Semalt Advice On How To Promote An Online Store
Wondering how to promote your store on the Internet? Do you want to reach new customers? Are you concerned about increasing conversions and reducing the bounce rate in your store statistics? Read our guide and discover the best strategies to promote your online store!Success in promoting an online store
There is no single path that will guarantee success. There are different strategies you need to consider when planning to promote your online store.
Consider which communication channel will be optimal for the target group you are addressing. Check the activities of the competition. Analyze whether the promotional activities carried out so far have brought the expected result. With complete data, you can decide which strategy will be optimal in your case.
When planning the promotion schedule of your online store, consider:
- SEO for e-commerce, that is, comprehensive optimization and positioning - here, the service should be comprehensive: from conducting a store audit, through the analysis of the competition, indicating the number of contents delivered monthly and once (in the case, for example, of a large startup with category descriptions), to link building.
- a Google advertising campaign - This is an option that yields results in terms of sales and almost immediate sales conversion.
- content marketing activities - knowledge base (blog, guide), category descriptions, and optimization of product descriptions, but also internal linking are the basis for working with the store.
- social media promotion of the store - This is a very important aspect of SEO activities, as having good social media support and reach makes it easier to get natural links, such as backlinks or citations.
How to promote your store in natural search results
The first strategy worth investing in if you want to reach people interested in your offer with your advertising message is SEO for e-commerce. The positioning and optimization of the online store will allow you to increase your visibility in the SERPs.
Where to start with SEO for e-commerce?
Each of the promotional strategies created for the e-commerce industry should have a solid foundation on which to base your next activities. In the case of positioning and optimization of an online store, such a foundation is the SEO audit of the entire store.
You can perform an audit yourself in the basic version, using the Dedicated SEO Dashboard, which will assess the overall health of your site. An SEO audit in this tool will give you a complete picture of the state of your online store.
Promoting an online store on the web using SEO for e-commerce is a time-consuming process that takes place in various areas. It is an investment that is worth being well prepared for. If you want to know all the weak points of your online store that could hinder an effective positioning in the future, opt for an SEO audit performed by an agency specialized in this field. Familiarize yourself with our offer and check whether your store is ready for the requirements set by Google robots.
As part of a full SEO audit, you will receive a detailed analysis report for both on and off-site. On this basis, you can plan the most urgent optimization work for your online store
What should be considered when optimizing an online store?
It is worthwhile to approach the optimization of an online store, as well as an SEO audit, comprehensively. The optimization of individual elements (e.g. the content itself) may not lead to the desired result.
Technical optimization is just as important. What if optimized descriptions of a specific category or product page get the store to the top of the organic results, yet there are no conversions?
It could be that the store's website is loading too slowly. Or the inaccurate product description is making the customer not want to buy the proverbial pig in a poke. In such a situation, the user will probably decide to take advantage of the competition's offer.
How to choose keywords to position an online store?
You have several options. You have at your disposal keywords related to localization, general keyword phrases, and long-tail phrases. Which of these will prove to be the right choice? It depends largely on the specifics of your industry.
Note that you should always use a proper SEO tool such as the Dedicated SEO Dashboard to perform keyword research. This will ensure that you have important information related to the relevance of these keywords.
Location-related keywords
If you run an online store, it doesn't matter if your customers live in the US, France, or Ukraine. Therefore, the investment in local positioning is eliminated - unless, in addition, to strictly Internet activities, you also do stationary sales. So local positioning can complement your main positioning strategy, but should not be your priority.
General keywords
In your case, phrases directly related to the offer you are presenting in your store will be of paramount importance. These can be general phrases - for example, category names.
Note, however, that in some cases, it will take a lot of time to position your online store for popular general phrases, for example, shoes, dresses, or pants. It also happens that the intensified actions of the competition do not allow you to reach high positions precisely with these words.
Long-tail key phrases
In this case, long-tail keyphrases prove to be beneficial (although often still underestimated). Long-tail phrases are quite extensive. They consist of several individual words describing a specific product, for example, communion shoes for girls size 32. One characteristic of these phrases is their precision.A user who precisely describes a product in the search field with specific parameters of the given product knows exactly what he/she wants. By acquiring such a customer, the chances of conversion are much higher than in the case of a visit by a person who found an online store thanks to a general phrase.
How to promote an online store through search engine advertising?
In addition to the free results displayed in the Google search engine, there are also paid results. These are Google Ads on the Search Network and the Display Network. This is a PPC system, i.e. an option to pay the advertising budget for clicks.
The main advantage of Google Ads is that individual advertising campaigns can be targeted to specific target groups, which increases the probability of conversion. Personalization of web ads is one of the most effective methods of promoting an online store on the web, but it is not without drawbacks.
Google Shopping is a good way to promote your store on the Internet
How to promote an online store using Google Ads? You can choose from more than just text ads on the Search Network or banner ads displayed on the Display Network. An interesting promotional tool for the e-commerce industry is the product campaign. With Google Shopping ads, you can reach new customers with your offer.
In this case, you have the choice:
- product advertising;
- product ads with a presentation function;
- ads for local product assortment (these ads are mainly recommended for stores that, in addition to operating on the Internet, also have fixed branches).
Remarketing, or how to save abandoned carts?
Many customers visit your online store, but few of them decide to make a purchase on the first visit. When planning the promotion of your online store, take into account that some potential customers research the market before making their final purchase decision. They check the assortment in various stores and compare the prices and parameters of each product.
Do you want to acquire a customer who seems to be a lost one? You have such an opportunity! Just invest in remarketing, and you will discreetly remind your offer to a certain person who has already viewed it.
Remember that a remarketing campaign can only be targeted at users who have already read your store's offer. Therefore, it cannot be your main advertising strategy. Remarketing should be treated as one element of larger-scale advertising activities.
SEO or Google Ads, i.e. which promotional strategy to choose for your online store?
Each of these promotional strategies has its own advantages. And you know which one is better? You don't have to choose one at all! By combining activities related to positioning and optimization of your online store with Google Ads, you can achieve optimal promotional effects.
It is important, however, that you do not shoot blind. Do an analysis, and think about which actions will be the best for you. Determine the budget you will spend on positioning and how much money you will invest monthly to drive traffic to the website from paid search results.
What are the benefits of SEO?
SEO is a great way to create online visibility for new stores and those who have been in the e-commerce market for a long time. If you want more customers to find you from organic search results, invest in SEO.
The overall optimization of the online store (making changes to it so that it meets the expectations of users and meets the requirements of Google bots) is an opportunity to:
- Reaching customers who want to find interesting products via the Google search engine.
- Store visibility for several products in the organic search results.
When should I opt for paid advertising?
Along with SEO activities, you can launch a sponsored link campaign. You will immediately notice the effects of ads in Google searches. It is a good way to promote specific products offered.
You can choose Google Ads in a situation where, for example, you want to promote a new product that you just launched on the market. It is also a proven method to increase traffic to your online store when you are starting your business and do not yet have stable positions in the organic search results.
Content marketing - how to promote an online store with valuable texts?
You have probably heard that Google focuses mainly on high-quality pages that should be displayed in high positions in natural search results. But what does that mean? If you want to occupy key positions in the rankings, you need to invest in a broad content marketing strategy.
Create interesting and valuable category descriptions in your online store and unique product descriptions. Indeed, valuable, substantial, and, most importantly, unique category and individual product descriptions are half the battle when it comes to reaching the users and attracting them to the offer. Keep in mind that Google only promotes unique and valuable content!
Well, yes, but you have hundreds of different products in your store. It's a lot of work to create unique descriptions for each of them. Yes, it's a tedious and time-consuming task. However, before you try to copy the descriptions provided by manufacturers, think for a moment about what you can gain when your online store increases in Google rankings. Then you will come to the conclusion that such an investment is definitely worthwhile.
Think about a company blog
Wondering how to promote your online store on the web with valuable content? Become friends with the blogosphere! Do you only associate blog entries with virtual celebrity diaries? Nothing could be further from the truth! Create a blog for your online store and you'll see that it's a great tool to help you attract new customers.
Blog entries are also a great way to promote a new store offering. You can also use your blog posts to create a ranking of the most popular products in your online store.
Publish sponsored articles on partner sites
A blog is not the end of the possibilities offered by a well-thought-out content marketing strategy. Don't forget the potential of sponsored posts. However, don't post your articles everywhere you go. Select websites thematically related to your company's profile and focus only on places on the Web that have a good reputation and are eagerly visited by users.
Publishing articles on partner sites is not only an effective way to promote your online store. Such actions have another advantage. Every article you publish on an external site and link to your online store offer will increase your inbound link profile.
Promotion of the online store on social networks
In addition to promotional activities aimed at acquiring new customers, you can also include social media activity. Moreover, keeping an active profile of your online store on social networks is not only an opportunity to expand your audience. It's also a way to build and maintain relationships with the customers you already have.
Keep in mind that if you decide to run promotional activities on Facebook or Instagram, you need to make sure you post regularly. A profile with sporadic posts can be detrimental to your company's image. Post content that will interest the users and provoke their specific response. Don't be afraid to interact with your customers. By doing so, you will have a chance to connect them even more with your brand.
What should you look for when planning an online store promotion strategy?
First, focus on a variety of promotional activities for your online store. Build a strategy to diversify the channels to reach potential customers. Of course, take into account the characteristics of the target group and the preferences of your customers. Thanks to this, you will reach the people who are really interested in your offer with your advertising message.
Make yourself visible in organic search results. Remember that millions of people use the Google search engine every day. Many of them can become your customers. A professional SEO campaign will help you do this.
The SEO activities should be adapted to the sector in which you operate. The extent of the positioning also depends on the actions of the competition. Discover the potential of natural search results. Thanks to it, you will increase the visibility of the store on the Internet.
If you need to learn more about the subject of SEO and website promotion, we invite you to visit our Semalt blog.