There are so many ways to market an eCommerce store, and sometimes it’s tough to know where to start. Whether you’re pursuing content marketing, social media promotion, SEO, or other traffic sources, you’ll need actionable and trustworthy advice. To help you, we’ve assembled a list of 29 top-notch articles that’ll help you supercharge your business.

Content marketing

1. 19 Explosive Content Marketing Tips for eCommerce Stores

A great article on creating successful online content. You’ll learn how to write captivating headlines, whip up share-worthy content, organize your content creation, and more.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: If your content is amazing, it’ll spread by itself. That’s actually a key tip that many business owners are missing. These days, run-of-the-mill content just doesn’t cut it anymore!

2. 7 Creative Content Ideas for Your Ecommerce Site

If your content is boring, your business won’t stand out. Check out these seven eCommerce stores that approach content a little differently.

Target, Burberry, and JackThreads have created out-of-the-box website content to stop visitors in their tracks — and, of course, bring in more sales. Check out Target’s Awesome Shop, Burberry’s Acoustic Series, and JackThreads’ blog for a few examples of compelling, eye-catching content.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: Start writing your product descriptions with personality, just like Woot does. Jazzing up your product blurbs can add a friendly touch to your business, and will help your customers feel like they’re buying from humans who care instead of an impersonal corporation.

3. 5 Ways Ecommerce Sites Are Killing It With Content Marketing

These are some of the more creative marketing strategies for eCommerce websites we’ve seen yet. You’ll find great suggestions for content that will surprise and delight your customers.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: Become your own media outlet by publishing a wide variety of content related to your space. This will help you stand out and be seen as an authority in your niche!

4. The 10 Rock Solid Elements of Effective Online Marketing

You’ll need to register for Copyblogger before digging into this eBook, but doing so is well worth it. Copyblogger has been a top authority on content marketing for years, and their advice is always top-notch.

In “The 10 Rock Solid Elements of Effective Online Marketing,” Copyblogger will explain why online authority is so important — and how you can build it for your business.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: Don’t sell… teach. People love to buy but hate being sold. Educating them about topics they care about builds trust and soft-sells your product.

Social media

5. 12 Social Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Online Sales

There are over 2 billion users on social media and 65% of adults are on social networks, so social media should definitely be a key component of your marketing strategy.

Shopify’s detailed and strategy-rich guide will help you kill it on social media. You’ll find a bunch of traffic strategies you haven’t thought of before, as well as best practices to ensure you’re spending your time wisely.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: To ensure your audience stays engaged with your business, post content daily on social media. You want to post on Facebook at least once a day and on Twitter at least four to six times a day.

6. What Social Networks Work Best For Ecommerce?

Before you decide on which social media platforms to focus your efforts on, you should check out HubSpot’s article to see how the different social networks stack up.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: Focus on traffic that leads to sales. Different social networks are more effective for different industries, so choose wisely!

7. 10 Ways Ecommerce Brands Can Increase Traffic And Sales With Facebook

Did you know that Facebook posts with photos create more engagement than the typical post, or that more than 40% of people “like” Facebook brands for discounts and coupons?

You’ll be in the know as soon as you read this Shopify blog post. In terms of marketing eCommerce websites, Facebook is undoubtedly one of the best avenues you can take advantage of. It’s the biggest social network out there, and it can be an amazing source of traffic for your eCommerce store. That said, you should start building and engaging with your Facebook audience as soon as possible.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: Sell not just your products, but also the lifestyle your products promote. This will help your target audience see themselves as part of your brand and even attract new customers. Poler Stuff is great at doing this — they promote a fun, cutting-edge, and outdoorsy lifestyle, and they show their products being used out in the field by an adventurous, stylish crowd.

8. Oh Snap! How To Use Snapchat To Growth Hack Your Store

Snapchat has a tremendous user base of 200 million people, and it’s one of the hottest social media apps out there right now. This article from Lemonstand shows you how to use it as an effective eCommerce marketing tool.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: Use sneak peeks and announcements to get your audience excited about new products before you launch.

9. 5 Trends That Will Change How Companies Use Social Media In 2016

The social media world moves fast, and there’s always something exciting around the corner. See how forward-looking companies are using social media — maybe you can apply their strategies to your business.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: Try social video — videos are easily shareable and people simply can’t get enough of them. 70% of brands say video is their most effective marketing tool!

10. How to Leverage Instagram for eCommerce

Instagram has more than 400 million users — that’s more than Twitter! Engagement is sky-high too, with users sharing an average of 70 million photos each day. That said, it isn’t hard to see why users and business alike love Instagram. Check out some tips on how to build an Instagram following and sell your products on the platform.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: Partner with social influencers, because leveraging someone else’s large audience is to build a following of your own. Check out the example from Stephanie Sterjovski below. 

11. 3 Ways Retailers Will Use Social Media in 2016

Stitch’s article tackles how businesses will use social media going forward to sell more and drive new traffic. Take notice and see if you can implement any of these strategies for your own store!

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: Start using video marketing!

12. 6 Effective Ways To Use Vine and Snapchat For more eCommerce Growth 

Vine and Snapchat are fun, immediate, and personal apps, and there are a lot of creative things you can do with them to connect with your audience.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: Build a relationship with your audience. People buy from companies they know and trust, and you’ll leverage your Snapchat audience much more effectively if you give them more sneak peeks inside your business.

13. 6 Steps to Leverage Twitter for Your Online Store

Get people talking about your business through Twitter! Here’s how to build a profile and start building buzz about your store.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: Post frequently to stay at the top of your customers’ minds. If you don’t have time to write a post every day, share or retweet something relevant to your niche.

Direct sales

14. 9 Secrets Every Salesperson Needs to Know

It’s abundantly clear that sales are everything to an eCommerce store, but many business owners shy away from the sales process for a variety of reasons (fear of being seen as sleazy, lack of follow-through, etc.). If that sounds like you, it’s time to change your mindset for good. Read this Huffington Post article about nine invaluable tips that will transform your sales skills.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: You should actually stop selling. Instead, start helping your client. This is probably the biggest tip that will make you a better salesperson a million times over. Sales is never about being sleazy and pawning off a shoddy product onto the customer; it’s always about learning what the customer needs and solving their problems.

15. How to Sell Anything to Anybody

Selling is always about your customer and what your customer needs. This article from HubSpot offers many highly instructive tips for trust-based selling.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: “Ask questions and listen.” This is absolute gold! Why do you ask questions? Because by doing so, you figure out what your customer needs. Once you communicate how you can solve your customer’s problem, selling becomes easy. As a bonus, you can find out what other products they may want for low-friction cross sells.

16. How To Be Great At Selling Even If You Hate It

This Business Insider article dives into the nitty-gritty (but still fascinating) side of selling.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: With all of your marketing, you should use unique codes to track where your leads came from.

Paid marketing

17. 7 Steps to Finally Master Facebook Ads

This article was written by Azriel Ratz, who has spent more than $1,000,000 on Facebook and Google ads since 2013. It’s incredibly in-depth and takes a lot of the confusion out of creating high-converting Facebook ads.

Facebook ads can be extremely effective, but you have to set them up correctly. This post covers topics like who your ads should target, what content you should advertise, and how you can tell whether your ads are successful. It also gives an introduction to cool new Facebook ad features like Canvas and Lead Ads.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: The audience you target is the number-one thing you should consider when creating Facebook ads. Pick the wrong targeting options and your campaign will spit out poor leads (or none at all). Pick the right targeting options, on the other hand, and your sales will skyrocket through highly valuable leads.

18. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Google Adwords

If you decided to read everything written by Neil Patel, you’d be making a wonderful decision. His blog is packed full of meticulously crafted marketing guides, and you’ll learn a ton from each article.

Like all good marketing, Neil’s Google Adwords process starts with figuring out the needs of your customer. After you’ve done that, use Neil’s other powerful strategies to get a leg up on your competition.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: Create a high-converting landing page for your Adwords campaign. When you get all of those eyeballs on your website, you have to have a reliable way to capture leads. Not using a landing page is one of the biggest mistakes business owners commit — don’t make the same mistake!

19. How to Set Up Twitter Advertising to Build Awareness for Your Business

Depending on your business, you might want to try Twitter ads for marketing. This Kissmetrics article will get you started right quick.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: Promoted Tweets are great for sharing content and building awareness about your store.

Alternative Marketing

10. Under the Radar — 3 Alternative Marketing Techniques

Advertising in mediums like newspapers, magazines, and TV might be the traditional tried-and-true route, but there are always new ways to get more eyeballs on your business. For example, have you ever heard of “phygital marketing” or “scent marketing”? Read Business 2 Community’s illuminating article for an eye-opening introduction to some fantastic alternative marketing strategies.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: The article’s suggestion about using student brand advocacy is definitely one to try. Major brands like Red Bull and Microsoft have used the strategy to great effect, and you can start doing it too to attract a young audience.

21. 3 Affordable Marketing Alternatives for Businesses That No Longer Like Facebook

Incentive sharing and educational demonstrations are great ideas to help you get more traffic to your eCommerce store.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: Try Snapchat and Vine, which can be even more intimate than Facebook and Twitter.

Website conversion and A/B testing

22. The Complete Guide to A/B Testing

A/B testing, also known as split testing, is a great way to figure out what works best for your business.

VWO has created an easy-to-understand guide to A/B testing (including the basics of A/B testing and how to conduct your own test) that you should definitely check out.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: It might cost a lot to get paid traffic… but it doesn’t cost a lot to increase your conversions. That’s why A/B testing is so valuable! If you’re buying the traffic anyway, you might as well see if you can get more out of it.

23. How to Boost Website Sales — The Complete Checklist

Is your sales process the best it can be? There seems to be countless moving parts when it comes to receiving visitors to your website and ultimately convincing them to buy your product. What exactly should you be looking for?

Take a gander at ConversionXL’s meaty guide to optimizing your sales process. It’ll show you the important areas you should be looking at, such as buyer personas, value propositions, reducing sales friction, and more.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: It’s really important to have measurable goals in mind. That’s the only way you’ll know if you’ve improved your site in the end. Once you have measurable goals in mind, set up the systems to track them.

24. Pixc’s Ultimate Guide to DIY Photography

Optimizing your product images is a sure way to increase your sales and grow your business. Professional-looking product photos will make your website look more professional, improve your customers’ online shopping experience, and reduce purchase resistance that comes from the inability to visualise a product.

With this guide, you’ll learn how to take high-quality shots in your own DIY studio and optimize your photos for eCommerce.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: Placing your products on a white background will give them a professional touch and make them pop!

SEO

25. The Beginner’s Guide to SEO

Moz (at one point known as SEOmoz) is one of the top SEO sites on the internet. Besides putting out amazing content week after week, they also develop tools that are used by SEO professionals around the world.

If you want to get a comprehensive crash course in SEO, check out Moz’s beginner’s guide. It’ll show you exactly what goes on behind the scenes of search engines and give you a great idea about how to start your business on the path to search domination. SEO is one of the longer-term marketing strategies for eCommerce websites, so you should get started with it now!

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: Keyword research is incredibly important! You want to create SEO content for the right keywords in order to attract the right kind of visitors. Also, stay tuned for Moz’s concise and instructive discussion on long-tail keywords.

26. Link Building: The Definitive Guide

Brian Dean of Backlinko is one of the foremost SEO authorities on the planet, and just like Moz, he’s simply a machine when it comes to creating informative content.

Link building is an integral part of SEO, and to achieve effective results you want to make sure you’re doing it right. Luckily, Brian has assembled some of the best resources out there on how to build links to your website. You need to check this one out right now!

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: Forget about building loads of spam links to increase your search rankings. That was successful in the old days of search. Now, search engines (especially Google) have become extremely sophisticated at detecting crummy links. Instead of spending your time building garbage links, pursue links from authority sites that will give you a bunch of link juice.

27. How To Do Keyword Research For SEO

A fantastic discussion about how to find the right keywords for your business. Do you know what the value of your keywords are?

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: The more words in a keyword phrase, the easier it is to rank for the phrase — that’s because there will be less competition in the search results.

28. The Best SEO Tools

Professional SEOs use these tools every day, and you can use the same tools.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: All of the tools in the article are brilliant, but you definitely can’t go wrong with SEMrush.

Other links

29. 10 Reasons Why Inbound Marketing Is Crucial in 2016

This is a short and sweet article by Jake Newfield of Elite Daily and Tech.co. But although it’s short, it introduces a paradigm shift that will change the way you think about marketing.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: Here’s the basic idea: Forget about outbound marketing! Inbound marketing is in, and what’s more… it works.

30. 51 eCommerce Tools to Run Your Online Business

Here’s a list of 51 of the best online tools to help you organize and market your eCommerce store! You’ll find everything from advertising tools to email marketing services to productivity apps. Get signed up and get growing.

• TOP TIP FROM THE ARTICLE: There are simply too many great tools listed, but we really like Mailchimp and Trello!

Marketing strategies for eCommerce websites: Use these resources to grow your business!

Your eCommerce store will only reap traffic rewards if you diligently implement the strategies you’ve seen in these articles. You may need to put in some hard work, but your efforts will be well worth it!

Pixc helps eCommerce store owners create stunning photos with professional image editing. Want to see how we can help you? Take advantage of a free photo edit today!