It’s 6 pm. You’re stuck in traffic on the 610 loop in Houston, the busiest freeway in Texas where 1.6 million hours are wasted in traffic per mile. You share this agony with millions of other drivers each day during rush hour. And so you think, you seem to attract traffic on your way to and from work, but why can’t you drive traffic to your Shopify store in the same volume?
In this article, we’ll review surefire ways to attract traffic to your store by:
- Optimizing your store – This improves the user experience as users navigate your website.
- Use an application like Plug in SEO to audit your website and suggest improvements.
- Perform keyword research to better capitalize on the keywords you want to rank for.
- Edit images – Design optimization like editing the size of images is key to a speedy website. Speedy websites lead to a better user experience which leads to more conversions.
- Using content marketing to your advantage – A solid content marketing strategy can attract organic traffic to your store and keep customers engaged, coming back for more.
- Add content to your main page targeting keywords you want to rank for.
- Start a blog to promote and personalize your brand.
- Consider other forms of media to educate and entertain your customers while promoting your brand.
- Integrate social media to further your company’s online reach.
We’ll also answer these burning FAQs:
- How often should I post content to my blog?
- Is it necessary to pay for ads?
- Should I really use influencer marketing?
- Should I hire a professional to audit my store?
Optimize Your Store
The verb optimize is tossed around constantly all over the web, through blogs touting phrases like, “optimize your website to increase conversions”, “optimize your SEO to rank higher on search engines”, “optimize, optimize, OPTIMIZE!” But how does one optimize?
For starters, understand that customers need to find you before they can buy from you. If they can’t find you, you won’t get traffic.
Think of your virtual store as a physical store. If a customer were walking past your physical store, how can they find it? Do you have a bright-colored awning? Is the name of your store on the front of your building? On a sign? Did you pay for ads on the freeway? In the paper? On social media? All of these tactics breed discoverability.
So, ask yourself, “If my store was in a mall, how would customers find it?” It’s slightly different on the internet because you aren’t only battling against the gods of design optimization, but you are also battling against the gods of search engine optimization.
The number 1 position on Google results gets 33% of the traffic and 61.5% of searchers click on the top 3 search results. You need to be in those top 3 search results for the keywords you want to rank for.
Use an Application
One way to analyze your SEO is to use an application. Plug In SEO is one of the highest-rated Shopify SEO applications. It offers:
- Google Search Console integration
- Periodic SEO audits with a one-click performance report
- Broken link detector and fixer
- Bulk media title & description templates – bulk edit meta titles and meta descriptions for over hundreds of products/collections or blog pages in only a few minutes
- Training videos and support – our Customer Happiness team can assist you with any problems you have with your store’s SEO.
Plug In SEO’s free plan includes tools to optimize your store with an SEO health checker and detailed instructions for products, collections, pages, and blogs. Our support team can assist you with SEO fixes and improve your overall SEO.
Our paid edition offers additional tools to assist. Our team will optimize your titles and descriptions on your store and code a template for you to use.
We offer expert packages for only $20/month if you want the help of a professional to do the work for you. This package complements both editions of Plug In SEO (free and paid).
For more information, we also have an entire guide for optimizing your SEO.
Perform Keyword Research
Keywords are words or phrases searchers enter in a search engine. Compile a list of keywords by using our guide that walks you through keyword research or other helpful resources to determine what keywords you want to be ranking for.
If you understand what your audience is searching for, you can tailor your content to attract potential customers to your Shopify store.
Once you have your list of keywords, use the four main places Shopify suggests to add your keywords and improve your online store’s SEO:
- Page titles
- Meta descriptions
- Alt tags
- A page’s body content
Weave these keywords into all of the content on your website, from the blog to the titles to the image alt tags. This increases your Shopify store’s chances of appearing in a search.
To perform this research, we recommend using free tools like Google Keyword Planner and Keyword.io. There are also paid SEO tools like Semrush and Ahrefs.
Edit images
Design optimization is key to a speedy website. Part of this process entails editing your images to adhere to the best SEO practices.
A few tips:
- Create descriptive names, rich with keywords for images. Your images show up in image results when searchers type in keywords.
- Reduce your file size. Smaller file size = faster loading time.
- Select the correct image file type. You have three options, JPEG, GIF, and PNG. We recommend JPEG for the best quality.
For example, let’s pretend you have a company that sells luxury handbags. You load up this photo to your store:
You could simply name it “red-handbag” but perhaps you want users to find the bag by its proper name. Let’s pretend the bag is called the “Veronica.” In this case, you want to name it “red-veronica-crossbody-handbag-with-tassels.”
View our how-to guide on optimizing your images with Shopify. If you’re a Plug In Useful user and get stuck, email us at help@pluginspeed.com.
Using Content Marketing to Your Advantage
We are constantly inundated with content from scrolling TikTok to Insta stories to Facebook stories to Snapchat – we live in a society of information overload, driven to distract us. So, having multiple social media platforms provides a plethora of channels for content creation and can be used to your advantage.
To establish your company as a thought leader, your content must be original and engaging.
A solid content marketing strategy can attract organic traffic to your store and keep customers engaged, coming back for more.
Add Content to Your Main Page
One simple way to start is to add content to your main page targeting keywords you want to rank for.
On Lulus’ website, they strategically placed a preview of their blog on their main page. By doing so, they will rank for keywords they add to this page. For example:
This way, they can rank for:
- Beach wedding
- Beach wedding guest
- Beach wedding dresses
- Wedding season
- Beach nuptials
- Bridesmaids dresses
- Patterned bridesmaids dresses
- Patterned dresses
- Homecoming
- Homecoming dresses
- Outdoor weddings
Pro-tip: Enter your primary keyword into KWfinder. It will come up with a list of words and phrases related to your initial keyword with a high search volume.
Let’s perform a bit of keyword research that we learned earlier in the post using the words Lulu is ranking for.
I put “beach wedding dresses” into the search with KWfinder and these were my results:
“Beach wedding dresses” gets 125,000 searches per month with a Keyword Difficulty (KD) of only 45! Notice other keyword combinations like “beach bridesmaid dresses” and “beach wedding guest dresses”. On Lulu’s main page, they are already ranking for four variations of “beach wedding dresses”.
This simple tactic can raise organic traffic to your Shopify store (the cool kids are doing it, so should you!)
Here’s a bit of a test. The word I typed in was “luxury consignment purses”.
This was the result:
What keywords should you add to the content of your main page?
You guessed it!
Some options:
- Pre-owned designer bags
- Luxury pre-owned designer handbags
- Resale designer bags
- Gently used designer bags
Any of these keyword combinations can be littered throughout the content of your main page.
Pro-tip: Any time you edit content or update your website, go to PingFarm. Enter the URLs of the edited pages and hit MASS PING. This notifies search engines of your recent update. The search engines crawl your website for the new content, and boom! More traffic.
Start a Blog
According to SEMrush, there are nearly 90,000 Google searches per second and over 409 million people view more than 20 billion pages each month. Not only that but content marketing is predicted to be an industry worth over $410 billion this year.
What this means is that there is opportunity out there! What this doesn’t mean is that you cannot keep posting the same article over and over and over, expecting different results. You need to be strategic. You need to become an expert.
Post one blog about WordPress and what does that make you? A person who wrote one blog post once about WordPress. But write 450 blog posts about WordPress and what does this make you? An industry expert like Plug in SEO. We offer content writing services using SEO best practices and create original, engaging content for your blog. If you need a place to start or
We’ve mentioned keyword research and SEO, but these aren’t the only ingredients to a successful blog. You need to balance search engine optimization with useful content.
To start a blog, consider the following:
- User personas are archetypal representations of your ideal customer based on attributes, characteristics, and habits.
- Keyword research is research performed on words or phrases that searchers enter into a search engine.
- Content gap analysis is the process of evaluating existing content to determine any missing elements needing improvement.
- Customer journey mapping is the process of creating a visual story of customers’ interactions with your brand. This allows you to take a walk in your customers’ shoes to see your business from their perspective.
Check out Shopify’s video on how to start a blog.
Consider Other Forms of Media
Apart from starting a blog, another way to spread awareness of your brand is to create videos for educational and entertainment purposes. YouTube makes this easy, but you can also use Vimeo or DailyMotion.
You can use videos to:
Educate. The easiest way to add variety to your content marketing is to educate others on your brand, on concepts related to what you sell, and on how to use your product.
Promote. Create ads for YouTube to generate intrigue. You may also consider paying influencers to make videos reviewing your products, which is another way to build brand awareness.
Entertain. Engage your audience by adding fun videos to your page. Not only does this capture the attention of your audience, but it will keep them coming back.
Integrate Social Media
Social media is everywhere around us. It’s essential to integrate your Shopify store with any and every form of social media.
Facebook dominates the landscape of social media traffic. Almost two-thirds of all social media visits to Shopify stores come from Facebook, with 85% of all orders from social media also coming from this platform.
Convert your business website into a Facebook store. With a “Shop” tab, customers can shop and purchase directly from Facebook.
Instagram is another valuable platform with the second highest order value of other social media platforms. Shopify and Instagram also integrate well. Instagram allows you to tag products within a post so that clients can view the product page directly from the photo.
How to Drive Traffic to Your Shopify Store: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How often should I post content to my blog?
A common question, indeed. The answer? As often as you have good content! Good content = more engagement. The more engagement you have, the more social media platforms will take notice. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media channels have algorithms. If users aren’t engaging with your content, your content will be less accessible. We offer content creation services if you need some starter content. We provide SEO-friendly content and original writing from our team of experienced writers.
Is it necessary to pay for ads?
Yes. Paid social media advertising is one of the easiest ways to market your products. You can also create targeted campaigns to serve ads to customers.
These tactics are short-term as ads only run for a set amount of time. You can incorporate paid ads as a part of a long-term strategy, but you’ll need to allocate money to your ad campaigns. Common ad avenues are Facebook ads, Instagram ads, Pinterest ads, and Google Ads.
Should I really use influencer marketing?
Absolutely. While it may seem like a waste of time, building relationships with influencers builds trust in users. In fact, 88% of people trust online reviews written by other consumers just as much as they trust close friends.
You can increase customer reach while building trust in your brand which, in turn, generates referral traffic to your store.
A few ways to do this:
- Give free samples to influencers on various social media platforms.
- Guest post on other blogs.
- Solicit press coverage.
- Build affiliate relationships to promote your business.
Should I hire a professional to audit my store?
This is something to carefully consider. While going it alone has advantages like saving money, hiring a professional or service to assist you with your website can provide an expert’s eye and strategy. Plug In Useful offers expert packages if you want the help of a professional to do the work for you. If you aren’t able to spend the money, there are still many free resources including our own free version of the Plug In SEO tool to get you started on your journey.
In this article, we’ve reviewed three surefire ways to attract traffic to your store. The first step is optimizing your Shopify store by providing a good user experience for users navigating through your website. You can use an application like Plug in SEO to audit and improve the quality of your website content. This will also help you rank better on search engines when customers are searching for keywords related to what you sell online. Finally, perform keyword research so that you know which topics people are interested in buying from you based on their searches online – this way it’s easier to capitalize on those key phrases with relevant content that will drive more sales. We hope these insights have been helpful and informative for you as you work towards improving your site conversion rates!
