Want to Get More Sales Online? Here’s What Online Store Owners Need to Know
Updated on 6/12/2023
If you run your business through an ecommerce site platform, without the help of various digital marketing tactics, you could be missing out on loads of potential purchases and minimizing the potential of your overall marketing mix.
From SEO to email marketing to even things such as conversion optimization, there is a wide variety of tactics and online ecommerce strategies you should consider investing in to help facilitate more sales from your website. Through this, you can see actionable insights that will help your business better understand how and where potential customers are looking for you.
Get Started With Our ExpertsWhat is Digital Marketing for Ecommerce?
By implementing a variety of strategic tactics customized to your niche, ecommerce digital marketing helps your store get more organic, paid, social, and referral traffic. The pay off of a good well-rounded digital marketing campaign is also to help users who come to your site turn into sales, and even keep them as loyal, returning, customers.
Ecommerce Marketing Tips for For Getting Started
Have an online store is no easy feat, and with so many options out there, it can be hard to understand what you need to invest in to get you the best results.
With that in mind, if you’re just beginning to venture into digital marketing, here are a few tips we have for you:
List Your Products on Social
Apps such as Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest all allow you to add products to your profiles? Social commerce sales are set to increase 30.8% in 2023 according to Oberlo. These platforms are widely used by shoppers as they allow them to view products from different brands all at once.
Add All the Details to Your Product Pages
As obvious as it sounds, we often come across ecommerce sites with product pages that are thin on content, and offer little beyond a product name and description. Even though this will vary by niche, be sure you are including things such as specs, ingredients, materials, and any special features that are applicable.
Take Advantage of Automated Emails
Did you know that many different ecommerce content management systems allow you to send automatic abandoned cart emails? And you have the ability to customize the email to your liking? Cart recovery emails have an open rate of 45%, and 50% of the people who opened them end up completing the purchase.
Make Your Sale Process Simple
One of the main reasons ecommerce sites lose out on customers is by having a checkout process that is either complicated, too long, or even hard to find. Do some competitor research to ensure that your site has a comparable, if not better, cart and checkout page.
Utilize User Generated Content
From the reviews your customers leave, you can use them to take some work off your plate. Use them as case studies, on your website, and even as social media and email content. It shouldn’t shock you that 95% of users read reviews before they shop, so making your front and center of your marketing can help produce great results.
Sign Up for Google Merchant Center
Another free thing you can do when you start doing digital marketing for ecommerce is adding your store and products to Google’s Merchant Center. When you set up your account on Merchant Center, it allows your products to show up in the shopping tab on Google’s search results. It is especially crucial to utilize this tool as in most cases, when Google analyzes a searches users intent to be shopping-focused, it will display their shopping results above organic results.
Optimize Your Product Photos
As an online shopper, you yourself have probably found yourself using image search to look for a specific product. Having your product photos rank well in image search can help bring more users to your site, and all it takes is simply adding proper image metadata and schema to your page! Being descriptive with details about the product color, size, material, and more can help you rank for a variety of long-tail keywords you may not otherwise be able to target.
I’ve worked with the team at Sixth City Marketing for about a year now, and they have been very helpful in improving my website’s visibility. The team is very knowledgeable and easy to work with. They are also easily accessible by phone or email, and respond quickly; the customer service is what separates them from the pack.” David Kozak, Kozak Micro Adjusters
What Makes Us Different
Sixth City Marketing has been helping businesses of all shapes and sizes reach their marketing goals through the different online channels we help manage. Here are some things that we believe makes us stand out from other ecommerce digital marketing agencies:
- Our #1 goal will always be to get your business results
- We’ve helped a variety of diverse industries succeed
- Our team is 100% in-house, providing higher-quality work
- We have 25+ years of collective experience in marketing
Ecommerce Digital Marketing Strategies You Should Be Doing to Get More Sales
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – With creating crafted content on your site, conducting diligent competitor research, managing Google Shopping listings, and performing link building, there are various techniques to implement in SEO campaigns to help maximize your online presence and obtain more sales.
- Web Design and Development – We often find that what is holding back a brand’s potential online is their current website’s structure and design. From limitations in the content management system to poor design that turns away potential customers, we are able to diagnose issues and redesign your site to be more fluid and support your marketing efforts.
- Conversion Rate Optimization – Our design and SEO team are able to diagnose key issues with your site’s current page templates, speed, and overall user experience that are affecting your conversion rate. We can make small, but impactful, changes to your site to help correct this.
- Pay Per Click (PPC) – Alongside helping you climb up in rankings organically on search engines, we can also manage ad campaigns that target your ideal audience based on age, income, what they are searching for, and more. We will also write concise ads and create custom landing pages to accompany them.
- Email Marketing – We can build a strong list of email subscribers, write tailored newsletters, and design eye-catching email templates that can help you get more sales from customers new and old via email marketing.
- Social Media Marketing – Promoting your brand online is an essential channel to help show your followers new items you have in stock when popular products are restocked, and, of course, any promotions you run. Our team can write posts for various outlets and schedule them on your behalf.
- Paid Social Media – Combining traditional PPC and social media marketing, paid social media advertising allows us to run ads to various audience types on Facebook, Instagram and more based on unique targeting.
- Consulting and Auditing – Alongside digital marketing services that we offer for long-term agreements, we can also work with you as a consultant where we give your team ideas and strategies they should implement to help improve your marketing efforts.
Strategies We Recommend for Ecommerce Retailers
Keyword analysis and monitoring – To bring in your ideal customers to different pages on your site, we evaluate numerous keywords with a variety of search volumes to find which ones cater to your site the most, and will bring in the most sales. We then use these terms in SEO and PPC campaigns and monitor their success throughout the time we work with you.
Content writing and optimization – Our team regularly updates and writes new content for our clients’ pages to guarantee they present the latest details on your offerings and help search engines know you are keeping your site up to date and fresh.
Competitor research – To understand why competitors are ranking higher for terms and keywords similar to your business, it’s important to look into what they’re doing differently. We evaluate their content, backlinks, ads, technical aspects, and more.
Blog post writing – When you have a blog on your website, you can expand on your overall website content, as well as rank higher for specific keywords and get more backlinks to your site. Also, guest blog post writing is beneficial in getting more backlinks that help attract new users to your site.
Link building – We can help your domain become stronger in the eyes of search engines through finding quality websites to get your mentioned on. Whether it be various directories, news or magazine sites, or anything else, we can conduct outreach to help.
Technical enhancements – Over the years, we have often seen ecommerce sites potential being held back from components of their website such as speed, user-ability, mobile-friendliness and alike. We’d be happy to discuss this with you if we uncover any major drawbacks with your site’s platform.
Design for conversion – We have the ability to help refresh your site’s look and performance by applying the principles of conversion optimization. Through this, we edit your page’s templates in a way that helps customers make purchases easier, resulting in more sales.
Types of Businesses with Ecommerce Sites We Can Help
- Construction
- Franchises
- Medical
- Retail
- Manufacturing
- Technology
- Automotive
- Much more
Examples of Our Work
Bruening Glass Works
We helped transform Bruening Glass Works from a small Cleveland business to an international glass repair shop. Through SEO and redesigning their WordPress site, we were able to:
- Increase monthly traffic by 1,528%
- Generate an average of 12 leads per day outside of Cleveland
- Increased qualified leads, with 90% turning into sales
Shini USA
As a leading provider of global manufacturing control solutions, Shini was looking to grow their online presence. Through PPC, SEO, and optimization for conversion, year to year we were able to:
- Increase overall monthly traffic from 1,142 to 1,464 (28%)
- Increase in monthly SEO traffic from 77 to 564 (632%)
- Increased monthly leads from 17 to 39 (129%)
Valco Valley Tool & Die
When we first started working with Valco, their leads were down after a website redesign. That’s when we stepped in to help through SEO and additional design tweaks to help conversions. Year over year, we then saw:
- Overall site conversion rate increased to 4.6% vs. 1.54%
- Increase in visits per month to 2,910 vs. 1,362 (114%)
- Increase in online inquiries per month to 135 vs. 21 (543%)
What Makes Us Stand Out
- Adaptiveness
Given we have been in business since 2010, we have a lot of experience dealing with anything thrown our way. So when you want us to switch up our strategy, or if you want to expand, we can swiftly make changes based on your needs. - Results
Our #1 focus is, and will always be, getting you results. We even have the ability to include ROI data that can help you see how what we are doing for your business is working. - Location
While our headquarters are in Cleveland, we would be happy to work with you no matter where you are located. Whether you prefer in-person meetings or Zoom, we can make it work so no communication is lost. - References
If you browse our website, you will see a variety of reviews from our former and current clients detailing their experience with our team. And if you like, we can also provide you with additional references as well. - Transparency
You can trust that no matter what, we will always be open and honest with you in all forms of communication. So either it is in your monthly reports, or monthly meeting, we will always be transparent.
Ecommerce Marketing FAQs
Our team has assembled a variety of questions and answers we have received over the years as we have worked with various potential ecommerce clients. Here are some answers that may help you as you research your options:
Are ecommerce and digital marketing the same thing?
While both describe things done online, they are quite different. Ecommerce (electronic commerce) describes a store that is selling their products online. Digital marketing is an umbrella term for various marketing tactics done on the internet.
Is it normal to have a high cart abandonment rate?
The average store has an abandonment rate of nearly 70%, so you are definitely not alone! Like we mentioned earlier, a few of the ways you can help combat this is by having a simple checkout process and sending follow-up emails.
What is the benefit of outsourcing to an ecommerce marketing agency?
Alongside the fact that most firms that specialize in ecommerce have years of experience, it also gives you more time to focus on other aspects of your business, such as customer service, fulfilling orders, responding to reviews, and more.
“I’ve worked with Sixth City Marketing for multiple years now for my PPC and SEO needs. They have consistently delivered a high-quality product, are professional, and deeply care about their customers. They listen to my business needs and work with me to help my business grow. I’ve seen a massive improvement in the quality of leads, website visitors, and click-through rate. My website has experienced immediate positive results from suggested website changes, with increased forms completed, increased phone calls, and increased pages per visit. Other PPC companies I’ve worked with just waste ad spend, while Sixth City Marketing makes use of every penny.” – Jennifer Hristovski, SprayWorks
Start Growing Your Ecommerce Site with Digital Marketing
At Sixth City Marketing, we take a deep dive into your website and your goals to craft you a custom ecommerce marketing strategy that brings long-lasting results.
So if you are you interested in learning more about how we can help you get more sales online with customized ecommerce marketing, get in touch with our team today.