Now that you've launched your Magento Store, you're probably wondering what you need to do next. Here's the hard-to-believe truth -- all you need to do now is leverage Magento for all that it can do for you. This means you'll want to focus on the following:

  • Driving traffic
  • Converting visitors
  • Increasing average order value
  • Growing customer lifetime value

Seems simple enough, right? It actually is, and we're here to give you lots of tips and advice for making it as simple as possible. 

1) Driving Traffic

To drive traffic to your site, you'll need to take advantage of ads and doing all you can to create valuable content on a regular basis. If you already have content, you'll still need to publish new postings frequently, but you can also go back and optimize your old content. Here are a few tips for optimizing old content:

  • First and foremost, you need to read each blog posting you have published and pinpoint which ones need to be deleted. If they aren't relevant to your website, delete them, or create a different website where they won't hurt your search engine optimization (SEO). 
  • Next, take any relevant but outdated content and update it. If you have several short postings, you should consider consolidating them into multiple long-form pieces. Google loves long-form content and you will enjoy higher rankings on search engine ranking pages (SERPs). 
  • Lastly, it might seem time-consuming, but you need to check all external and internal links in your content. Did you know if you change the name of your services page or portfolio page, that every link you had tied to them will need to be updated? If you don't update them, visitors are going to be redirected to a 404 error page. More importantly, Google doesn't look favorably on broken links. As you're checking each link, make sure any external ones are going to authoritative sites. You want to make sure you are redirecting visitors to websites that provide value and not fluff. 

As far as using ads for driving traffic to your site, you can take advantage of paid media, Google Ads, digital marketing platforms, and more. It's also important that in all content you publish on your site that you give readers the option to share the content. This means that each page will need a section that is devoted specifically to social share buttons. 

2) Converting Visitors

Next on your agenda is to convert site visitors. You're going to do this via user-generated content. This type of content is so valuable because you don't have to create it. Instead, your existing customer base does it for you. All you have to do is ask customers for reviews or allow them to comment on Q&A pages. Yotpo is an excellent source for getting all that you can out of user-generated content. You'll also want to take advantage of customer reviews. To do this, we also recommend using Trust Pilot. 

We also suggest using Magento's out-of-the-box flash sale feature, which allows you to place specific products, or even categories of products, on sale for only a specified amount of time. It entices site visitors to quickly make a purchase before the sale ends in the near future. 

3) Increase Average Order Value

Magento 2 provides a simple-to-use rule-based product relations feature that enables you to cross-sell, upsell, and perform other related product capabilities. The visual merchandising tools allow you to easily sort categories, which makes it possible to display your best products at the top of your web pages. And if you want to reorder them, you have the ability to do so manually. You can even use visual merchandising tools to create categories based on Automated Rules that are developed using product attributes; this saves you time and enables you to create a catalog that is truly refined according to your specific preferences and needs. 

To further increase average order value, you will want to take advantage of Magento's Elasticsearch feature; however, you need a plan to get the most from it. We recommend using an intelligent search platform like Klevu or SLI Systems platforms, both of which have a heavy focus on search, merchandising, navigation, recommendations, and SEO applications. 

4) Grow Customer Lifetime Value

To grow customer lifetime value, you will need to build on your already-established brand loyalty. There are several ways you can go about doing this. For starters, you can offer existing customers a certain amount of store credit with each purchase they make. You can also develop a reward point system, such as a $10 coupon for every $150 a customer spends. Another excellent way to grow customer lifetime value is to implement a referral code system; this also helps expand your company's brand awareness. The key here is to offer rewards that keep your customers back again and again. Magento 2 offers a reward system out of the box for you to leverage. If you're looking for an even higher level of reward functionality on your Magento site, you'll need to use a platform similar to Smile.io. 

5) Match Accessories to Products through Related Products

We already talked a little bit about the value of upselling and cross-selling to increase average order value. If you sell an item that needs other products to properly function, it is important that you offer such products. You're almost guaranteed to entice customers to buy all of the necessary products through your brand because you will serve as a one-stop-shop for all of their needs. Take for example you sell candle wax to go in candle warmers. Some of the candles are battery-powered with bulbs, while others are meant to be used with actual candles. Great products to add to your site that will leverage cross-selling will include candle warmers, batteries, light bulbs, single candles, matches, and lighters. 

The Takeaway

Magento provides you with a full suite of tools and applications to operate a successful ecommerce site. It's your responsibility to make sure you're getting the most out of each tool. 

Get in touch with MW2 to learn more about the Magento platform, an Adobe company.