How to increase Traffic in your Online Shop

If online shops do not generate any visitors, this ultimately means no revenue. Traffic is thus essential for the long-term survival of a successful online business. The competition is enormous: not only online shops of all sizes compete for the traffic. Global players such as Amazon and Co. are also involved and want to generate the attention, the click and the purchase of the customer. As an online merchant, the central question is always: How do I get more visitors to my website?

Find out now how to sustainably increase the traffic in your online shop in order to subsequently turn visitors into paying customers.

What Types of Traffic can be increased?

Traffic refers to the number of visitors of an online shop or a website. If you deal with the topic of traffic and its increase, sooner or later you will come across the different types of traffic. This refers to the sources from which visitors reach the online shop.

Organic Traffic

Organic traffic is visitors who find their way to the shop via the search engine results. Placement and indexing are cost-free. Organic traffic is optimised via SEO measures.

Paid Traffic

This is advertising that the shop places in the search engines. If a search query corresponds to the content and stored keywords, the advertisement is displayed at the top and thus intended to increase traffic at the very front. Google Ads, formerly also known as Google AdWords, is best known for this.

Referral Traffic

Referral traffic refers to visitors who arrive at an online shop’s site via a link from another website or other medium in general.

Direct Traffic

All visitors who directly land on a website are classified as direct traffic.

Social Traffic

More and more users come from social networks. Social media therefore offers great potential for increasing traffic.

Paid Social Traffic

As with search engines, it is also possible to place paid advertisements on Facebook, Instagram and the like in order to increase traffic to the website.

Newsletter Traffic

Those who regularly send out newsletters gain and, in the best case, increase traffic from the virtual info mail.

Why it is important to continuously bring more visitors into the online shop?

Increasing the traffic in the online shop results in a whole range of benefits that are elementary. First and foremost, a higher number of visitors offers the opportunity to sell more and thus increase revenue and profit. At the same time, you gain a higher level of awareness with these measures. Not to be forgotten is the potential for better placement in search results, as more traffic is accompanied by a better click rate, which sends strong user signals to Google.

What measures can be used to increase traffic?

There are some measures that can be taken to increase the number of visitors. These are presented below.

1. Increase traffic with SEO

Search engine optimisation has become an integral part of every successful online marketing strategy. The measures related to the best placement in the organic search results are and remain essential to generate traffic. It is still true that those who are listed in the top 10 get the most clicks, because the majority of users do not get past the first page. SEO is about using keywords efficiently and fulfilling the Google ranking factors as best as possible so that the Google algorithm classifies the page as relevant and lists it high accordingly.

Tip: Google is increasingly implementing features in the search results. These are services such as the Rich Snippet, the Knowledge Panel or Direct Answers, which already answer users’ questions within the search results and thus no longer require a click on a page. These search queries are called zero click searches. The share is now already 50%. In order to achieve a ranking in the features or to generally land high up in the SERPS, it is important to optimise the content so that it meets Google’s onpage and offpage criteria. Important for the Google bots are, among other things:

• structured data (can be generated via the Schema.org)
• Mobile-friendliness
• high-quality content
• fast loading times
• Include FAQs

2. Increase traffic with SEA

Traffic can be increased in a targeted way with paid advertisements. Google Ads offer the most potential for this. These are suggested to users at the top of the search results based on the relevant keywords and are usually clicked on more often. They offer a good supplement to increasing traffic with organic search engine optimisation.

Tip: It can sometimes take a few months for SEO measures to achieve success. However, this is more long-term. To increase traffic in the short term, on the other hand, paid advertising is an ideal option. Long-tail keywords are often cheaper and have less competition.

3. Increase traffic with link building

Link building is another way to increase the number of visitors of a website. If the online shop is referred to in guest articles or blog articles, it is an important source from which traffic is generated. The simple reason: these are users who already show a strong interest. Otherwise, they would hardly have read the blog article. The reader of the article thus becomes aware of the online shop and can access the page directly. It is important to pay attention to the seriousness of the pages, which also have a high reach.

It is also important to set backlinks. For this reason, links are set on a relevant page itself. Backlinks signal to the search engine that the linked page is a relevant and reputable one. Caution: The linking pages must not be considered untrustworthy by Google under any circumstances, otherwise they will be penalised and lose their ranking. It is therefore important:

• Ask for links if there is already a mention in an article
• Use the pages of business partners
• Set backlinks in a targeted and considered way
• Less is more and quality goes before quantity
• Set backlinks on social media platforms

4. Increase traffic with social media

Social networks are still very popular and it is hard to imagine everyday life without them. Around 4.2 billion people use social networks every day. And the numbers are increasing daily. The channels can therefore be used efficiently to gain traffic. This can be achieved, for example, by setting up a company page, a channel on YouTube or a company profile on LinkedIn.

Tip: Almost every network today offers the option of booking paid advertising such as Facebook and Instagram Ads. These make a meaningful addition to Google Ads.

Social shopping is also becoming increasingly popular. With the shopping function, online merchants and companies have the chance to place products in the social networks and thus direct interested people to the website with one click. An attractive and forward-looking option to increase traffic in the online shop.

Get the most out of existing traffic

The right measures have been taken and traffic is increasing. Now it is a question of using the existing traffic effectively, because more traffic does not automatically mean more sales and more turnover. This is exactly where conversion optimisation in the online shop steps in. To convert visitors into customers, they should first and foremost have a positive user experience. With appropriate optimisations, you can quickly convert your visitors into paying buyers:

• User-friendly navigation & search function
• Gain the trust of your visitors
• Improve product descriptions
• Optimise product images
• Prevent shopping cart abandonment
• Personalise customer communication
• Provide social proof
• Adapt call-to-action
• Optimise checkout

Conclusion: Increasing traffic is essential for every online shop

The calculation is simple: if an online shop gains more visitors, the probability that they will convert into customers increases. Increasing traffic with the right measures is part of every efficient online marketing strategy. However, the efficient use of the increased traffic is at least as important. In addition to manual measures, uptain helps above all with the automated recovery of shopping cart abandoners.