The pandemic has changed our shopping habits. According to Rzeczpospolita , shopping center traffic is down by one-third compared to pre-pandemic levels. E-commerce is gaining ground and is growing at a rapid pace. In five years, the value of this market in Poland is expected to reach PLN 187 billion.
This is a sign that it's time to invest in online stores. How can you do this wisely and profitably, given the fierce competition, which is only expected to get fiercer? Answers below.
The best sources of traffic for your e-shop
Paid advertising
Implemented across social media, search engines, and remarketing, it allows you to be wherever your potential customers are, building touchpoints, and attracting audiences to your website.
An ideal way to expand a customer's shopping cart if they already know they want to buy your product. These techniques allow them to choose more products or opt for a higher-priced option.
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Mailing
It's a kind of informational platform. Use it to announce new products, promotions, or ways to use the goods and services you offer. Do this with sensitivity and taste, remembering that appetite grows with eating.
Referrals and Brand Ambassadors
Nothing works better than word-of-mouth marketing, recommendations from friends or people who are widely “known and liked”.
Social Media
If you're not on social media , you don't exist. It's a great tool for communicating with customers, professionally and quickly responding to their inquiries, presenting offers, informing about new products, or leveraging paid campaigns.
SEO
If you're not in the top 10 of Google search results, forget about spectacular conversions. No one will search the web for your business. Well, except maybe your mom 🙂
Invest in positioning and all activities (on- and off-site) related to it.
If you want to increase traffic in your online store, remember…
In addition to the proven ways to increase conversion described above, you cannot forget about other important factors, such as:
- Trust,
- Simple shopping path,
- Fast-working website,
- Website optimized for mobile version.
You can read how to implement recipes for a thriving e-shop in the guide "E-commerce from scratch ", published by BaseLinker , which invited us to participate in the project.
Browse through its virtual pages 🙂
Frequently asked questions about increasing e-commerce traffic
The most stable and free source is organic traffic from the Google search engine, built through long-term SEO efforts. Additional free traffic can be generated by building an engaged social media community (organic traffic from social media) and through direct visits from returning, loyal customers (direct traffic).
The fastest and most measurable method is paid advertising campaigns (PPC). Google Ads (especially Google Shopping product campaigns) and Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram ads) are essential in e-commerce. They allow you to reach a precisely defined target audience and drive traffic to your website almost immediately after the budget is released.
Maintaining a store blog allows you to position your website for long-tail keywords. Customers often search Google for answers to specific questions (e.g., "what running shoes should I choose for asphalt"). By answering these questions in your articles, you attract users early in the purchasing process, and you can then direct them directly to their cart using internal linking.
Email marketing is one of the most affordable tools for generating repeat traffic. Regularly sending personalized newsletters with information about new products, sales, and discount codes effectively reminds customers about your brand. Implementing marketing automation, such as a series of emails to rescue abandoned carts, is also crucial.
Yes, collaborating with online influencers (especially micro- and nano-influencers with engaged communities) can generate a sudden and intentional spike in store visits. A product recommendation from a trusted influencer on social media (e.g., Instagram or TikTok) has a much stronger impact than a traditional banner ad.
Because the quality of this traffic and the optimization of the website itself for UX (User Experience) are crucial. If a store loads too slowly, is non-functional on mobile phones, and the purchasing process is complicated, newly acquired users will quickly leave the site (the so-called bounce rate will increase). Increasing traffic must always be accompanied by attention to conversion rate optimization (CRO).
Summary
The above article covers the following topics:
- traffic sources worth using in e-commerce,
- areas that help increase traffic and sales effectiveness in an e-store, from trust and shopping convenience to website and mobile performance.
