When the subject is running a successful online store, it's necessary to consider all the steps from someone getting to know your ecommerce to decide to complete a purchase, then becoming a loyal customer.
In this whole process, you need to build strategies not only to drive traffic but to make visitors interested in your website, so they wish to keep navigating through it. Accessing the website is just one step, it's essential to think about how you can catch the customer's attention, and convince them to buy. Check out the article to learn more about it.
Research Your Target Audience
How are you going to know what drives your target audience's attention if you don't know who they are? It becomes very difficult to draw effective strategies without information about them, you would be only guessing, instead of basing decisions on solid data.
Therefore, research who your potential customers are. If you already have a client basis, analyze what characteristics most of them have in common. Try to answer where most of them are located, what is the majority age range, which social media networks they use, and what demands your product helps to solve.
If you are just starting your business, and don't have any customers yet, research your competitors' target audience. You can also develop campaigns to find leads and build your database, for example, by creating an email marketing campaign where people will sign up to receive your newsletter weekly.
Plan the Content
Once you have a profile of who your customers are, it becomes easier to understand how to develop a website that's interesting for them and plan the content. Select the social media networks that you are going to be present on according to the ones your target audience uses more, then create a schedule to post every day.
Do your customers prefer images, videos, or written content? What subjects related to your business sector are they interested in? Knowing that will be useful to think of different post formats for social media and your website.
It's important to have a schedule for every platform and understand the type of content each one requires. For instance, Instagram is highly focused on communication through images and videos, while small written texts are the main type of content on Twitter. On blog posts, on the other hand, the texts need to be longer, but you also have the option to insert images and videos in the same text.
Invest in SEO Strategies
Short for Search Engine Optimization, SEO is very important when it comes to conquering organic traffic to your pages, building brand awareness, and gaining visibility. SEO strategies can be defined as a group of practices implemented on-page and off-page that will help Google and other search engines to see your content as relevant, ranking it in the first positions of specific keyword searches.
There are several things you can do to improve SEO, and it includes:
- Define the main keyword for each content, and use it in the text;
- Create high-quality content;
- Have a responsive website;
- Add the keyword on the URL;
- Write customized meta descriptions for each page;
- Describe the images you insert in the text with the alt text;
- Have other pages linking to your content;
- Provide fast load page speed.
Focus on User Experience
User Experience, also called UX, has a significant impact on whether people will just enter your website and leave quickly or if they will navigate through many pages, and even buy something. Put yourself in the website visitors' shoes, and ask yourself: what can be done to enhance the user experience?
They need to be able to find the information they are looking for quickly. Adding a search bar, and counting on a well-organized menu can help with that. Pay attention to the page designs as well, for instance, the color contrast between the background and the font must be high to facilitate reading the texts.
Every graphic element on a page should help to drive attention to the main message, if it confuses the reader it's better not to use it. Make sure your website works properly on mobile devices and desktop computers, and that the pages are loading quickly.
Deliver High-Quality Content
High-quality content is fundamental for SEO strategies, and also to retain your target audience's attention. You need to deliver valuable information to make them want to keep reading, and the texts have to be well-written too.
If someone gets to your website and finds content that is poorly written and doesn't offer anything attractive that compels them to stay, they will easily click the "return button". You may lose sales because of that, and it impacts your credibility as well.
Use a Live Chat on Your Website
Another way to retain visitors to your website is by installing a live chat. Through it, visitors can send a message directly to your customer support team and have their doubts answered in just a few minutes. It shows that you worry about helping them, and offering the best service.
With the JivoChat app, you can easily insert the live chat on your online store, and count on a user-friendly interface to help you and your team manage all the conversations. It allows you to keep track of every interaction, acquire new information about your customers, and increase sales.
Customers may feel more confident about making a purchase after talking to someone from your team. Thain your employees for knowing how to approach the customer needs, and identify how to deliver the best solutions to them.
Analyze the Results to Keep Improving
Keep in mind that the work to enhance website performance and sell more online is a continuous one. As your brand grows, you probably will see the need to develop new strategies, so evaluate the results of every plan you put into practice to be able to identify your website's strong and weak points to know where to improve.
