is the Content Contributor for StoreYa’s weekly eCommerce blog. StoreYa offers a suite of marketing and advertising apps which help SMBs increase sales, leads and social following. We support more than 150,000 business owners from 186 countries.