How To Drive Traffic To Shopify Stores?

Whether you’re a newbie or have thousands visiting your e-commerce store, driving traffic to your Shopify store is crucial. It may feel like a no-easy feat, but that does not have to be true. 

Generating traffic ensures many conversions and high-value sales that help boost your business. If done correctly, nobody can stop you from growing. Stats show that Shopify dominates the e-commerce market, with 79% of traffic coming from mobile users, and customers who have already visited generate 300% more revenue than new buyers. That’s huge!

If you want to be a part of this successful stat, this blog is for you. Before we dive deeper into the best ways to get traffic to your Shopify store, let’s navigate through the pitfalls you must avoid. 

Reasons For Low Traffic On Your Shopify Store

It does not matter what stage you are in your e-commerce journey; what matters is how you can rectify the mistakes and flourish with good traffic. Let us see the main reasons why you are not reaching your goals:

• Your Store Is Not User-Friendly:

A good user experience makes your customers want to revisit your store. If you do not plan a strategic user journey, potential customers may leave your website, leading to a high bounce rate, which is not ideal. For example, if the navigation on the website is hard to comprehend or the fonts are too small, customers will immediately lose interest. 

•  You Are Not Targeting The Right Audience:

It is crucial to know who your audience is based on their location, demographics, age, gender, etc. Your CTR will be low if you do not target based on these factors, and your ads will not reach the potential customers who may be interested in your products. 

• Your Shopify Store Lacks Important Details:

If your store does not have the basic information a customer needs, for example, a well-structured product description, no mention of return policy, contacts, updated collections – in stock or out-of-stock, or if the images are of low quality, the customer will lose interest in ever purchasing an item. 

• Lack Of SEO Optimization:

If your store is not ranking well, chances are your target audience may miss out on viewing your Shopify store. SEO plays a major role when it comes to driving traffic. This means using the right keywords, optimizing images that do not slow down the website speed, adding social media links, and more. 

Now that you have a clear picture of where to improve, let’s see how Shopify stores drive traffic.

How Do Shopify Stores Get Traffic?

There are sources from where traffic is generated to your Shopify stores called the traffic source. You must know where your traffic is coming from. This requires observing customer activity and researching. Here are the types of sources from where your traffic comes:

Effective Ways To Drive Traffic To Your Shopify Store

It’s time to dive deeper into increasing traffic for better sales. Here are some of the best ways to drive traffic to your Shopify store – 

SEO Strategy For Good Ranking

Cost: Low 📉

Traffic Potential: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Most customers prefer the websites (in this case, your Shopify store) that pop up first on the SERP (Search Engine Ranking Page). It is crucial to rank well because most people skip websites after seeing the top 3 or 4 websites that appear when they search. Here is the approximate value of traffic received on the top 3 ranked websites-

Website Ranking First: 30%

Website Ranking Second: 15%

Website Ranking Third: 10%

The percentage decreases as you scroll down. So, how do you make your store rank better? The answer lies in SEO optimization. This works best when trying to get organic traffic to your store. Let’s see how you can improve the SEO of your Shopify store:

Keyword Research:

Doing in-depth keyword research that caters to your niche helps with getting a good rank for your product listings and search results. Adding keywords to your headings, product descriptions, alt text in product images, meta descriptions, etc., increases your chances of securing a better position. Knowing the customer’s search intent (their query) is important. 

For example, if someone is looking for floral dresses, ensure you have floral dresses as your keyword in your product’s images, title, and description. This is just the tip of the iceberg. You need to do thorough research that helps you find the right keywords. Here are some essential points you need to know:

• A proper heading tags hierarchy, in which most priority is given to H1 and H2, then H3, H4, and so on.  
• Meta titles play a significant role. Ensure it has the focus keyword, is under 60 characters, and is described well. 
• Product descriptions must be informative and convince customers why your product is worth buying. Good product descriptions help drive high-converting traffic. 
• Ensure the primary keyword and its variations are in the headings, all the descriptions, and image alt texts. 
• Avoid keyword stuffing! Too many keywords may sound appealing but will drop your ranking. So, have a good balance when you add them. 
• Try being specific. By doing so, you can target the audience you want to sell your products to. For example, let’s say you are selling bicycle seats with a backrest. Instead of just using “bicycle seats,” you can use “bicycle seats with backrests.”  If you are catering to a specific group of people, say, people above 60, you can add “bicycle seats with backrest for elderly.” This is a great way to gain potential customers and be ahead of the competition. 

Loading Speed Of The Store:

If your store is slow to load, there is a high chance of your customers leaving the website. Also, no one will return to an e-commerce store that lags. To ensure the speed of your site is good, do the following:

• Remove unnecessary plugins: If you have too many plugins, try reducing the number for faster load speed. 
• Compress and optimize images: Sometimes, images that are not optimized can slow down your website. It is important to compress the images to an ample size. 
• Check the code: With the help of a programmer, you can optimize the files that take long to load. You can also try minifying JavaScript, HTML, and CSS codes by removing elements that may slow down the speed. 

If you want to check the load speed of your website, try PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix, which gives you a detailed analysis of your website on mobile devices and desktops. They are free to use and do not require any coding. All you have to do is enter the site URL, and your analysis will be ready in a few seconds. 

Adding Backlinks & Internal Links:

Adding internal links generates good ranking as the search engine algorithm rewards a good backlink strategy that maps to other relevant sites, making your website crawl easily. You can do so by

• Adding links to social media posts. 
• On blog posts. 
• Cold pitching through emails. 

Content Marketing Via Blogs:

One of the best ways to invite traffic is by curating your own blog posts on your website or social media. Blogs are a great way to inform customers about your brand’s niche and effectively generate leads and conversions. 

The power of high-quality content marketing results in a good retention rate and builds trust. This is also a great way to boost your site’s SEO. Keep these important points while doing content marketing:

• Focus on the sales funnel.
• Use correct grammar. 
• Evaluate what works best.
• Draw competitor analysis to create high-ranking content. 
• Share on social media platforms. 

Best Apps For SEO Optimization For Your Store:

App Name	Features
SEO Booster – SEO Marketing: all-in-one SEO tool	– Scans the whole website – JSON-LD functionality – Integration with Google Analytics and Google Search Console
Crush.pics	– Optimizes images & alt tags – Fully automated – Advanced compression feature
Smart SEO	– For multilanguage purposes – Support for sitemaps – Optimizes meta tags

PPC (Pay-Per-Click) Advertising

The most common type of advertising and the fastest way to attract visitors to your Shopify store is Pay-Per-Click (PPC). It is also known as Cost-Per-Click (CPC), an internet advertising model that directs website traffic. It means that the advertiser pays the publisher when the ad is clicked. 

However, it is essential to pick the most effective platforms for paid advertising to ensure the effectiveness of your strategy. Some platforms you can entirely rely on are-

Google Shopping Ads

You can easily reach several people through Google Shopping ads listings as millions use Google as their default search engine. This is the best way to advertise if you have good brand awareness. If you don’t, it is best not to compete with globally competitive queries, as you’ll end up competing with brands with higher awareness. Here is what a Google Shopping ad looks like:

Bing Shopping Ads

Bing Shopping is Microsoft’s search engine where you can run your paid ads. Like Google, it uses algorithms to track SEO-optimized websites that can be crawled effectively. 

Stick to your niche and extract as much keyword data as possible to make your brand stand out. Also, make your ads look natural so they are not perceived as paid ads. 

To manage these ads and products, you need a feed management app. These apps help Shopify merchants create a product feed to track their products and optimize them to get maximum ROI. One such software is AdNabu, which uses AI product feed optimization and keyword suggestion, which will help enhance your SEO. Its ‘Built for Shopify’ tag assures it is genuine and trustworthy. Merchants just have to manage one feed and easily advertise to other marketplaces. Here are the marketplaces the app supports: 

• Google Shopping 
• Facebook 
• Snapchat 
• Instagram
• Pinterest
• TikTok 
• Bing Shopping 

Paid Social Media Marketing

Cost: Moderate 📈

Traffic Potential: ⭐⭐⭐

Running ads on social media platforms is an effective way to have maximum engagement, as everyone worldwide is on them. It could be a post, reel, or running ad campaigns with the help of ad managers. Check these marketplaces where you can do so:

Facebook

Facebook ads are a great way to show your customers the product before they opt for direct search. This lands you suitable leads without missing any potential customers. You can attract your ideal customer based on likes, interests, and behavior. 

Facebook Ads are one of the most affordable ways to promote your Shopify store. Here is an example of a Facebook ad by Kylie Cosmetics, which also uses Shopify’s services: 

Many expert marketers consider running a Facebook ad a good strategy, as billions of people use the platform. So, finding the right audience gets easier when your focus is on high conversions. The best part is that you can retarget your ads to the customers who’ve already visited your website, which is a sure-shot way to get traffic.

Instagram

Another platform by Meta that has millions of monthly users. Instagram’s audience is mainly youngsters. So, curate content that matches with the younger generation’s trends, like making PoV reels, reels with a trending song/dance, or the latest meme, as long as it matches the intent of your products and brand. 

Pinterest

It is the perfect place to promote your brand. Many people love creating pinboards that match their aesthetic, and when they love something too much, they immediately think of buying it. Here is how you can benefit from this- create your ads on Pinterest by providing necessary information like price, product description, and, most importantly, the images. Here is how an ad looks on Pinterest:

X (Formerly Twitter)

It is also a good platform to promote your brand. It may attract fewer people than the previous marketplaces we discussed, but it is still a good place to meet your target customers. X ads keep your potential audience in the loop and act as a trigger to click on the ad. This is possible with X Business and X Ads Manager, where you can find your customer activity and advertise based on the likes of your potential audience. 

TikTok

TikTok is a widely used platform where you can create your ads. It is the most popular platform to advertise your products and services, with the help of TikTok for Business. Like any other platform, it also uses an ads manager to create and run ads. 

Suppose you want to quickly export the product feed from Shopify to Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, or Pinterest without the hassle of manually doing it. In that case, you can use the data feed URL feature that AdNabu provides. 

Leveraging Influencer Marketing & Referrals

Cost: Depends 📊

Traffic Potential: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Influencer marketing will drive high-converting visitors to your Shopify store. Find well-known industry influencers for your target audience by utilizing social media platforms like Instagram, Twitch, YouTube, etc. Seek out individuals who can produce genuine content to advertise your brand’s products, whether famous or just with a few thousand followers. 

Check the credibility of the influencer. If you notice any negative reviews of their sponsored programs/products or bad social media habits, steer clear, as this can hamper your brand’s image. 

Another way is through referral programs. It works like a commission where the customers get an incentive after making a certain purchase or subscribing to your service. 

A combination of influencer marketing and referral programs can be an awesome way to invite more traffic to your Shopify store. With trustworthy influencers, your target audience who follow those influencers can finally discover your products. 

Apps that can help you with referrals are-

App Name	Features
Loox Product Reviews & Photos	– Upsells after purchase – Auto-generated referral links – Review requests are automatic – Customizable widgets
Growave Loyalty Program	– Loyalty points available – Shopify referral programs – VIP Tiers – Rewards to customers
Yotpo Loyalty & Rewards	– Unique Shopify Referrals – VIP Program – Shopify referral campaign scheduling – Referral program segmentation based on customer actions

Giveaways, Promotions, & Contests

Cost: Moderate 📊

Traffic Potential: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Spark excitement amongst customers with promotions and giveaways. Stats show that giveaways generate 34% more conversions, and if you execute multiple giveaways on different platforms, you have a good chance of attracting high traffic to your Shopify store. Focus more on Instagram and Facebook to launch giveaways and contests. Also, try email marketing for sending contests and giveaway news to subscribers. 

The best way to participate would be to ask the customers to provide their names and email IDs. This will not seem tedious and will be quick. 

This is a good strategy as it helps with business growth and builds good traffic to your website. This also increases engagement on your e-commerce store. However, do not overdo this, as it can tarnish your business.  

Go International With A Multilingual Store

Cost: Moderate 📊

Traffic Potential: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

A multilingual store can reach potential customers globally. This way, you can drive more traffic to your store. A translated version of your store can help with that. You can search queries in that language and build a comprehensive SEO strategy for the potential international audience. 

Here are some translation apps that you must try:

App Name	Features
Weglot	– Interactive Dashboard – Multilingual SEO practices – Automatic content updates
Langify	– Easy import & export of data – No code needed for setup – Compatible with multiple Shopify apps.
Translation Lab	– Image translations available – Multi-currency available – Uses Google NMT (neural machine translations)

Sponsor Podcasts

Cost: Low To Moderate 📈

Traffic Potential: ⭐⭐⭐

About 464.7 billion people listen to podcasts. Sponsored podcasts can help reach your local audience and an international audience who might be interested in your products. 

You have to research a podcaster who may match your niche. An unrelated podcast channel may not drive enough traffic. You can also have tie-ups with famous people. Here is an example of a dog food company sponsoring their products through a famous podcast called  “New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce” on Spotify:

Run Email Marketing Campaigns

Cost: Low 📉

Traffic Potential: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Harness the power of email marketing to generate effective leads and become a traffic magnet. Send newsletters, downloadable files, links, promotions, or discounts for a higher ROI. 

This strategy is suggested by all top marketers in the industry, with 77% seeing effective engagement. Now, you can even use generative AI to create email campaigns, making your job easier. 

Here is a BuzzFeed ad promoting fall products in an email:

This email creates a sense of urgency, and the words sound comforting, making the customer vicariously live the experience. 

Here are some email marketing apps you can try:

App Name	Features
Mailchimp	– Email automation – Create creative assets with Content Studio – AI-powered features like content optimization – Insights extracted from data and analytics
Shopify Mail	– Personalization of content, headings & more – Tracking CTRs, purchases, & add to carts is available – Directly buy products from the mail – Has editable templates – Create brand awareness
Omnisend Email Marketing & SMS	– 20+ ready-made automation for personalization – Add abandonment carts and browse abandonments – Exit-intent popups, spin-to-win, & more signup forms – Easy to make sign-ups, newsletters and emails

Curate Guest Posts

Cost: Moderate 📊

Traffic Potential: ⭐⭐⭐

Look for relevant marketers or bloggers who cater to your target audience. Creating guest posts builds brand awareness and is a good way to get backlinks, ultimately leading to a better page ranking. It is one of the best ways to get good-quality backlinks. 

This is also a great opportunity for networking and boosting future prospects with them. 

Try Affiliate Marketing

Cost: Moderate 📊

Traffic Potential: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

When a consumer, supporter, or business marketer joins your affiliate program and directs traffic to your store using their unique referral link, the marketer is rewarded for any sales you generate due to their promotion. It’s essentially a way to promote your business with the help of a partner in return for a commission. 

It is considered to drive a great amount of sales. However, this also depends on the monetary margins of your business. Sharing profits with your partner may not be ideal if you have a small margin. If you grow to be a mid to big-size business, then this idea is great. 

To learn how to integrate this into your business, check out other similar businesses and their affiliate programs. Two such brands that many top YouTubers partner with are Skillshare and Wix. Here is how they talk about it:

Establishing a Shopify affiliate program helps link others to your services and products, leading to more building links. With a Shopify integration tool like Refersion, keeping track of all Shopify store affiliates is absolutely easy.

Focus on selecting users with popular websites, as this can also help build direct backlinks for your products.

Bonus: Going The Extra Mile To Drive Traffic To Your Shopify Store

If you want to be ahead of the curve, try these strategies to up your marketing game:

• Provide Social Proof:

People trust businesses more when they see other people’s experiences with them. For this reason, try product reviews that help provide evidence to the new customers how good your product is and what’s the experience of other users. New customers immediately look for reviews before they decide to purchase. When there are no reviews, there is a high chance that the customer may not buy the product.  

• Use Anchoring Bias:

Customers usually set their eyes on the first product they see and start comparing its price with other products. That price becomes their ‘anchor’ to make decisions. To make this work for you, show your customers how much they save when purchasing a specific product. 

For example, a shirt costs $200. Naturally, most customers will find that expensive. Instead, show the cost as $199.99, making the customer feel the shirt is cheaper than the $200 margin. Or, show that if they purchase two shirts, they will save up to 5% on the delivery charges. 

• Create A Sense Of Urgency:

When you create urgency, you get motivated buyers. For example, if you release a product for a limited period or show that there are only a few in stock, buyers would immediately decide to purchase. This results in a high conversion rate and engagement.

• Manage Budget:

If you have a budget crunch, it is best to stick to organic search or resort to email marketing. That way, you save on expenses and don’t have to burn a hole in your pocket. 

Best Apps To Get Traffic To Your Shopify Store

Check out these apps that are great for attracting potential customers to Shopify stores:

1. AdNabu – All-In-One Feed Management App 

Ratings: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(4.8)

Features: 

• It has the Built for Shopify tag. 
• Supports creation of domains, custom domains, and sub-domains.
• AI-powered feed optimization by ChatGPT.
• Create custom metafields. 
• Run multilingual feeds in 30+ languages.
• Multi-currency option to reach a global audience.
• Unique data feed URL generation for various marketplaces. 

2. SEO Booster – SEO Marketing Tool

Ratings: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(4.9)

Features:

• Automatically detects errors like 404 links. 
• Great for enhancing speed by compressing images and AMP and reducing load time.
• Website is readable with Auto Rich Snippets JSON-LD on Google. 
• Helps boost traffic with AI.
• Has Bulk Meta tags and Alt tags.

3. Crush – Compress Images 

Ratings: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(4.8)

Features: 

• Great for image compressions to enhance site loading speed. 
• Automatically renames image files and ALT tags.
• Compress images manually. 
• Variety of image compression algorithms to choose from. 

4. Smart SEO – Improve Site SEO

Ratings: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(4.9)

Features: 

• Automatic detection of broken links.
• Boost SEO by image compression.
• Improves page’s loading speed for better performance.
• Generates Meta Tags. 

5. Loox Product Reviews & Photos – Get Great Referrals

Ratings: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(4.9)

Features:

• Automatically collects product reviews. 
• Provides next-purchase offers/discounts on giving a review via video or image.
• Provides instant one-click referrals and social proof upsells.
• Instantly sync reviews on several marketplaces. 

6. Growave – Loyalty & Wishlist

Ratings: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(4.8)

Features:

• More engagement with rewards, referrals, loyalty programs, and VIP tiers. 
• Easy to attract traffic with referral programs.
• Social proofs for building trust and getting new customers’ attention. 
• Great to promote referrals and other programs via email marketing. 

7. Yotpo Loyalty & Rewards – Find Good Referral Programs

Ratings: ⭐⭐⭐⭐(4.7)

Features:

• Various referral programs to choose from, based on ROI, LTV, etc.
• No code management of loyalty programs and referrals. 
• Tiered programs for customers on the basis of purchases, referrals, and spending. 
• Customizable referrals and programs. 

8. Weglot – Language Translating App

Ratings: ⭐⭐⭐⭐(4.6)

Features:

• Multilingual SEO optimization is available. 
• Edit and manage translations on a single platform.
• No code is required to get a translated store. 

9. Langify – Get A Translated Store Instantly

Ratings: ⭐⭐⭐⭐(4.7)

Features:

• Easily set up the app without any script.
• Subfolders and custom domains are SEO-optimized. 
• Can manually or automatically translate your store. 
• Can translate third-party apps. 

10. Translation Lab – Quick Translation

Ratings:  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(4.9)

Features: 

• Option to custom translate.
• Can also translate images and alt texts. 
• Multi-currency feature. 
• Uses Google NMT (neural machine translations).

11. Webrex: SEO Optimizer & Schema

Ratings: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(4.9)

Features

• AI-powered Meta tags and Alt tags
• It comes with 15+ Review app integration, 4 Advanced custom Schema & 13 eCommerce Schema.
• Focuses on optimization of images, meta tags, alt text, etc. 
• Single-click image optimization feature for better SEO.
• Has the Storefront Breadcrumb and an HTML Sitemap.

12. Judge.me Product Reviews

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(5.0)

Features

• Has the Q&A, coupons, and email marketing integrations.
• Displays your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, rich snippets, and Google Shopping reviews.
• Automatically syncs with the Shopify store and Facebook & Instagram.
• Shows star ratings, trust badges, a carousel of reviews, and products and store reviews, too. 

Conclusion

Growth comes when your eCommerce store is gaining traction. With high traffic, you also generate good brand awareness and sales. Using these strategies, you’ll understand what your target audience prefers, what platform they are mostly on, and how you can improve their experience. 

Get on the path to turning your potential customers into buyers and hit the road to success!

FAQs

What is Shopify’s limit to drive traffic?

Shopify does not limit the traffic on any Shopify store. You can get 100,000+ traffic easily on your website. The plan that you purchase also does not affect the traffic you get on your website either. All the plans focus on inventory locations, staff accounts, shipping discounts, reports, and more. 

Does Shopify collect customer data?

Shopify does not collect data but asks merchants to store data of those customers who have provided their information, like email addresses, etc., with consent for retargeting purposes, promotions, newsletters, etc. Merchants are solely responsible for handling their customers’ data carefully. Shopify takes privacy seriously and ensures no merchants misuse the customer database. 

App developers and merchants must follow Shopify’s requirements to keep customer data safe and secure. 

Can you track traffic in Shopify?

Yes, you can track your traffic analytics on Shopify. This can be achieved on the Shopify Admin panel, which provides an overall report of your website’s performance. It updates you on sales, total orders, conversion rate, and more. You can also do so by installing third-party apps.

If you want to be specific, add UTM links to your campaigns or use the relevant tools that manage ad campaigns. 

What tools can I use to track traffic of my Shopify store?

The tools you can use to track traffic are Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, Supermetrics, Conversific, and Littledata, which we highly recommend. 

They give you insights into customer activity, conversions, and analysis. 

What is the cheapest way to drive traffic to my Shopify store?

The cheapest or most affordable way to drive traffic is through organic search by SEO optimization, email marketing, starting a YouTube channel with tutorials, engaging with users on communities, forums & social media (DMs, comments, etc.), cold email outreach, and word of mouth. It is the best way to increase traffic at low costs and has the potential to generate high traffic to your Shopify store. 

Can I drive traffic to my store for free?

It is possible to drive traffic for free to your Shopify store. Here are some ways you can do so – Organic search on search engines, social media ads, discounts & offers, email marketing, pre-release pages, and Google Shopping ads. 

Should I focus on paid or organic traffic?

Paid traffic offers short-term surges and competitive bidding, leading to higher costs and diminished ROI, whereas organic traffic offers lasting growth, boosts brand reputation, and elevates conversion rates by engaging genuinely interested audiences. Both produce good traffic, but if you’re looking for longer retention or have a budgetary limit, you can opt for organic traffic.