Quick Overview of Online Marketing Methods

Posted by Paul on September 17, 2012

How can I get more traffic? How can we make more online sales?

Here's an overview of some steps you can take today:

On-Site

Enable SEO URLs. This is very important for increasing traffic. I wrote a blog article on exactly how to do this in OpenCart: https://www.antropy.co.uk/blog/one-simple-opencart-tip-to-increase-sales/

Product reviews are extremely important to raise buyer confidence. I'd suggest emailing customers a week or so after their goods have arrived asking them to submit a review. Perhaps offer a discount code for people who submit a review.

Product descriptions need to be well-written. I know it may seem obvious from the photo what the product is but Google won't be able to see that and so a description with the right keywords would increase traffic.

A blog with articles that are interesting and relevant to your customers will drive traffic. In addition to writing the blog, make sure it's submitted to facebook/twitter/Google+ and other social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit etc.

Google Product Feed
An XML feed that allows your products to appear on Google’s Shopping feature.

Off-Site

PPC
I'd recommend setting up a Google AdWords campaign and using converstion tracking to make sure you're getting a good return on investment.

Affiliates
There are extensions in OpenCart that allow affiliates to sign-up and promote your site and get paid for doing so. For example if there was a popular blog on your product niche, you could ask if they'd like to put up banner ads with links to your website. These banner ads would contain tracking codes that meant the blog owner would get a percentage of sales that came from them.

Print Ads
Adverts in print magazines are still worth doing but you should make sure the revenue from these is tracked by using a call tracking number for the phone number and a tracking code on any links to your website.

Facebook/twitter Profiles
In addition to posting the blog to these, new products can be added and updates can be sent out to generate a user base.

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