Last updated on February 12th, 2025 at 04:58 am
So you launched your eCommerce business.
Now that your online store is up and running, you need to figure out how to attract your ideal customers.
Today we are going to share five strategies that can help you increase your Shopify store traffic…
Strategy #1: Paid Advertising
We recommend starting with paid advertising – it’s fast, reliable, and scalable.
Create a Facebook Ads campaign, set a small daily budget, to begin with, and start running ads.
This will quickly show you whether or not your ideal customers are interested in whatever it is that you are selling.
Experiment with various offers until you find something that resonates with your target audience.
Then figure out how to run ads for that product in a way that allows you to make a profit.
Once your Facebook Ads campaign is profitable, you can begin scaling it, just make sure to do it gradually.
You might also want to start experimenting with other advertising platforms such as Instagram and Google.
It’s best to focus solely on paid advertising until your business is generating enough profit for you to pay your bills.
Once you get to that point, you can start focusing on building traffic-generating assets so that you wouldn’t have to remain completely reliant on paid ads forever.
Strategy #2: Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is another way to drive traffic to your Shopify store that produces immediate results.
You should start by evaluating whether influencer marketing is popular in your industry.
Say, the second most popular Instagram influencer category in both 2020 and 2021 was “Beauty”.
So if you sell beauty products then it’s probably safe to assume that you could make influencer marketing work for your business.
Of course, just because your industry isn’t listed in the top ten Instagram influencer categories, it doesn’t mean that it’s not worth experimenting with influencer marketing.
However, in that case, you should be cautious. Sure, it might be that your industry is lagging behind in this regard, but it’s also possible that your competitors aren’t using influencer marketing because it doesn’t work in your niche.
Then, if you decided to give influencer marketing a shot, you need to choose a platform that is favored by your target audience:
- Instagram is the most popular among people between the ages of 25-34, followed by the 18-24 demographic. In both cohorts of users, there are more females than males.
- TikTok is the most popular among people aged18-24, followed by the 13-17 demographic. In both cohorts of users, there are over two times more females than males.
- YouTube is the most popular among people between the ages of 24 – 34, followed by the 18 – 24 demographic. In the former cohort of users, there are almost two times more males than females, while in the latter cohort females outnumber males, but not by much.
Once you have chosen a platform, it’s time to find influencers that can help you reach your target audience.
Start with micro-influencers that have between 10,000 and 50,000 followers because they are the most affordable type of influencer.
In fact, micro-influencers might even be open to working with you in exchange for free product samples.
Before you start running influencer marketing campaigns, you need to set up a way to track sales.
The most popular method for that is using referral links.
Once everything is set up, you can begin experimenting with influencer marketing.
Reach out to a promising micro-influencer, pay for a shoutout, then see what happens. Did that shoutout result in sales?
You want to test a variety of micro-influencers in your niche, identify the ones that can generate sales, then figure out a way to work with them on a regular basis.
Ideally, you want to build long-term relationships with up-and-coming micro-influencers in your niche.
Strategy #3: Social Media Marketing
The easiest traffic-generating asset to build is a social media following on a platform that is favored by your target audience.
The general process is the same no matter which platform you pick:
- Create a content calendar. You want to choose a posting frequency that you can sustain over an extended period of time. We suggest committing to posting 3x per week
- Use social media scheduling software to batch and schedule your posts. Create all posts for the week or the month in one go, then schedule them using an app like MeetEdgar or Buffer.
- Dedicate time each week to interact with your followers. You should reply to every comment that you get for as long as you can. This will help you build an engaged following.
Eventually, you will reach a point where that becomes unfeasible, but even then you should interact with people under every post, even if you can’t respond to everyone anymore.
The key to building a social media following is consistency.
The reason the vast majority of people fail at it is that they give up too soon.
Post 3x per week for a year, that’s 156 posts. Do it for two years, that’s 312 posts. Keep it up for 3 years, that’s 468 posts.
You will almost certainly have a substantial social media following once you get to that 468th post.
Of course, the success of this strategy heavily depends on the quality of your content.
It’s not just about posting 3x per week.
It’s about creating three high-quality social media posts that provide value to your ideal customers every week…And keeping it up for three years.
Strategy #4: YouTube Marketing
Another traffic-generating asset that you can build is a YouTube channel.
This takes more effort than building a social media following because producing videos is more resource-intensive than posting on social media.
Also, this platform favors people who are great on camera, so you need to take that into consideration as well.
If being in front of a camera makes you feel super awkward, then this marketing channel might not be the best choice for you.
Of course, there’s also the option of creating slideshows or video montages with voiceovers, which can be a way to make it work if you are camera-shy.
Okay, with all that out of the way, here’s a quick overview of how to build a YouTube channel:
- Commit to uploading one video per week.
- Target a specific keyword with each video. Use YouTube Autocomplete for keyword research. Simply type a generic keyword relevant to your niche into YouTube’s search box, then look at the suggestions. These suggestions are based on what people are searching for. Target those keywords in your videos.
Say, if you are selling makeup, then you can start by typing in the keyword “makeup” and looking at the suggestions.
- Make sure that each video is better than the top three videos that are currently ranking for the target keyword. Watch the competing videos, read the comments, and figure out how to make your video better.
- End each video with a question and encourage the viewers to leave a response in the comments.
- Reply to every comment under your videos for as long as you possibly can. This is going to incentivize viewers to leave more comments and help you increase engagement.
Just like with social media marketing, the key to success is consistency.
Upload one video per week for a year, that’s 52 videos. Do it for two years, that’s 104 videos. Keep it up for three years, that’s 156 videos.
You will almost certainly have a solid subscriber base by the time you upload that 156th video.
Gaining traction on YouTube takes time, though, so be prepared for a brutal uphill struggle in the beginning.
For example, when Ali Abdaal, a popular productivity YouTuber that has over 3M subscribers on the platform, launched his channel, it took him 6 months and 53 videos to reach 1,000 subscribers!
However, if you keep uploading a new video each week, you will eventually get to the point where your channel starts gaining momentum.
Also, note that content matters more than production value, so don’t go crazy with buying equipment, setting up a studio, etc.
It’s okay to start by shooting videos on your smartphone as long as those videos provide value to your ideal customers.
Obviously, the production value is more important in some niches than it is in others, so you need to take that into account,
Say, if you want to create a makeup tutorial to promote the makeup that you sell on your Shopify store, then that video can’t look like it was filmed with a potato.
Meanwhile, if you are selling fishing equipment, then your ideal customers might be willing to overlook questionable production quality if you provide solid fishing advice.
One piece of equipment that you should invest in early on is a high-quality microphone.
Remember, YouTube viewers can forgive low video quality, but you won’t get away with low sound quality.
Strategy #5: Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization, also known as SEO, is all about generating organic search traffic.
You can do that by creating content that targets specific keywords, then ranking that content on the first page of Google’s search results.
Building a popular blog in your niche can be a great way to increase your Shopify store traffic, but you need to be prepared to invest at least 12-18 months into it to get it off the ground.
Here’s a quick overview of how to rank a blog post on Google:
- Pick a promising keyword
- Write an article that targets that keyword
- Build backlinks to that article
Let’s take a closer look at each of these steps:
Pick a Promising Keyword
It all starts with choosing a keyword that is relevant to your business, has a high enough search volume, and that you can realistically rank for.
There are plenty of free keyword research tools out there but we recommend investing in Ahrefs.
You can learn how to do keyword research with it by watching this 10-minute video:
By the way, Ahrefs also has a free “Blogging for Business” course on YouTube, which you might want to watch if you are serious about SEO.
Write an Article That Targets That Keyword
You want to write an article that is better than everything that is currently ranking on page one of Google.
Make sure that your content is:
- Relevant – Does your article meet the search intent?
- Comprehensive – Your article should be as long as it needs to be to meet the search intent.
- Unique – Add examples from your personal experience, share relevant data, include screenshots, etc.
- Well-formatted – Use subheadlines, sub-subheadlines, bulleted lists, numbered lists, and images to break up the text. Also, keep your paragraphs short, 1-3 lines.
- Optimized – Use a content optimization tool like Clearscope to optimize your article for the target keyword.
Build Backlinks to That Article
Backlinks are presumed to be the most important ranking factor.
That’s why it’s not enough to just publish a great article – you also need to build backlinks to it.
The most popular way of doing that is guest posting, which is the practice of writing a blog post for another website in exchange for a link to your website.
Adam Enfroy, who is best known for making $1,000,000 in less than 2 years with his blog, wrote over 80 guest posts in his first year of blogging.
Here’s the guest posting process that he recommends:
- Start by understanding your value – “Don’t go into the process of guest blogging for SEO only thinking about what you’ll get out of the deal. First, you need to focus on the benefits you’ll give the site.” What do you bring to the table?
- Create a targeted list of websites you want to write for – Create a simple spreadsheet with five columns: website, name, email address, status, and notes. Target blogs that have a Domain Authority (DA) of at least 50.
- Find the right person to contact for blogging opportunities – Go to the company’s LinkedIn page and search for people with titles like “Content Manager,” “Blog Manager,” “SEO Manager,” “Editor”, etc. Once you have identified the person you should reach out to, use hunter.io to find their email address.
- Start your guest blogging outreach – “There are plenty of cold email strategies out there. The best tips I learned are to keep your email short, provide value, and showcase your previous work.”
- Perfect your topic pitch – You want to pitch a topic that hasn’t been covered on that website before, targets a promising keyword, matches your expertise, and is relevant to the website’s audience.
Adam likes to use this cold email template in his guest posting outreach (it has an 80%+ open rate and a 50%+ response rate):
“Subject Line: Hey (First Name) // Content and Link Building Opportunities – Adam from (Company)
Hey (First Name),
My name’s Adam and I’m the (Job Title) at (Company).
I’m reaching out because I love (Target Blog) and your (Target Article) really resonated with me because (Reason).
I was curious if:
1) You’d like to participate in link building. I write (X-X) guest posts per month and would be happy to link to your site in my content.
2) You allow guest posts on your blog.
I’d love to contribute to your (awesome? informative? useful?) blog and can pitch some topic ideas that I think your audience will enjoy. Here are some recent samples from me:
(Sample 1 URL)
(Sample 2 URL)
(Sample 3 URL)
Please let me know if you’re interested and I look forward to hearing back from you soon!
Thanks,
Adam”
Keep in mind that you need to be aggressive about link building if you want to stand a chance at ranking on the first page of Google.
It might be tempting to focus solely on creating high-quality content, but doing that without building backlinks to it is a waste of time from an SEO perspective.
Stay Focused on Creating Content + Building Backlinks!
Search engine optimization can seem overwhelming because there are always new trends, tactics, algorithm updates, etc. that everyone is talking about.
However, if you are just starting out with SEO, then you can safely ignore all that.
As Adam Enfroy explains:
“While you can read about a ton of fancy “hacks” and shiny new tools, there are fundamental principles that have not changed when it comes to SEO and blogging.
1. Content and links
2. Content and links
3. Content and links
This has remained unchanged for the last 10+ years.”
So stop worrying about the latest SEO trends. All you need to focus on is creating top-quality content and building backlinks to it. That’s it.
Want to Learn More About Generating Traffic?
Our co-founder, Russell Brunson, has written a best-selling book called “Traffic Secrets” where he shares his favorite strategies for attracting your ideal customers.
Want to learn more about generating traffic for your online business?