eCommerce is a booming business, and it’s not showing any signs of slowing down. In fact, it’s becoming bigger and bigger. According to IBIS World, the Irish eCommerce market is worth €3.3 billion having grown at a rate of 14.9% in the last five years. There’s a lot of money to be made in eCommerce. But running an eCommerce business can be challenging. You need to constantly think of new ways to generate more sales or risk going out of business.
Here are a few tips that’ll help you to grow your eCommerce business:
1. Pick the Right Platform
As you know, eCommerce platforms are all different. You can build your own eCommerce website on platforms such as Magento, Shopify, WooCommerce, PrestaShop, and Drupal. Alternatively, you can host your eCommerce store on online marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay. They all have their own set of pros and cons.
With so many options available to you, it can feel like choosing the right platform is impossible. However, there are some things that you should keep in mind before committing to a particular platform:
- What is your business goal? Are you looking for something that will help grow revenue or cut costs? Or maybe both?
- Who are your customers? Do they prefer one particular type of technology over another? Will they be able to easily navigate the site once it’s live on their phone or tablet screen (and vice versa)?
- How much time will it take for them to make purchases from this site once implemented—both from an administrative perspective as well as customer convenience?
2. Use a Secure Hosting Provider
If you want to take your eCommerce business to the next level, it is all about the hosting provider. Hosting providers are the ones who host your website and store all of its files on their servers. So, when someone visits your website, they will be directed to one of these servers.
When choosing a hosting provider for your eCommerce store, there are several factors that you should consider:
- Security: You need to secure personal customer data such as credit card information and personal details. Your eCommerce store shouldn’t be easily accessible to hackers and scammers. Work with a hosting provider that has good encryption algorithms and other anti-malware technologies such as firewalls and intrusion prevention systems (IPS).
- Ease Of Use: Your customers should be able to easily find information and products they are looking for on your website.
3. Focus on User Experience
When you think of user experience, you probably have a picture in your mind. You might see a person using an app or website and they look happy and engaged with their device.
This is because a good user experience leads to happy customers who buy more products from your eCommerce store. Excellent user experience also leads to better rankings on search engines like Google and Bing. A good eCommerce website with a top-notch user experience should be mobile-friendly and have fast loading times.
4. Optimise to Ensure You’re Found
The fourth tip is to optimize your eCommerce store in order to ensure that you are found by potential customers. When people search online, they want results that are specific to their needs. If your website isn’t optimized with the right keywords, it won’t come up on the first page of Google search results and your business will suffer as a result.
You can use keywords on your website in many different places: in metadata tags such as meta descriptions or titles; in URL naming conventions; in content; images (Alt text); videos (Title tags). It’s important that you use these same words across all channels so that users who find you from one place can easily find what they’re looking for when they move onto another channel like social media or email marketing campaigns.
5. Collect Data to Get Ahead
There’s a reason why you hear the phrase “data is power,” and that’s because it’s true. If you want to be successful in eCommerce, you need to collect data on how your customers are behaving. That way, you can improve their experience and track the results of those improvements over time.
There are tools such as Google Analytics available for collecting data about your customers’ behaviour online. These tools will help you identify where users are dropping off in their shopping process and what they like or don’t like about each step of their journey through the website or app. Armed with this information, you can make changes that will keep them engaged long enough for them to complete their purchase and give them an excellent reason not just to return but also to refer friends.
6. Create Content That Adds Value
You’ve heard the saying, “content is king.” It’s especially true in eCommerce. In fact, content is one of the most important elements for driving brand awareness and sales. But what exactly does this mean?
Content adds value to your business by engaging with customers in a meaningful way and building trust in your brand. It gives you an opportunity to educate potential buyers about who you are and what sets your business apart from other competitors. For example, think about how many times have you Googled something before making a purchase decision? Content helps answer questions that consumers may have while they’re evaluating different brands or products on the market because it provides information directly from the source (the seller).
This type of content can take many forms: articles or whitepapers written by experts; videos demonstrating how products work; infographics showing statistics related to industry trends; photos showing new products or innovations developed within an industry segment; etcetera.
7. Take Advantage of SEO Tools
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing your content so that it will rank higher in search results. This can be done through basic keyword research and by creating quality content that people want to read and share.
Some of the elements for successful eCommerce SEO include:
Website structure
Blog content
Targeted keyword research
PR outreach
Local SEO
There are plenty of free tools out there that can help you do all this. For example, Google Analytics is a great tool for analyzing traffic across your website or blog. You’ll be able to see which keywords people use when they land on a specific page of your site (keyword segmentation). You’ll also know how many visitors came from different sources (e.g., paid ads vs organic searches).
8. Use Social Media Effectively
Social media is one of the most important online tools for eCommerce businesses. It allows you to connect with customers and build a community, as well as increase brand awareness, generate leads, and drive traffic to your website. Social media also has a direct impact on conversion rates and sales.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok are amazing platforms for an eCommerce business. They give you an opportunity to reach a wider audience than you would with just SEO. An effective social media marketing strategy is a must-have.
9. Invest in an Effective Email Marketing Programme
Investing in an effective email marketing programme is a great way to reach your customers and remind them of your existence. It’s also a good way to build a relationship with your customers, which can help you sell more products and services over time.
Email marketing is cost-effective because it requires little upfront investment, but it can be used effectively to promote new products or services as well.
10. Deliver an Excellent Customer Experience
It is no secret that customers are your most important assets. Every business owner should be aware of this and work hard to improve their customer experience (CX). The main reason for this is because it’s how you stand out from the competition, giving a reason for customers to keep coming back and telling their friends about you.
It doesn’t matter if you have the best prices or deals if your customers aren’t happy with how they were treated after placing an order with you. You need to make sure that every aspect of your CX is top-notch so that your customers stay loyal and come back again in the future.
Get Started on Growing Your eCommerce Business
Now that you know these 10 tips, you can move your eCommerce business forward and really start seeing results. There are many ways to apply these tips to your business. For example, if you want to increase visitors on a specific landing page, try A/B testing different versions of that landing page with different CTAs and calls-to-action (CTA).
The most important thing is to start implementing some of these strategies right away—and don’t forget to measure their impact. You’ll soon find out which ones are working best for your business and will allow you to grow even faster than before. We hope that this blog post has given you some real, practical advice on how to make your eCommerce business a success. Remember that it is never too late to improve your website and reach more customers.
We wish you the best in growing your business and we would be glad to help you take your business to the next level. Get in touch for bespoke digital marketing solutions for your eCommerce business.