©2016 Dix&Pond

How to Increase Traffic & Conversions on Your Ecommerce Website

B R A N D I N G & M A R K E T I N G

For fashion, footwear, accessories and consumer product companies.

Are you a startup, established brand, or been retailing online for years?

The following is the eight best ways to increase traffic to your website.

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Launch and they will come.You launched a great looking ecommerce site and expected the customers to start buying.

You thought they would just search, find you and it would be so easy, right?

The Internet is a very crowded and competitive place.

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You’ve been around. You’ve been doing ecommerce for years and your traffic volume and conversion rates are dropping. There are many things you can do to reverse the trend.

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 Most startups and other ecommerce companies say driving more traffic to their site is their number one goal. Robust traffic is key to the success of your BTC or BTB fashion or consumer ecommerce business.

Basically, the average retail conversion rate from viewers to a sale is about 1-3%. Say you have 50,000 visitors monthly and 2%, or 1000 people make an average purchase of $120 dollars. That is $120,000. How many visitors do you need to reach your sales goals?

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#1Brand Promise:People buy from brands they relate to and are excited by.

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When a visitor enters your site, does it have a clear identity and brand promise? Do they get an instant understanding that the site is upscale preppy accessories, contemporary apparel basics or modern promotional products?

Are the graphics, fonts and text working together to project a simple, cohesive brand message? Do the company’s core values resonate in some way?

Or does it look dated, generic, cluttered, unapproachable or tricky? If your logo was removed, would it look exactly like your closest competitor? ©2016 Dix&Pond 7-33

 A clear brand message that is appealing and relevant to the target customer is the number one most important attribute in ecommerce. They need to relate emotionally to the site.

If the visitor doesn’t get a great first impression or the site is hard to use, they “bounce” on out of there. They won’t convert to a customer, share your products, pin your pins or email friends to increase future traffic.

You hear crickets.©2016 Dix&Pond 8-33

#2Search Engine Optimization:SEO, especially keywords, are the life blood for finding your site and improving traffic.

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 Many entrepreneurs hire amateurs or design their own website. They have no idea of the importance of keywords and SEO, so they rank low in searches.You can hire companies to improve your SEO or read online articles on how you can improve it yourself.

You should have keyword rich page file names, page titles, page descriptions, Meta tags, image names, alt-tags on images and related keywords in the headers and in the text content on the page. Ask your designer to show you the SEO.

A keyword-rich blog is essential, as it adds much more searchable content to your site.

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#3User Experience:Customers visit a site with a purpose. They want to accomplish something easily.

NORDSTROMA

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 Customers find you through a search, a referrer, ad, or already know about your company. They are at least curious and likely motivated to buy. This a like a customer walking through the door of your brick & mortar store.

Does your site make it easy to accomplish what they set out to do? Is it obvious what you sell? Is it visually appealing and simple? Is the navigation placed intuitively? Are your products categorized well and clearly described? Are you formatted for mobile devices?

Is there tricky scrolling or lengthy page loads? Have you tried to be so hip, it’s annoying? Does creating another password just anger the customer? ©2016 Dix&Pond 12-33

Only the most motivated buyers will tolerate frustrating sites, that don’t let them accomplish what they came to do easily and quickly.

What if a brick & mortar store was disorganized, the departments were hard to find, customers couldn’t get information on the products and the check-out was painfully slow? The customer would walk out.

Poor UX is the disorganized, unhelpful, chaotic store. Test and watch target users navigating your site and make design changes accordingly to increase satisfaction and improve your traffic.

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#4Data & Analytics:Site analytics provide invaluable information on customer behavior on your site.

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 Surprisingly, many small ecommerce companies rarely or never look at their analytics, beyond daily sales.Sales, views, conversion rates, bounce rates, time on pages, abandoned carts, searches, shares, referrers, etc. are a treasure trove to improve your user experience, product selection, merchandising, terms, offers, pricing, etc.

You’ve worked hard to get them to the site and need to understand what they did when they got there.

If you are not looking at data frequently to improve your performance, you are not learning how to make your site better to increase traffic and conversions.©2016 Dix&Pond 15-33

#5Direct & Brick & Mortar Sales:Customers like to experience brands and products in ways not possible two dimensionally online. ©2016 Dix&Pond 16-33

 Did you know over 90% of retail sales are still done at brick and mortar stores? Many of these purchases start online through research, sharing and discovery, but end up in-store.

Ecommerce is the fastest growing channel of retail, but still pales in size to brick and mortar.

In-store or direct sales can create a brand experience that is more tactile and appeals to more of the senses. They are also a potential form of entertainment for the customer.

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Multi-channel retailers do better than “pure-play” ecommerce companies.For this reason, many companies started as “pure-play” ecommerce, branch offline to do direct consumer events, strategically placed pop-up stores and are opening brick and mortar stores like Bonobos, Warby Parker and Birchbox. This “clicks to bricks” trend is growing.

They are also wholesaling or consigning goods in brick and mortar stores and selling on TV home shopping networks.

Home party selling and commissioned brand consultants are other avenues for direct sales of your brand.

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 Mail order catalogs and other direct mail pieces are obviously effective, but can be very expensive.Most of the big mail order catalogs started off-line and their original business and mind set, is rooted in direct mail.

J. Crew is a master of using enticing mail order catalogs to stimulate the customer to buy impulsively, online.

Small companies can use the catalog or direct mail route at key times of the year, to raise brand awareness and sales. ©2016 Dix&Pond 19-33

#6Public Relations:Public relations can be the fastest way to gain brand awareness and increase traffic to your site. WAYFAIRA

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Public relations includes online press releases, sending product to key influencers (bloggers with a decent following), media placement, and going off-line with fashion shows, participating in or sponsoring events.

Caution, don’t pursue a major PR event, unless your site and inventory are prepared for a potential barrage of traffic!Strategic partnerships are an excellent way for companies to co-promote complementary brands. Wayfair and Country Living and Madewell and Nordstrom are two innovative marketing partnerships.

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Are you an ecommerce and catalog company that’s been around for decades? Are you trying new ideas to be discovered, or do you think all public relations and new ideas are just for start-ups? If so, you’ve got a problem.

In the highly competitive apparel and consumer sectors you have to be strategic and creative thinkers to survive.Albert Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

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#7Content Marketing:Content marketing is a way to “attract” consumers to your brand versus the old “push” techniques of traditional marketing. KATE SPADEA

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Content marketing is sharing relevant brand storytelling and information to your target audience to “attract” and engage them with your store or brand. It is different from aggressive, “push” marketing techniques that just show products and say “buy now”.

Content marketing is distributed through company blogs, guest blogging, social networks, e-mail, video and traditional media formats such as magazines. It takes time and persistence.Publishing interesting brand content gets customers engaged and willing to share it on social sites or by word-of mouth, thus increasing site traffic, by brand evangelists.

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Content marketing is a critical component of SEO on your site.

Often a blog is seen as chore, rather than a key component to drive search traffic.

It gets delegated to a green intern with no understanding of SEO or brand engagement.BIRCHBOXA

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All social media platforms are not equally important to your brand. Consider the level of customer engagement and best channels for promoting your brand message. Time is precious, focus your social media efforts accordingly.

Pinterest or Facebook may work best for your wedding site, where content on Instagram, may be better than Twitter, for your sexy shoe, jewelry or accessories line.

MIANSAIA

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#8Advertising:There are many effective ways to advertise to improve traffic on your site.

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Many entrepreneurs think their website is their advertising. A website is a shopping and branding tool and is available to a global audience, but getting discovered or staying top-of-mind in the enormously crowded Internet for your fashion or consumer brand is not easy.

Media audiences are very splintered now. Advertisers have to seek out the platforms where their target personas hang out.Email marketing to distribute content, offers and new products to your email list is a very critical way to reach your audience to drive traffic for BTC and BTC sites.

These are dedicated, interested people, who welcome your messages and is cheaper than direct mail.

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Paid search advertising, like Google Adwords, is a very important way to drive traffic to your BTC or BTB site. You only pay-per-click on your ads.

Someone who clicks on your ad, is already searching for something, essentially a motivated buyer. It can be expensive to bid on the necessary keywords, if you are in a highly competitive category.

Some other online methods of advertising to increase traffic include advertising on influential blogs, online magazines, affiliate advertising and behavioral targeting that track a consumer’s search patterns to offer relevant products.

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Social media advertising, may not have the highest ecommerce conversion rates, but different platforms have advantages.For example, Facebook users are often more interested in socializing, not shopping on the site; but an advantage of Facebook is the ability to target ads to the audience by many factors including location, gender, age, likes, etc. Pinterest is a discovery platform. Which makes it an attractive site for advertising, especially to their female dominated audience. Users can discover new products and then make a purchase.Instagram is another very visual site and a great platform for advertising your image-driven brand.

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Traditional advertising in print media or on TV are expensive forms of advertising to drive traffic to your site. They are deep-pocketed forms of advertising and potentially won’t reach your niche target personas. People today filter out ads on TV and traditional media platforms continue to contract.These are often impractical for small startups because of cost and reach. They are much less targeted than other forms of advertising for a lower cost, like paid search, email marketing, etc.

Ask yourself, what ways can we reach the largest audience of our target personas at the lowest cost?

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In review, here the eight best ways to improve traffic to your retail ecommerce website:1. A strong brand promise2. Follow best practices in SEO3. Good user design and experience4. Review data and analytics regularly5. Direct & brick & mortar sales6. Public relations7. Content marketing8. Advertising

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CONTACT US

Dix & Pond Consulting is a Boston-based consulting company. We help clients with business and brand

strategy, product development, creative direction, merchandising, content marketing and

executive coaching. In person and by phone.

We can help you grow, too.

Clients are apparel, footwear, retail & consumer products companies.

Vvisit our site contact us

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