28 ways how to attract more customers to an online store

Do you have an online store but don’t have high sales or are you thinking of increasing your online store sales, increasing your profits and attracting more customers to your online store? How  You can increase online store visit statistics? In this article, I will share how you can get more customers for your online store.

1. Optimize Internet shop loading speed

Improve your online store load speed, online store load rate is one of the criteria that can increase your online store’s position in google search results. As well as improving the experience of using the web store visitors. If an e-shop takes a long time to load, the user may even leave the online store without waiting for the page to load.

You will most likely need the help of professionals to improve your online store load speed. There are many factors that influence the load time of an online store, here are a few:

  • Server parameters and configuration on which your e-commerce site (hosting) is located. If there are problems with the server, you can change the hosting or change the server settings if that is the case.
  • CSS, HTML, JS code and file quantity and order. The more individual CSS, JS files on your website, the longer it will take to load the page. This problem can be solved by optimizing the code and combining the same type of code into one file.
  • Image size, resolution, and whether or not the images are sized to fit each device. As well as where the images are located or other servers are used to host the same server or images.
  • Quantity of animations, moving elements, third-party elements (google map, youtube video, etc.) and how to place them in your online store.
  • The number of redirects on the website.

2. Develop Online Store Brand

When designing an online store, it is important to rethink the brand concept, logo design, online store design, the overall concept of your online store will associate with customers. If the online store is impersonal and without an idea, it will not remain in memory. Branding is an important thing for online stores nowadays when there is so much competition between online stores. Remember! Think about the message you are sending to potential customers.

Branding is the way you build relationships with your customers. Because there are probably hundreds or even thousands of other online stores selling exact products like you, it is important to make a positive difference.

3. Reduce the number of input fields when registering and completing a purchase

Users do not like to fill out long questionnaires and registration forms. Make the signup and purchase process for your online store as quick and easy for the customer as possible. Studies have shown that more than half of people shopping online leave their shopping cart without making a purchase. The purchase order view is one of the most important views on your website, as well as a place where you can easily lose a customer if something is too complicated.

4. Reminder emails

After the customer has purchased something in your online store, send a reminder e-mail to the customer after 2 weeks about what the customer purchased. Invite the customer to buy more, including in the email a product that the customer might be interested in, for example, this product is very popular with your customers or for example a new product. You can also add and highlight a review from another customer about this product. It is much easier to sell to a customer who has already purchased something once than to a new customer.

You can use, for example, a tool such as Mailchimp for email marketing purposes to prepare your email. Or, go to a professional who will prepare your email design.

5. Thanksgiving

Send a realistic physical thank you card to your customers along with the shipment, and your customer will notice and appreciate it more than a simple thank you email. Some online stores even send customers handwritten, personalized thanks to the customer’s last name.

You can send free product samples if available for your business. Another example is when ordering something in an online store, a customer answers a question when ordering a product – what is your favorite taste (multiple choice answers). When the customer receives his shipment, he receives a surprise, a candy with the taste he chose. In this way, you show a personalized attitude and that you know your client. Candy is just an example of a demonstration, but something else can be in its place.

6. Feedback

Place the opportunity to submit and also show reviews for each product in your online store. Highlight one of your real reviews on the product in a prominent place. People are more likely to buy products that have visible reviews. Integrate the ability to see, for example, google reviews for your store or Trustpilot reviews in your online store.

Put a separate section with reviews in your online store and check what appears in Google by typing in “your storename.com reviews”. Because this way many users search for information about your online store before making a purchase.

Encourage customers, submit purchase reviews on Facebook (if you have a Facebook page), Google reviews (if you have a Google listing for your business), Trustpilot and more. There are many different ways to do this, with emails, social networking sites (Instagram, Facebook). You can ask customers to submit a review immediately after making a purchase or when they physically receive your purchase.

Customers are the most responsive right at the moment they receive the product, this is a good time to get feedback.

7. E-shop homepage

Carefully plan the information that will be on the homepage of the online store. It is desirable to have a short and easy-to-understand introduction to your business. If possible, video, and of course product images. You can place special offers and interesting content on your homepage that add value to your customer. Likewise, in the news section of an online store, place useful information to your customers that may be helpful in choosing or using products, rather than directly promoting the products you sell on the blog.

Experts from Stanford University conducted a survey of Internet users’ behavior and found that users rate the reliability of a page by its design and 52% of users abandon the page and never return if they don’t like the design of the page. Users evaluate a page within the first 2 seconds of a page coming in, so homepage and landing pages that are linked from ads are very important.

8. Product images

You can’t physically give a person a sense of the product at the online store, but you can show quality pictures and videos that show the most realistic product information. It is also not worth converting images and photoshopping product pictures in such a way that the products cannot be recognized, because then the customer will be disappointed if the product image does not correspond to reality.

9. Easy and fast communication

Wherever your customer is in your online store or website, you should be able to contact you with a single click. This can be a Facebook messenger, chatbots, WhatsApp chat button or other communication that allows the customer to instantly contact you. This is important because, unlike a physical store, there is no seller to ask in the online store. The WhatsApp button, which lets you write a message to you right away with a single button, works very well because WhatsApp is very popular right now.

10. Personalization

Personalize ads because nowadays people see hundreds or thousands of ads every day and most ads go unnoticed because people are used to ads. With personalization, it is easier to get the attention of a potential customer than with simple advertising. Create re-marketing, reminder emails, experience on your website, mailing, personalized to the specific customer.

People like to know something new about themselves, which is why Facebook tests like “what actress are you look like?” are so popular. You can also use this approach in an online store, for example, you have an online store that sells wakeboarding equipment, ask a customer a few questions about his habits and, when he answers, show an avatar picture on his profile with the type of wakeboarder he is.  Display it in an interactive or fun way. Give it a chance to share this info on Facebook or other social networks. People like these things. Give it a chance to create communities that allow users to interact with other users and find other “wakeboarders of the same type”, or even find wakeboarders nearby to go out for doing sports together.

You can create events that popularise your brand, where you promote your online store and build loyalty for your customers.

11. Number of views

Try to get as many views as possible for the content of your online store. You can write blog posts that are long and contain keywords and long-tail keywords, but if there are no views, your page will not be able to rank higher in Google. Views must be realistic, artificially generated views can only make your google position worse or exclude you from google search results. It is important that the content of your website is original, not copied from other resources and most importantly – the content should be interesting to your visitors and provide added value.

12. Return policy and delivery

Ensure your online store has easy-to-find information on the return and delivery of goods and shipping information. Describe in a clear and non-transparent manner how the customer should proceed to return the goods and how the goods return and money refund process will proceed.

13. Customer Loyalty Programs

Create subscriptions, point accumulation systems, gift banks, discount accumulation systems or other ways to retain your customers in the long term.

14. Mobile version or application

The mobile web store version or application is already a matter of course, but I decided to remind you. Think over the mobile version of your site to make shopping on your mobile phone easy because most web visitors browse from mobile devices.

Think about the benefits that visiting your online store from your mobile phone can bring to your store and customers. Use, for example, mobile push notifications to notify customers of promotions, to send a personalized message or thank you a message. Integrate, for example, a service that shows where the shipment is and how long it has been delivered, informing the user of the status of the shipment. Look at successful e-commerce site examples, pick the best strategies, and tailor it to your business.

15. Bloggers, Influencers and Affiliate Marketing

Ask some popular bloggers who write about your industry products to write an article with links to your online store, it may be a testimonial if you are giving real products or an article that may be useful to your potential customers with a reference to your online store. You can work with Instagram influencers who can put your product in images.

Use affiliate marketing, where possible, when you pay interest in affiliate sales that help drive your online store to the market.

16. Customized Ads by Google Ads

Create custom Google Ads ad campaigns, study what your competitors are doing, and create ads to differentiate, research the most searched keywords. Set your ad campaigns to run at specific times of the day, and set the time when your potential customers are most online. When creating a Google Ads campaign, you can target not only the timing of the campaign but also the desired audience by interest, age, location.

Location – You can specify that your ad will be shown at a specific time in a certain location, with an accuracy of how many miles within a radius, to run a Google Ads ad. For example, you are running an alternative style clothing online shop and a Rammstein concert takes place in a concert hall. You can set the settings in your google ads campaigns to show your ad directly in the area of the concert hall, where your target audience is concentrated.

17. Facebook pixel

Facebook pixel is an analytics tool that places a cookie on your website that collects information about your website visitors. Like Google analytics, it collects data about visitors from your website or online store.

Once the Facebook Pixel is placed in your online store, you can set up and keep track, for example, which users have put something in the cart and have not made a purchase, and then show the relevant ad to those users on Facebook. Or show a Facebook ad to users who have visited your online store and then see statistics on how your ad is working, and encourage repeat visits to your website. Studies show that 70% of internet users who put an item in their shopping cart do not complete their purchase.

In order to use the Facebook Pixel, you must have a Facebook Business Page for your company and place the Facebook Pixel Code in your online store.

For example, if you have a Woocommerce online store, you can also use the Facebook pixel plugin, which will allow you to easily insert the Facebook pixel code. or if you have an Opencart online store, for example, you can use the Opencart module.

If you have a Prestashop online store, you can also use the Prestashop module for inserting a Facebook pixel into your online store. If you have a Magento online store, you can use the Magento module for the Facebook pixel.

You can also contact us and DG WEB FACTORY specialists will post the necessary codes directly to the online store, without the need for plugins and plug-ins, as plug-ins and modules on the website slow down the website.

18. Blog

Create a blog section for your online store. Explore all of your closest competitors (the ones that sell more than you and are in the top positions of Google). Explore the content and length of their articles.

When writing blog articles, the key and most important thing are to create content that will give extra value to your potential customers. It can be entertaining or educational – something your readers will share on social networks. It is very important that the article is original so that it is not copied. Because if you copy an article from another resource, google bots will treat it as plagiarism. And don’t think you’ll be able to take someone else’s article for translation, or take another person’s article and convert it by swapping words or replacing them with synonyms,  google bots will “decode” it?

What are google bots?

The Google bot crawls all the web content and checks the web site links (url) and checks what to index (include in search results) and which to exclude. This process is called Google Crawling. Including content in google search results is called Google indexing. Google uses thousands of computers stored in Google data centers to continually test all content on the Internet.

Other search engines, such as Yandex, Bing, Baidu, etc., did the same. Things to think about when you are want to come to the Russian (Yandex) or Chinese (Baidu) market. Each search engine has a few its own specifics and the page needs to be customized for each search engine. The most popular search engine, however, is Google.

If you create an original article that is really interesting and engaging, people will share your article themselves and give you a large number of views. The number of views to your website is a very important factor in getting your website to the top position in google. As you compose articles, you compete with your competitors, so you should write a more interesting, and engaging article than your competitors.

19. Video

96% of users believe that video makes an impact on the buying decision. Video on product pages and on the homepage contributes to user credibility and 73% of users prefer products and services on websites that have an explanatory video. An example is the Asos.com clothing online store, which has a video of each outfit that looks like it is on a real person. Because a photographed outfit looks different from an outfit in photography.

Online store visitors most appreciate videos presenting your online store explaining information about your products and services, as well as funny videos.

Think of a video you could put in your online store? How will you position and introduce your store, educate the user, and make shopping in your online store more convenient and enjoyable? And make relevant videos.

20. Possibility to buy as a guest

A study by User Interface Engineering found that online store purchases increased by 45% following the removal of mandatory registration at the time of purchase. This is because the registration process lengthens the time, and while a user registers with your site, he or she may change their mind and not make a purchase. On the other hand, when the purchase process is short, one does not have much time to think.

21. Price transparency

Product prices, shipping prices, and other costs should be clearly visible right away, not just at the very end of the order. People do not like hidden costs, it causes mistrust and people are misled. Hidden costs are the most popular reason why users don’t complete their purchases because they face sudden unexpected extra charges.

22. Google AD extensions

Add extensions to your ads when you create Google Ads ads, which will help you get more clicks and more visits to your online store.

Google Adwords reklāmu paplašinājumi

23. Google Ads Countdowns

Google Ads are an opportunity, for example, to set a campaign timing, or how many hours it will take to advertise. For example, you advertise a 24-hour promotion for 50% off for shoes and your ad will show how many hours are left till the campaign ends. This can increase the number of clicks and responses to your ads as it appears that there is a limited amount of time to buy.

Google Ad countdown
24. Payment Options

Offer customers several payment options at your online store, card, card, online, Paypal, cash on delivery, etc. For example, in the United States, PayPal is a very popular payment method because customers trust and consider it a secure payment.

25. Call now ads

Google Ads has the ability to add a phone number to your ads. For example, you are an event management agency, create an ad: “Need a professional event manager? Contact us now!” And add a phone number. It is much easier to sell to a customer who has already picked up and called you than through funnel systems or landing pages on advertising.

A lot of users visit websites and google search directly from mobile devices, so the calling feature is very important. Also, remember to include a link anywhere on your website that has telephone numbers that allows you to make a phone call right away so that the user doesn’t have to copy the phone number, which can deter most users call you at all because the user will simply go to your competitors page, where he will not have to copy the phone number but can call you with a single click.

26. Gmail Ads

Gmail ads are the ability to send emails based on keywords in users’ email boxes. For example, you can send emails to users who receive emails from your competitors who are subscribed to competitors’ online store newsletters. Because you can create a campaign based on competitors’ brand names as keywords.

27. Communicate with your audience on social networks

Respond to comments quickly and honestly, talk to people who comment on you on social networks like Facebook or Instagram or Google reviews.

Quickly answer questions you have on social networks so you can turn visitors into customers. People value the attention they feel to themselves and their issues. Adopt a personalized approach to communication.

28. Re-marketing

Google Ads and Google Analytics offer re-marketing opportunities. For example, you could create a campaign to show your ad banners to people who have been to your online store for at least 4 minutes.

Or, for example, display a banner or free shipping promotion for that product to users who viewed a particular product or category in your online store.

Google Ads re-marketing Ads are displayed on Google Ads Partner Network websites. You can also specify what type of websites you want or don’t want your ad to show on. Because you may have certain types of websites, you may not want your ad to show.

Conclusions

The competition between online stores is getting stronger and it is harder to come by. The most important things for developing an online store are content with EXTRA VALUE TO THE CUSTOMER, quality and speed of service, technical quality of page design, a convenient user interface of the online store, branding, building trust and loyalty.

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