6 Simple Ways to Grow Your Ecommerce Store

We’re going to let you in on a little Metacake secret.

We spend a lot of time talking about website growth and CRO here at Metacake HQ. Out of many brilliant conversations, we’ve come up with our…wait for it…Three Pillars of Ecommerce Success.

Go ahead and giggle. We laugh at the grandiose title, too. But the results we see from these Pillars of Success are no laughing matter. They’re actually the most effective ways to grow your ecommerce site.

Here’s what they are and how to make them work for you.

Pillar I: Increase Inbound Traffic

Identify the top 20 percent of your products, and optimize keywords for them. Focusing on the best-performing items or offers helps you get them in front of more people. Since you’ve already had success with these products, you know there’s enough consumer interest to justify the investment of more time and money in optimizing them and developing marketing materials around them.

Buy your branded search terms to improve your PPC results. These ensure that you turn up in search results even as Google and other search engines’ algorithms change, and they give you more control over your message. Organic search terms make up an important part of your strategy, too, but branded terms drive quality leads right to your door. If someone is searching using a branded term, he’s probably prepared to buy once he finds you.

Pillar II: Improve onsite experience

Build landing pages around your highest converting products and promotions. Rather than designing these from scratch, use WordPress templates or Unbounce to create contextual landing pages that are optimized using branded and organic keywords.

Use Google analytics to identify failure points in your funnel. Look for any areas where users drop out of the sales process at a high rate, and fix those first. Then bolster any areas that get a mediocre response. You want customers’ initial interest to increase as they go through your site, and you do that by providing a great experience at every step.

Perform conversion rate optimization (CRO). This is the best way to ensure that you are constantly improving your site. With CRO, you can’t lose. Your customers literally reveal to you what works for them and what doesn’t, increasing your site conversion scientifically.

Read our CRO series to learn all about how to take advantage of conversion rate optimization.

Pillar III: Increase engagement

Email customers for engaging follow-up communication. This is a great way to stay top of mind and increase referrals. Send your current customers referral coupons that guarantee them a percentage off their next purchase when they refer a friend. They’ll want to take advantage of the savings, and you’ll generate new interest in your store.

Naked Wines takes a creative approach to this, going offline to encourage referrals. Last Christmas, the company sent customers festive boxes with 10 gift tags that could be redeemed for 20 percent off a first purchase. Their customers got to delight friends and family with the coupons, and Naked Wines marketed itself to thousands of additional prospects through their current clients.

Offer deals to incentivize future purchases. Everyone likes to get a deal. But you don’t have to lower prices and devalue your product to gets on customers’ good sides. Give customers discount codes or offer free shipping over a certain order amount. Also keep an eye out for shoppers who added items to their carts but never finished the checkout process. A follow-up email with a coupon is often compelling enough to get them to come back and buy.

Create valuable content. As much as you want to sell to your clients all the time, you want to build a mutually beneficial relationship with them. Make sure that some of your content (dare we say the majority?) is useful content for your audience, with no ulterior motive of selling product. This will help you grow the lifetime value of your current customers and draw in new ones.

Growing your ecommerce website requires an effective search strategy and a great customer experience. Not only are you trying to engage new customers, you’re also trying to get those who have already bought from you to stick around.

Use our Three Pillars to perfect this balance, and you’ll see steady growth for your store.