5 Essential Tools for Maximum eCommerce Growth
When you first launch an online store, you have big dreams of generating truckloads of revenue and growing sales.
But the problem is, with how easy it has become to build an eCommerce website due to the plethora of online tools available, the competition has become as stiff as ever.
If you rely solely on web design and functionality to drive traffic, boost conversions, and secure sales, you might see some success.
However, because of how cutthroat the competition has become, chances are good that you’re still missing out on major opportunities to grow your eCommerce store and become the competition everyone fears.
Implementing the right tools into your eCommerce growth strategy is hands down one of the best ways you can use to pull ahead of the masses and make a name for yourself.
That’s why today, we’re sharing with you the 5 best tools for growing your online shop and gaining the advantage.
1. Google PageSpeed Insights
The speed of your website is going to affect your bottom line in very significant ways.
Don’t believe us? Check out these startling statistics:
- 47% of consumers expect your website to load within 2 seconds or less
- 40% of those same consumers will abandon your site if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load
- A 1 second delay in page speed reduces customer satisfaction rates by as much as 16%
- 44% of people will tell their friends about a bad online shopping experience
If you want your eCommerce store to grow, you have to pay attention to what the customer wants.
And what the customer wants when it comes to online shopping is seamless site speed and performance.
The best way to measure how you’re eCommerce site is doing in terms of speed and performance is to use the free Google PageSpeed Insights tool.
Just enter your site’s URL and let Google analyze it for you:
Your analysis will show you how fast both your desktop and mobile site versions are.
You’ll also get suggestions for improvements so there’s never an excuse for having a slow loading website.
2. Responsive Checker
Another significant factor that affects the user experience on your website, and ultimately your ability to scale, is how mobile-friendly your online store is.
Though some people expect your website to load a bit slower on their phones, there’s no reason for not having a mobile-friendly, responsive website for people to enjoy.
That’s why you should look into the Responsive Checker tool. Like Google PageSpeed Insights, this tool is free to use and only requires that you place your URL into the analyzer bar.
Once analyzed, you’ll be able to preview your site as it appears on various mobile devices such as tablets, smartphones, and laptops.
Better yet, this tool is interactive so you can ensure that navigating your mobile site is a cinch too.
If you want a quicker way to determine whether your site is mobile-friendly or not, you can also check out Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.
A simple yes or no answer will tell you whether your site is okay for those viewing your online shop on-the-go.
Since 51.2% of all internet traffic is attributed to mobile devices, and your goal is to grow your customer base, paying attention to the mobile-friendliness of your site is a must.
3. MailChimp
Contrary to what you may have heard, email is not dead.
In fact, email continues to rank as the number one preferred method for communicating with customers and remains the preferred method of communication by most customers.
Not to mention, it has always had the highest ROI of any other marketing strategy at $40 for every $1 invested.
That said, email marketing can become costly and time-consuming if you don’t use the right service provider or tools.
Luckily, MailChimp makes email marketing easy, even for those that are just starting out and have very little experience:
- Create customized email campaigns targeting people at different stages of the customer journey
- Automate campaigns so you can set ‘em and forget ‘em
- Easily connect your subscribe forms and import your email list from your website
- Create signup forms, landing pages, ads, and printed postcards all from your MailChimp account
MailChimp makes collecting leads, promoting new products and services, giving people incentives to buy again, and building longer-lasting relationships with customers easy and affordable.
In fact, for the first 2,000 subscribers on your email list, you don’t have to pay a dime to use MailChimp so long as you don’t send out more than 12,000 total emails.
If you’re a new startup and are looking for some helpful tips on growing your email list and boosting engagement, be sure to check out this roundup of email marketing growth hacks.
You’ll find that a good CTA, interaction with subscribers, unique content such as video clips, and some good email copy is all it takes to grow your audience and secure more sales.
4. WPForms
If you’re going to jump into email marketing, and you should, you’re going to need a reliable form builder solution to help create signup forms for your website to convince people to subscribe.
Of course, if you use a solution like MailChimp, you can create subscribe forms in your account and place them on your website.
But, if you’re looking for an easier solution, and one that comes with plenty more features and templates, you should check out WPForms.
Claiming to be the most beginner friendly contact form on the market to date, WPForms makes creating forms of all kinds really simple, and adding them to your site is even easier.
With WPForms, you can build beautiful subscribe forms in seconds and customize form fields using the drag & drop interface.
Plus, you can protect your forms from spam, create order forms to complement your online shop, and even create surveys and polls to ensure your customers are satisfied with your products, support, and customer service.
5. Canva
Having a visually appealing website is important if you want to grow your online store into a success.
After all, save for maybe a major headline on your website, the images you use are going to be the first things people see once they arrive at your site.
Luckily you can use the free online tool Canva to create stunning, one-of-a-kind images for things like:
- Blog posts
- Infographics
- Business logos
- Social media posts
- Advertisements
- Lead magnets
- Banner promotions
Lastly, you can use this image editing tool if you’re wanting to create a landing page for your eCommerce shop.
After all, a landing page is crucial for any online business, since many site visitors have the potential to land there from search results and follow your sales funnel.
Of course, landing pages involve a lot of moving parts such as compelling copy, CTA buttons that convert, incentives, color schemes, and much more.
But there’s no denying the power a well-designed image can have on convincing people to take action.
And if you need help creating your business’ logo, check out this cool Logo Maker tool by Oberlo.
All you have to do is input the name of your eCommerce shop, choose an icon, and experiment with color schemes.
This neat tool lets you play around with endless variations until you find the one you want.
In fact, you can change things like colors, positioning, borders, and fonts until you have the perfect look you know your customers will love.
If you can grab someone’s attention right away on your landing page, and get them to click your CTA button, you’ll find your eCommerce customer base growing exponentially.
Final Thoughts
In the end, in the world of eCommerce there are many things you’ll have to focus on all at once if you want to outrun the completion and establish yourself as a leading authority in your industry. For instance, selection of a shopping cart is critical to your ecommerce operations.
However, with a few reliable tools on hand to help guide you through the process of growing your online shop, you are bound to succeed at a much higher and faster rate than if you just let customers come to your naturally.
So, get a handle on how you want to run your eCommerce shop, how successful you want to be, and how competitive you want to appear to customers, and make it happen with these kinds of tools.
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