The Internet is full of tips and advice on how to optimize your conversion rate and get more customers. Much of those tips are on the same note – reduce clutter, write benefits-focused copy, create more attractive CTA buttons and so on. There is no denying that some of them are real good advice, but most people miss the real hack.

Your conversion rate optimization largely depends on the flow of your online traffic. Your goal therefore should be to increase your organic traffic, especially from high-converting sources. But before discussing more on that you need to understand one thing.

Understand the Value of Your Traffic

Not all online traffic is equal. You are probably getting traffic from multiple sources, including social media sites and other marketing platforms. But the real hack is: Are these visitors really converting? Is the traffic source really worth your time and effort?

While Google Analytics counts all this traffic as “sessions,” having mere visitors was never your goal. You need traffic that converts. Your first task is therefore to identify the traffic sources that convert best. For this, you need to make a list of your traffic segments and analyze them, especially as they progress through the sales funnel.

You can use any funnel chart tools to create a funnel report to see where your traffic drop offs in the sales funnel. With certain tools such as KISSmetrics Funnel Report, you can even segment the traffic sources to understand which sources convert best.

Most eCommerce companies struggle to get people purchase their products; however, if you can get the right people to your website, the odds of increasing your conversions will also be higher. Here are 3 often overlooked ways that can dramatically increase traffic (or better the right kind of traffic) to your eCommerce site.

1. Incorporate Product Videos

Video is such a powerful sales tool. Just have a look at this video and you will know what I am trying to say. With almost “ZERO” ad copy Nissan nails it with their video demonstration. You can apply the same trick for almost all your products, be it clothing, electronic gears, furniture, cars or anything under the sun. Have a custom-made video for your products showing off the real-life use of the item.

There are basically two ways to publish your product videos on your eCommerce website. First, you can self-host the video. If done correctly, your online store will start ranking for the videos in no time. However, self-hosting will slow down the loading speed of your website. The second option is to leverage a third-party platform such as YouTube and/or Vimeo to upload your videos. Since the video is hosted on the servers of these websites, it won’t affect the loading speed on your webpages.

Besides, YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google and has over 1 billion users. You can leverage its huge traffic with properly optimized videos of your products.

2. The Power of a Value-Driven Blog

Content is king when it comes to search-engine marketing. Statistics indicate that more than 80 percent of companies are implementing content strategy to market their business. However, only 32 percent think they have an effective strategy.

Now that you have created an online store and a blog to go with it, what to do next?

It is no doubt tough to get your content strategy right. So if you think creating a blog post or two and posting a few images and memes is all you need to do, you are totally wrong. Content marketing fails due to many reasons; it’s not an easy task. Just creating blog posts is not enough, you need to have highly targeted, value-driven and quality content to lure your visitors.

Perhaps the best way to have an effective content marketing strategy is to make your customer “the hero.” You guessed it right; your existing customers’ story is your secret tool to reach out to other buyers out there. Ask for testimonials and customers’ stories. Why they choose your brand? How do they feel about your brand?

All these questions will help you to create meaningful and value-driven content for your target audiences while keeping your existing customer in the limelight.

3. Define the Purpose of Your Social Media Campaigns

Chances are, you are already doing some sort of social media campaigns. But what is their purpose? Why are you investing your time and effort on social media sites? What goal do you want to achieve? Do you really need them?

I am not against social media campaigns; in fact, quite the opposite. They are a no brainer. Unfortunately, social campaigns are often poorly executed. Where most eCommerce marketers go wrong with social media campaigns is that they use it to drive leads. Do this, and next time you will find yourself lamenting over how you wasted your budget and resources on a platform that has no or little value to add.

A better way to leverage social media campaigns is to use it for driving customer engagement and brand awareness. Social media sites provide a great opportunity to eCommerce brands for engaging with their existing customers and at the same time reach out to new ones. You can extend your content strategy to “make your customers the hero” to social media as well.

Ask questions and show genuine concern through your social channels. Show your customers how much you care about them. When someone post a question/comment/feedback or even a complaint or hashtag your brand, respond to them immediately. If they are praising you, show your gratitude; if they have something not very nice to say about you, look into the matter and make sure you resolve the concern as soon as possible.

When you start caring about your customers, they too will start caring about your brand. This is one of the best ways to turn your customers into your loyal followers and brand evangelists. Another added benefit of social media campaigns is that they can increase your traffic volume, if done correctly. The blogs and videos you post on the social media sites are of course one way to drive traffic, but there is another way social media sites are affecting your traffic volume.

Google takes social signals into consideration when determining the rank of a website/pages. The more your fans and followers engage with your content (product pages, videos and blog posts) through the social channels, the higher they are likely to rank. The result is more organic traffic to your eCommerce store.

Conclusion

Be it a small online shop or a major eCommerce site, you need traffic to drive sales. Although there are various ways to tap the wealth of organic traffic it is usually a time consuming affair, if not a challenging task. These tips mentioned in this post are proven ways that can significantly increase your eCommerce traffic, but there are more. You should thus audit your efforts on a regular basis and try other innovative ways to add value to your customer service.

Author Bio: Mansi Dhorda works at E2M – A Digital Marketing Agency. A social media enthusiast, she is well-versed in content marketing and other internet marketing niches. You can interact with her on Twitter. Her Twitter handle is @mansidhorda.