How to Attract People to Your E-commerce Store

Hi, I'm Ethan Giffen, Founder and CEO of Groove Commerce, a full service e commerce agency and HubSpot partner. Once you've planned and organized your ecommerce marketing calendar, it's time to start putting your strategy together. In this video, we're going to cover the Attract stage of the Flywheel. During the Attract stage, you want to cast a wide net to attract new website visitors. You can attract new website visitors by focusing on search engine optimization, owned content like blog posts and YouTube videos, user generated content, social media and paid media. Search engine optimization, also known as SEO, can sometimes feel like a large task for e commerce marketers. Ultimately, it boils down to technical and non technical strategies to increase organic visibility. Let's focus on the technical First, Every product you sell should have its own webpage. Its URL must include a unique target keyword and should be no longer than 125 characters. For example, an unoptimized URL may include a string of characters and numbers, while an optimized URL will directly reference a product name or keyword. Notice how this product page references the product in the URL. Every URL you create will also have a corresponding title tag. Typically, search engines only read the first 50 to 60 characters, so keep it short. Although you have some flexibility here, we recommend including the following in your page's title, a product name, category name, and website name. Meta descriptions are the supporting copy that you'll see below a page title in search results. Every page should have a unique description that naturally includes your target keyword. Also remember to limit these descriptions to under 300 characters so they won't get cut off in search results. When it comes to on page SEO, few things are more important than your header tags. These tell search engines the intent of your page. Every H1 tag should include a primary keyword. You'll also want to sprinkle in modifier words in lower headings like H2s and 3s, words like benefits, features and specifications and reviews behind the scenes. There are a few things you can do with code to improve your organic visibility. Every image on your site should include alt text with target keywords. You can dynamically include these in your website's templates. Taking the time to do this will help your images show up in Google's image search results. You'll also want to include rich snippets to help search engines understand the context behind your content sample. Rich snippets include product names, pricing and customer review stars. Obviously, there's a lot to consider when it comes to technical SEO. To learn more, look in the Resources section below. Now that we've covered technical SEO, let's move into non technical tactics you can use to increase website traffic. In many ways, this closely ties into content creation. Let's start with blogging. Successful blogs share valuable information and expertise with prospective customers. That information improves trust, increases brand loyalty, and leads to more purchases. Although writing is time consuming, we've found that designating a few hours each week can offer a significant return on your investment. When writing for ecommerce specifically, always include a clear path to purchase on your blog. You can do this with product images and links that go directly to relevant product pages. Notice how this blog post from Screenwriting software Final Draft offers a call to action in their sidebar to try out their product for free. Offering a free trial is one of the only ways to let your product sell itself. In fact, GoToWebinar reportedly sees around 40% of its free trial users convert into paid plans. Additionally, at the end of the blog post, notice how Final Draft offers two purchasing options, one for new customers and one for existing customers. For seasonal content, try creating shopping guides with titles like what to buy for your husband, wife, child or friend. Guides like these can have a huge impact on your organic SEO and help your customers through their buying process. Next, let's talk about user generated content, specifically ratings and reviews. If you've ever searched for a product online, you've likely read reviews before purchasing. Adding reviews to Your site offers two key benefits. 1. It can improve your organic search engine rankings. 2 It attracts visitors to your site and increases their confidence in purchasing your products. If you aren't currently showing customer reviews on your site, then you should start. It's a small change that can significantly increase your ecommerce conversion rate and customer satisfaction. Social media also plays an important role in your inbound strategy. These same concepts are even more relevant in ecommerce, where influencer marketing can greatly expand your product reach. In addition to placing global social buttons on your site and incentivizing social shares, consider creating a flexible content guideline to ensure your brand is accurately represented regardless of the channel. Finally, let's talk about paid media. Paid media strategies include paid search advertising, display advertising, dynamic product retargeting, and social media advertising. Paid search advertising is an excellent strategy to attract new buyers because people who click on paid ads usually have high purchase intent display and social media advertising is generally more geared towards expanding brand reach. If you haven't tried it already, we highly recommend using HubSpot's free ads tool. This feature integrates directly with Facebook and Google. To learn more about this tool, check out the Resources section. Likewise, you can create lookalike audiences in Facebook to find users who are similar to your existing customers. And as a quick reminder, always be sure to follow Facebook and Google's data guidelines. By focusing your approach, you can significantly improve your paid media ROI.