How to Leverage Your Website to Grow Your eCommerce Store

February 15, 2022

Countless shop owners are now looking to grow beyond their local markets. Good thing, today, all types of retailers can use digital shopping platforms to reach audiences across the country and around the world.


With over a million digital retail transactions every day, eCommerce has become crucial, especially as the number of people purchasing online continues to rise.


eCommerce is a wonderful platform for organizations to employ to expand their successful brick-and-mortar operations around the world. Many shops have reaped substantial benefits as a result of their efforts. However, if customers cannot discover its website, it will inevitably lose sales.


With that in mind, this article will show you how to leverage your website to grow your eCommerce business.

Improvements to Your Website to Grow Your eCommerce Store

Customers say they expect the same experience no matter where they interact with a business, including offline transactions, social media, and your website. Thus, companies must launch an eCommerce website that connects all their selling platforms to give customers what they want.


Consider the following factors:

Site Speed

Internet users are well-known for having short attention spans. People constantly get bombarded with options, so they must be selective and discriminating. Customers know there are other websites to visit if yours does not load quickly enough, so they will not waste their time on yours. Thus, it is imperative to have a speedy website.


Website speed gets impacted by the efficiency of the coding in your store's layout, the capabilities of your eCommerce software, the power of the server where your website resides, and other factors. To achieve a quick website, you must consider all of this and carefully select your providers.

Internal Linking Structure

Internal linking is when you connect from one page of your website to another page, such as linking from a category page to the homepage and vice versa. This linking system is how Google crawls a website and discovers all items and pages, apart from the XML sitemap.


Internal authority of your major product or category pages can get increased by linking to them from the site-wide menu. It also provides Google with a better understanding of your site and its hierarchy.


Additionally, adding breadcrumbs to your category and product pages can be beneficial. Breadcrumb navigation allows a website user to rapidly navigate back through a category without using their browser's "back" button, which is especially useful when a consumer has not gotten guided through your category structure to come to that product page in the first place.

Security

You can no longer ignore hackers and major data breaches. Understandably, individuals are anxious about the security of their personal information. This feature has evolved from the fear of having a credit card number taken to include identity theft, the loss of personal accounts, and other terrible stories.


This issue is why your website's security must be top-notch. Although an SSL certificate is required, your website must also be PCI compliant to process credit cards online.


Experts introduced PCI compliance into the eCommerce business to help provide security standards to combat hacker attacks and data breaches. It comprises standard security measures such as SSL and firewalls, but it also includes a rigorous process that provides for audits and inspections of your company.

High-Quality Content

With online commerce sites, you must not only create a superior website and offer in-demand things, but you must also fill your eCommerce site with quality content and get it crawled by search engines, or you will be out of the game.


While you may believe that releasing a large amount of information will increase your chances of being noticed on search engines, you are mistaken. Search engines do not only rank websites based on how much content they have; they also consider how good that content is. It could work against you if a search engine thinks your website's content is repetitious or tries too hard to be search engine friendly.


The material on your website should also get centered on your products. Too many startups begin by discussing their objectives or attempting to "pump up" their company to the point where visitors may be unsure of what the company sells. This occurrence is something you do not want to happen. Thus, it helps to keep information on your front page focused on your products and the issues they can address for your clients.

Marketing Tactics to Grow Your eCommerce Store

Putting up a website is one thing; marketing is another. Tactics for increasing traffic to your online store can be quite diverse. With that, here are marketing methods to help you build your eCommerce store, from selling to existing consumers to gaining new ones.

Leverage Your E-Mail List

It is critical to have a good email marketing plan, even if you have a physical business. Collect as many email addresses as possible from customers, prospects, individuals interested in your events, and so on. When your store shifts digital, you will be able to send an email to all of those folks informing them that they may shop with you online.


Keep gathering email addresses on your site because email remains one of the most successful marketing strategies in the eCommerce industry.

Incorporate High-Quality, Unique Images

Every component of your website, including your logo, page backgrounds, banner graphics, and other graphical elements, must be of the highest quality. High-quality graphics will enhance the professionalism of your website; contrarily, low-quality graphics will have the opposite impact, making your company appear amateurish and unprofessional.


Avoid pixelated photos, over-compressed, blurry, or otherwise of poor quality.

Optimize Your SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) covers a wide range of topics, and attempting to optimize can lead you into a rabbit hole.


Generally, pay special attention to on-page content. On-page content includes product titles and descriptions, photos, blogs, and other information, among other things. You want to ensure that your material employs natural language that your clients could use when looking for similar products and answers their questions.

Utilize Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Installing an ad on a website is analogous to placing a billboard along the side of the highway in traditional online advertising methods. A company would essentially "rent" a certain amount of ad space and pay the same price for advertising regardless of what happened.


The pay-per-click marketing strategy is different. You only pay for those who click on your adverts when you use this type of model. The PPC model allows you to avoid overpaying for advertising that did not work if your ads do not produce significant activity, even though the campaign is likely to be regarded as unsuccessful.

Personalize Your Website

Website personalization is an innovative approach that allows a website's content to get adjusted precisely to the demands of each unique visitor. Websites typically have a common layout that remains consistent regardless of who visits.


On the other hand, personalization allows you to improve each visitor's experience by tailoring it to their wants and needs. As a result, your brand's image may improve.


Consider the following when personalizing your data:

Omnichannel Marketing

In an omnichannel marketing strategy, all communication channels collaborate to inform and empower consumers instead of working in their own best interests. That is, the consumer is at the center of this campaign.


Instead of the brand's preferred means of communication, communication channels should optimize the consumer experience based on consumers' preferences.

Cross-Sell and Up-Sell Your Products with Personalized Recommendations

The fundamental goal of cross-selling and upselling is to boost profits. However, it is equally important to deliver genuine value to customers along the process. In addition, it can assist with:


  • You are improving your conversion rates and customer experience.
  • Offering convenience and flexibility for the customers.
  • Retaining current clients and generating new leads.
  • Encouraging product development.
  • Avoiding churn.


You may lose clients and, as a result, sales if your brand's cross-selling and upselling techniques feel forced or unnecessary. Worse, your clients may become “ad-blind,” dismissing your promotions as irritating, pushy, unethical, or wasteful.


This possibility is why it is vital to cross-sell and upsell things that provide actual value to customers, are customized based on their preferences and do not feel pushed. Understanding your customer's demands, habits, and goals is, in fact, the first step in developing a cross-sell and upsell plan.

Connect with Your Customers on a Personal Level

Your customers are the lifeblood of your company, which is why it is critical to keep track of how they interact with your brand. Do not only contact them when you need their business; find ways to show them you care regularly. To do so, take the following steps:


  • Respond to their concerns
  • Follow up
  • Be active on social media
  • Grow with your current clients in mind
  • Survey your customers

Conclusion

In summation, as the owner of an eCommerce store, you need to ensure that your company is always thriving. If you do not evolve in these fast-changing times, you will find yourself stagnating.


It can be intimidating to sell online for the first time or to upgrade your online presence to become a critical retail channel, but it is more than achievable if you take it one step at a time.


Hopefully, the tactics presented here will guide you in creating your very own eCommerce strategy to grow your business.


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