The success of your e-commerce site depends largely on your ability to conduct a strategic, targeted advertising campaign. You might have the best products available, the lowest prices possible, and the most knowledgable and professional staff in your industry. However, if your target audience isn’t aware of your company, or if you haven’t made the effort to reach out to the correct consumers, your sales will be marginal. Here are four great tips to market your e-commerce site.
1. Use Link Building to Generate Traffic
Link building is the process of placing links on external websites that direct Internet traffic to your e-commerce site. Of course, you can’t simply force other websites to link to your site. Instead, you’ll need to create inbound links naturally.
One of the best link building methods is known as guest posting. With guest posting, you’ll create guest blog posts for other websites similar to your own. The external site doesn’t need to be a competitor. Rather, it could be a likeminded site that discusses topics relevant to your e-commerce site. For example, if your site sells computer components, you might offer a guest blog post to a computer hardware review and community site. You’ll then place one or two links to your site within the guest post. In this way, you contribute valuable content to an external site in exchange for inbound links to your own e-commerce site.
2. Take Advantage of Article Directories
An article directory is a website that includes hundreds or even thousands of unique, categorized articles pertaining to various topics. Article directories can be used to market your e-commerce site in the same way that guest blog posts can be used for the purposes of link building.
Try writing a high quality article detailing the products or services you sell, and submit it to an authoritative article directory. You can include a couple of links that direct traffic back to your site. Writing concise, pointed articles with important keywords relevant to your operation will provide the best results.
3. Reach Additional Customers with Google AdWords
AdWords is a Google service that allows you to create and display advertisements on Google and on other sites contained in Google’s advertising network. The process is simple: first, you’ll create an advertisement including keywords and keyword phrases relevant to your company. Next, you’ll submit the ad to Google AdWords. When an Internet user searches for one of your chosen keywords, your ad will have a chance of appearing adjacent to the search results. You won’t have to pay a penny until someone actually clicks on your ad. This is known as pay-per-click advertising.
4. Offer Discounts Through Coupon Sites
Currently, there are hundreds of sites devoted to posting online coupons and discount codes for reputable e-commerce sites. Aside from their primary function of allowing customers to enjoy your products and services at discounted rates, coupon site create additional external links that drive traffic to your site. This will increase your presence in search engine results and give your target consumers a good reason to purchase your products now instead of later.
– Guest post by Michael Cash, who is a twenty something freelance writer and internet consultant providing SEO services, residing in western Michigan. When he’s not coaching people out of 1990s era web practices, amateur astronomy and hiking take up his time. A completely random fact about Michael is that he used to “ghost hunt” as a youngster.
