The web is filled with more than 1.5 billion sites. At some point, many of them start looking awfully similar. Small business owners, therefore, might find it difficult to discover new and innovative ways to attract customers. Fortunately, there are plenty of innovative ways to increase sales at your online store.

Knowing these options is — like much in life — half the battle. Once you realize the steps you can take, you can start testing what works best for your business. For a head start, check out the following 14 ideas for increasing online store sales:

1. Facebook and Instagram Targeted Ads

Targeted social media ads are the way of the future for small business owners to direct traffic to their online stores, and targeted ads for Facebook and Instagram are fairly easy to establish. Because Facebook owns Instagram, you can run your ads on both social media platforms without creating the ads twice.

First, you need to set up a Facebook business page, then connect it to your Instagram business profile. Once that’s done, access the Facebook Ad Manager and select the guided ad creation. This tool will walk you through the ad creation process.

Additionally, Facebook and Instagram ads can be targeted directly toward an audience of potential customers based on factors such as location, language, hobbies, relationship status and more. This targeting will help you get the most clicks for your ad budget.

2. Run a Deal with Voiced Market

Reaching new customers is hard; Voiced Market makes it easy. One of the most effective ways to get a new customer is by offering a first-purchase discount, but you still face the costs to advertise and educate the market about your product or service. Voiced Market does the work for you. It leverages discounted offers across its network to attract new customers and garner exposure for its merchants.

Customers love Voiced Market because they get to buy from brands they love and try new brands they haven’t heard of yet – all at a discount. After all, 81 percent of consumers say discounts are on their minds when they shop. Customers also love the fact that Voiced Market donates a percentage of its profits to educating and feeding those in need.

Merchants love Voiced Market because they can increase exposure, revenue and their customer bases on a performance basis. Merchants only pay a percentage of the sales that are made through the site. Voiced Market takes care of the whole process, from content creation to promotion, at no additional cost. If you’re product or service doesn’t sell on the platform, you pay no fees. Why not try it out and apply to become a Voiced Market merchant today?

Interested in applying to be a merchant with Voiced Market? Click here to get started!

3. Spice Up Your Sales Copy

When a potential customer looks at your website, you want to make sure that whatever copy they read is interesting and engaging – and reflects your brand. If your target audience is millennial women, for example, then your website sales copy should sound different than an online store whose target audience is male business professionals older than 50.

Your sales copy needs to be a reflection of your business and your brand. Weak sales copy can actually cause you to lose out on potential customers as well as any sales or referrals you could have gotten from them.

4. Create A Mailing List

Sending out monthly newsletters to let your customers or potential customers know about the sales and latest deals for your business will drive more eyes to your website, which will result in increased revenue.

One of the best ways to reach customers is by encouraging them to sign up for a mailing list. Collecting the emails of your customers with their consent can help you grow your mailing list. It’s crucial, however, to get permission from everyone on your mailing list – or your emails may become a nuisance and actually hurt your sales.

Thankfully, the task can be made simpler if Constant Contact creates a mailing list for you. Constant contact is one of the largest and most powerful email marketing tools and offers easy-to-use templates that help you create beautiful customized content to send to those on your mailing list.

One of Constant Contact’s most popular features is the collection of email addresses from people on your website and Facebook business page, which ensures that your mailing list is constantly growing. It’s the perfect software to organize your mailing lists and keep track of the results.

With more than 600,000 users, it’s clear that Constant Contact is a trusted source for small business owners who want to create quick and easy mailing lists.

Sign up for Constant Contact here to get started with a 60-day free trial and start creating the perfect mailing list as soon as possible.

5. Hold a Giveaway Competition

A great way to attract new customers and gain more sales is to hold a giveaway competition. If you give away one of your more valuable items, you will see a lot more traffic to your online stores. Running a giveaway competition is easy, and there are numerous free websites available for business owners that help them hold the competition.

You can require people to sign up with their email to enter the giveaway or require them to follow your online store on social media to score extra entries. Little tactics like this can help pay back the cost of the giveaway by boosting your brand awareness – and eventually increasing sales.

6. Display your Customer’s Glowing Testimonials

People tend to trust fellow consumers’ word over a brand’s word. A business owner can write about their online store’s superiority and trustworthiness, but it won’t mean much to the consumer. However, if a potential customer sees rave reviews for your online business, they will be more likely to trust your business and make a purchase.

Incorporating glowing testimonials into your online store’s landing page is an effective way to feature them. Making these reviews one of the first things your potential customers see when they visit your website can make a positive impact on their buying behavior and cause them to seriously consider making a purchase because trust has been established.

7. Holiday Sales

While offering small sales and deals on your merchandise all year long is a great idea, holding bigger sales around the holidays will be sure to capture the attention of your target audience. People tend to expect deals around the holiday season when they are spending more money, which is why it is smart to meet your audience’s expectation and offer them deals when they need them the most.

The better the deal, the more customers you will gain, and you will see a spike in your online store’s sales each holiday season.

8. Create A Landing Page

There are numerous benefits to creating a landing page for your online small business. Essentially, a landing page is the webpage that’s the first point of contact a visitor on your site will see – and it’s designed to drive them to take action (contact you or buy your stuff). Landing pages are valuable because they can generate leads for your business by enticing potential customers to fill out an interest form or contact your business.

Leadpages is an affordable and effective tool that helps create great-looking and effective landing pages for online businesses. With Leadpages, you easily can build a landing page for your website that will generate a high conversion rate – more potential customers who visit your site will purchase your products or services. The best part is that Leadpages can help you get started in just minutes.

You don’t have to be an expert at creating websites to use it, either. Anyone can use the simple drag-and-drop buttons to customize a landing page.

Learn more about Leadpages here, and sign up for a free trial today!

9. Reduce Abandoned Carts

In 2018 alone, approximately $4 trillion worth of online goods were abandoned in online shopping carts. Business Insider estimates that almost 63 percent of those online shopping carts could have been recoverable.

You can install applications and programs onto your website that will send people an email after they have abandoned their shopping carts on your website. This reminder should significantly increase the number of people who come back and complete their purchases.

10. Increase Your Payment Options

Of course your online store takes credit cards, but did you know there are many different payment methods you could add to make it even easier for customers to purchase your goods?

Adding payment methods like Stripe, WePay, PayPal, Google Wallet, and Apple Pay – and even cryptocurrency – will thrill your customers because you’re giving them more choices. These days, not everyone prefers to use their credit cards when shopping online. Aside from security concerns, prompting potential buyers to type their card numbers into your site gives them ample time to reconsider their purchase.

By offering a variety of payment options to your customers, you will also increase sales on mobile devices. Mobile sales are higher than they have ever been thanks to these alternative payment methods that make it quick and easy to checkout from smartphones without ever leaving your site.

11. Upgrade Your Website

Providing a user-friendly website experience is crucial to making sales for your online store. Buyers want a smooth, simple online shopping experience, and even small changes to your website can have a positive impact on your sales numbers.

If you haven’t upgraded your website in 5 years or longer, your website may look a little bit dated.

If you want a sales-boosting makeover for your site, Siteground could be the solution. It offers reliable web hosting so you can have a fast and secure website. In fact, Siteground is trusted by the owners of over 2 million domains. It offers easy and quick website building so you can customize your site, and there are premium features plus all the tech support that you will need to launch a new website for your small business.

Get started on making the website of your dreams for your small business by signing up for Siteground now! You can also click here to see 5 other companies that can get your website launched tonight.

12. Improve Your Website’s SEO

Search engine optimization may sound complicated, but it actually is something that any small business owner can do to make their online stores rank higher in Google search results. When people search for keywords related to your online store, you want to make sure that you appear high on the first page.

An easy way to improve the search engine optimization (SEO) for your small business’ website is to use SEMrush. SEMrush offers software that can improve your website’s visibility and search ranking, while also improving your marketing efforts.

Just one of its features is the “On Page SEO Checker” that will analyze Google ranking factors that could be affecting your website’s performance. Additionally, SEMrush will provide you with actionable recommendations based on its data.

With more than 3 million users and 130 million domains serviced, it’s clear that SEMrush is a trusted software for many small online business owners across the world. For example, SEMrush is trusted by sites like eBay, Quora, Booking.com, HP and more.

Sign up for SEMrush today to make sure that your website never slips in the Google rankings again.

13. Avoid Clickbait

There’s nothing more frustrating than seeing an online advertisement for a great deal, only to end up at a website that has almost nothing to do with the ad you just saw. Clickbait like this can not only frustrate potential customers who were interested in your business, it also can negatively impact your small business’ online reputation.

If you deceive too many people with clickbait and false advertisements, you likely will begin to receive negative reviews – which can scare away other potential customers. That’s why being straightforward with your ads is crucial. Consistent messaging and avoiding clickbait ultimately will help you increase sales for your small online business.

14. Native Content is King

Native content is that which you create and post directly to your social media pages. For example, if you upload a video to your Facebook business page, it will perform better (get more likes and shares) than if you shared a video from another page to your Facebook business page. By posting your own unique “native” content, Facebook and other social networks will show your posts to more people.

When it comes to social media, you must do more than just share posts that are related to your business. Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram really prefer native content, and it tends to perform better than shared content.

The more native social media content you feature on Facebook and Instagram, the more followers will see your content. The more that your social media followers see your content, the higher the number of sales for your online store.