Attracting new visitors / potential customers

nathaniellloyd

Free Member
Oct 10, 2014
18
2
Hi there guys,

I have recently started up on online store via shopify. I would like to know how you guy have gone about attracting new customers (e.g. social media, SEO etc). Right now I have Mailchimp, Pinterest and Twitter which I regularly update but am finding it hard to attract new customers.

P.S I haven't got a clue about SEO

Any help would be great thanks!
 
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CoolHandCol

SEO takes quite a while to get a return on investment but is worth it in the long run (if your profit margins are OK). If you want an immediate presence and traffic then try Google adwords - you can control your daily budget and will very quickly get a feel as to whether your products are what the customer wants. Google shopping gives a better return usually. PM me if you need any help
 
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RepricerExpress

Google likes good and regular content so the blog you've recently started should help with your SEO. It takes time to build up a reputation with Google but keep doing the blog, social media and link building with other sites and you should be fine in addition to the other helpful suggestions above.
 
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FreeRangeWeb

I would suggest adding more products and putting them into categories that Google can understand. That way, Google is more likely to give you a better ranking. At the moment everything is bunched under 'Products' which doesn't tell Google anything about what your products are.
There is lots of competition out there so stay niche. You are more likely to sell 'african-style prints' than just 'prints'. Add these same niche categories into Pinterest and link back to them through your blog posts (which should be about 400 - 500 words long). If you make your blog the epicentre of Afric-ool then people will come :)
 
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neils3

Free Member
Apr 17, 2014
148
26
London
I'm actually about to kick off an SEO for beginners blog series on my new website.

To start off with, I would highly suggest you get your site in good order before looking at any other tactic. And that doesn't mean adding loads of pages and products.

It really means, focusing on the pages you currently have, optimising their structure and ensuring they fit logically into your website. This should be done with your users in mind, making sure you create an optimal experience for people hitting your website.

I know Shopify is a good platform and is good for SEO so you've started well.

Twitter is a good platform, but as with SEO, please do not expect to get quick results. Twitter is great for developing relationships with your target market and influencers in your industry.

Hope that helps
 
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nathaniellloyd

Free Member
Oct 10, 2014
18
2
Hi guys, thanks all for your comments. As i am new to the whole SEO thing I am really just finding out about how it all works. But as I've heard over the years "Content is King", blog, show of my products, write articles that people want to read what are your views on this. As I am still skeptical of its credibility.
 
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FreeRangeWeb

Hi Nathanie
The more niche relevant content that you have on your site the better you will do. You can even become an 'expert' in the field.
Content is only King if you get it out there so think about amplification. How do you intend to get your content out there, and how do you intend to get people to come to your content (and products of course!)
Best of luck
 
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quikshop

Free Member
Oct 11, 2006
3,644
714
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Social media marketing (Facebook, Twitter) can help build a buzz about your shop. If you are selling into a niche market, contributing to forums, discussion groups can help. Sponsorship of a local relevant charity can also work, especially if you follow it up with your own online press release - there are several very good PR services costing less than £100 that could see your press release appear on hundreds of news related websites and blogs.
 
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Good comments made here. There are two ways to look at it:
Short-term - Its unlikely that any new website is going to obtain much traffic from organic searches (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc page ranking), however you can pay for Google Adwords. This will get traffic to your website instantly, at a cost obviously. I am assuming your budget isn't 'massive' compared to your larger competitors, so your money will probably be wasted on targeting the highly competitive keywords. So for the moment, try and target your keywords which have less competition. Ultimately however, ensure you use specific keywords, as these will have a higher click through rate (CTR), giving you more bang for your buck! I have used Google as an example here, but also don't forget to use Bing and Yahoo!. Depending on your hosting, you may even have free credits to use for these search engines. From experience, everyone completely focuses on Google and forgets about the others. Sometime they can be cheaper too!
Long-term - This is where the hard work really starts I am afraid. This process is often either costly or time consuming, mostly both. Strong SEO can help your website tremendously, so ensure you tick the basics from the start. Search for 'SEO checker' on Google, these website will trawl through some of your site, and identify any mistakes which could cost you rankings. I have just done a quick check for you, it appears you have covered most of the basics, you scored 66/100 (using http://seositecheckup.com). So I would give that a look at, and make sure you tick all the boxes. Depending on how good your budget is, it may be best to pay for SEO services, especially if you don't know much for yourself. These tend to be costly though, a cheaper alternative is ClickSubmit. Social media can bring you lots of business if managed properly. Don't forget to use Facebook, in my opinion, its the best social networking tool. Add these plugins on your website (if not already done so) to persuade your customers to like your page. You can also have paid advertising on Facebook, which allows you to specifically target different groups of people. Can be very beneficial, as it ensures you are only paying to show your advert to those likely to buy.

Sorry I couldn't write anymore, I could literally spend all night writing about these things! I would advise that your either self-teach by using online resources/books/etc or outsource. I have also had a look at your website, it looks clean and tidy! Well done, definitely the best start, is having a clean website.

Hope this helps, and good luck with your business!
Ross :D
 
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Donna77

Free Member
Jan 30, 2014
71
14
London
Firstly, congratulations on your site - very clean and I really like your cushions. I wanted to share my experience of blogs bringing in traffic. Like you, I'm on shopify and posted around 10 different blogs within the first month. The longest and most detailed blog now brings in around a third of my converting customers. It ranks on google page 1 for about 3 of my key phrases. At the time I had no idea if any of my blogs would rank or help - but I would strongly urge anyone starting out to invest more time on blogs and less on social media. Blogs can bring you converting customers within weeks because they are seen by people who are actively searching for your product, which can't be said for Facebook likes or tweets.
However, your products are suited to Polyvore and Pinterest. They would be well worth your time in my opinon. Also think about offering a discount for multiple buys. People might be more inclined to buy 3 or 4 cushions or prints, for example, if the price decreases with quantity. There's probably an app for this on Shopify or just use the basic discount code system - i.e. insert an image in each product description saying 'save 15% when you buy more than 1 cushion with discount code 15OFFER'
I notice you don't have a physical address or phone number on your site. That will put off a huge number of buyers. The delivery info is also rather vague. I find that people want to know if they need to be at home to sign for it and whether it's coming by courier or Royal Mail.
Good luck
 
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amac

Free Member
Dec 31, 2011
423
33
United Kingdom
You need to do all of the things one does with online marketing i.e email marketing, paid ads, seo (keywords), social networks etc. Try them all and most importantly, measure the results and go with what works on an ongoing basis. Don't forget offline marketing also, it can be harder to measure the results but nevertheless, promoting your ecommerce site in person can be effective too.
 
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Cherrie Hub

Free Member
Jun 5, 2014
31
2
well, so far, I've been focusing on getting more traffic by contacting bloggers in my field (home decor) asking for reviews - mixed results, but managed to get one blogger who reviewed my product, linking back to the site. Contacted journalists on twitter (through followerwonk) - disaster. Asked all my FB friends for sharing link to my site - really awesome. Sharing links on FB local selling groups - ok. So far I've been working on getting more traffic for the last two weeks, and I start seeing results, finally got the first order yesterday. Visitors so far ~ 20-40 a day, but I hope to increase to 200 within a next year. Good luck!
 
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james@alpha

Social media marketing (Facebook, Twitter) can help build a buzz about your shop. If you are selling into a niche market, contributing to forums, discussion groups can help. Sponsorship of a local relevant charity can also work, especially if you follow it up with your own online press release - there are several very good PR services costing less than £100 that could see your press release appear on hundreds of news related websites and blogs.


If you could pm me details of the pr services that would be great, it might be something we could utilise

cheers james
 
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fisicx

Moderator
Sep 12, 2006
46,699
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Aldershot
www.aerin.co.uk
Change the URL to a .co.uk and put your address on the site. At least that way you will have a better chance of appearing on UK searches.

If you want to attract BUYERS (not visitors) then you need to advertise. Mailchimp, Pinterest and Twitter are to unfocused unless other people tweek/pin/share your products.

Why shopify? You will see your costs increase as you add functionality to the site. If you had gone for a self hosted solution you would have had far more control and far lower costs.
 
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MOrvisGoresponse

Free Member
Nov 3, 2014
11
1
36
Hi there guys,

I have recently started up on online store via shopify. I would like to know how you guy have gone about attracting new customers (e.g. social media, SEO etc). Right now I have Mailchimp, Pinterest and Twitter which I regularly update but am finding it hard to attract new customers.

P.S I haven't got a clue about SEO

Any help would be great thanks!


Hi there, I'm not sure if it would be helpful but I work for a contact center in kent. If you were ever wanting phonelines covered, emails, webchat services or anything like that, feel free to message me. I love the site by the way. good positioning with your POS. Good Luck!
 
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antropy

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