Master Yoda’s Jedi Hacks to Make ‘Force Awaken’ At Your Store

Who doesn’t want more traffic, sales and conversions at their online store? Unless you are fond of working for the man, then chances are this is you. Actually getting there can be quite the different story, though. To make strides forwards, you have to learn how to Rick Roll Sales in an Offline Shopping World – because ecommerce still only represents less than 14% of all retail.

The good news is that we can help you get there with this massive guide that’s nearly as big as the Death Star. If you want to make the ‘Force Awaken’ in your online store so your sales can soar faster and higher than the Millennium Falcon, then read on, young Jedi… read on.

How educated are you about your target demographic, or about ecommerce in general? If you don’t know the facts, then how are you supposed to know how you can reach out to your target market and attract the traffic that you need to get the sales? Make sure you are well apprised of any online shopping facts that you need in advance. You can leverage knowledge of these into your game plan so that you can get more traffic.

Of course, we wouldn’t make such a bold statement like this and then just leave you hanging, like the emperor frequently left Darth Vader. Yep, you guessed it, we’ve got a guide for that, too. Make sure you take some notes from this must read guide: These Online Shopping Facts Will Blow Your Mind. Once you finish reading that, you’ll know every fact about ecommerce you ever needed to, and you will be able to apply this information to your future marketing ventures like real a Jedi boss.

SEO, which stands for search engine optimization, is just as important for online stores as it is for any other type of website or business. But the issue is that many store owners simply do not know how to do proper SEO. It starts with the core of your online store: the content. In order to rank better, Google wants to see properly optimized pages with unique, quality content, images and videos. Make sense?

While we don’t have nearly enough time to delve into this monster of a topic right now (it’s bigger than Jabba’s belly), we have created this helpful and illustrated guide that delivers Superman Style SEO Tips. It’s written in layman’s terms with illustrated screenshots that can help you each step of the way. Use it to radically improve your search engine rankings so you can get more traffic to your online store.

Shoppers are increasingly using mobile devices to shop online. Chances are that you do as well. Recent reports have found that nearly half of shoppers prefer to shop online. But, tragically, a lot of stores are simply not cross-device friendly. Here’s a better way of looking at this: if your store is not accessible via tablet or mobile handset in a seamless manner, you are basically saying “no” to more traffic and sales.

In a recent guide we wrote, Mobile Retailing Statistics Show Surge In Handset Spending, it was found that over 1.2 billion people are accessing the internet via their handset these days (that’s about 10% of the population of Coruscant, FYI) or about one-seventh the population of the planet Earth. By A/B testing your online store for cross-device functionality, you will be able to assure that you’re able to welcome in all kinds of traffic, which will ultimately mean that you get more traffic and more sales, even if they come from places that are far, far away.

How widely used are digital coupons? In our guide: One Click Savings: A Quick Look At 2015 Mobile Coupon Statistics, we reveal that over 66 million of these coupons are redeemed every year, and about 2.3 billion are generated overall. With an impressive open rate of 14% – not nearly as impressive as making the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs – you can bet that your online store is missing on out traffic and sales without these handy little deals being offered to customers.

You can easily distribute your digital coupons online by using a variety of sources and services. Some places actually will deliver your coupons for a small monthly fee per distribution, and cover as many as the top 100 coupon sites. Is it worth it to offer a deal on a product just to get more sales? Yes, it is. People love to redeem digital coupons and get price breaks, and they often share these findings with their friends on social media, too.

Getting regularly featured in major news mediums and media is the surest way to bring about an influx in traffic, back links and new rankings. But not everyone can be press savvy, and not everyone is a public relations guru. If you want to become a Supreme Mogul of the Hutt Cartel, as it relates to media, we’ll need to fast track you on the power of the press release as it relates to your online store. So make sure you read our Definitive Guide to Issuing Ecommerce Press Releases.

In no time, you can learn how to write, issue, distribute and syndicate your press release so that you enjoy massive media exposure on a weekly basis. Doing so also helps you get your products in front of reviewers and journalists, which can lead to more news stories, better coverage and more traffic to your online store.

Social media has become a hotbed for attracting tons of ecommerce traffic and strong sales referrals. So strong in fact, that in our recent guide, Social Commerce Statistics You Shouldn’t Ignore, we highlight the fact that social commerce now presents a whopping 5% of all retail transactions worldwide. In other words, you’ll want to become a Jedi Brand Ambassador on social media, just like the Jedi Consulars were to the Galaxy.

In order to take advantage and capitalize on these emerging, growing trends, you have to have a strong social media game plan in order. Make sure you are frequently posting unique content, images and updates to all of your social channels. Be sure to respond to customer inquiries in a timely manner and become a brand, ahem, Jedi Ambassador on social media.

To help you better understand the impact that this can have on your brand, we’ve created this helpful infographic that highlights all the most prominent social shopping statistics of the present day. Use it to learn how you can drive more traffic to your online store. And reference our other guide, Social Media Traffic Statistics Prove Presence Matters, to take things a step further.

One of the very best ways of reaching the masses to get more traffic to your online store has to do directly with content outreach. Think of this like creating a Galactic Superhighway that connects the many Core Worlds of the internet to your online store by helping them find a path to your content and products. How you approach this is vital. A blog is the best place to start. By being able to reach out to your prospective customer base, you can rank for more targeted keywords and attract more traffic and sales.

Once you go create those awesome blogs, you’ll want to syndicate them via content outreach PPC platforms like OutBrain – which delivers your content to the top online media outlets so that you can generate targeted, organic traffic back to your store. Content is the core foundation of any good online marketing process. To help you get a head-start on that, we’ve created this infographic that delivers a detailed, step-by-step guide.

Much like the Emperor designed the Death Star to execute the Tarkin Doctrine, you’ll have to also add the key features that your store needs to convert any traffic that arrives. Shopping behavior has been greatly studied and scrutinized over the past decade or so. As ecommerce has grown into the beast it was always destined to become, think tanks have theorized back and forth trying to determine just what it is that makes shoppers tick. The results have been staggeringly impressive, actually.

Your store needs to offer several things in order to captivate shoppers. Doing so helps you generate a continuously renewable and steady stream of traffic because shoppers tell other people, who in turn visit your store and then tell others. But what tools and features should your store be offering that can help garner this illusive word-of-mouth traffic? We’ve got the whole kit and caboodle for you in this guide on 9 Features Your Online Store Needs To Offer Now.

Branding is everything in today’s marketing world. It’s also an imperative aspect to your online business thriving or suffering. We all can’t be branding experts. But that doesn’t mean that we all are incapable of learning some awesome tricks that help us set our brand aside from the rest. Heck, the Dark Side of the Force was all about branding, from head to toe – just look at the catchy Stormtrooper outfits and you can’t forget them; they’re more memorable than Master Chief’s MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor.

So how does branding help you get more traffic to your online store? Think about it this way. If a person buys a product from you and is wowed by your branding, then they will tell others about that experience via word-of-mouth, social media, reviews, emails and so forth. This in turn results in you getting more traffic and, you guessed it, more sales. To get you off to a running start on this, make sure you read our detailed guide: How To Add Zoolander’s Blue Steel Appeal To Your Brand.

Nobody likes abandonment. Just look at these Tunisian set locations that have long since been abandoned post filming in the desert; they’re depressing. Shopping cart abandonment is estimated to affect about 67% of all websites. A number of different factors lead to cart abandonment rates soaring as they do during the present day. Now that you understand all the different methods that you can use to attract shoppers to your store, how do you keep them there until they make the purchase?

The best way to do this is to understand why shoppers abandon their carts in the first place. Once you understand this, you can make the small changes to your online store that can help you get more conversions and sales, which ultimately translates into future traffic. This awesome infographic will break that all down for you.

Then make sure you check out our definitive guide on how you can Send Your Rivals Packing with 15 Ecommerce Marketing Tips. It’s jam-packed with information that you can use to improve your online store, expedite your shipping process, streamline your returns, add more punch to your SEO, and wow your customers with a better branding and shopping experience, just like a Jedi boss.

What’s that you said, you need EVEN more tips? OK… you’ve pulled our leg. We still have one more guide to throw at you. Here are 17 More Ecommerce Marketing Tips that all retailers should know.