Generating traffic on a website requires a strategy and a set of tactics to yield results in the medium and long term. Here are some tips.

How can you generate more traffic to your online store? This question will inevitably cross the mind of every entrepreneur. Whether you’re trying to attract your first client or your 50,000^th, generating more e-commerce traffic is a critical component to growing your business.

A well-designed, effective and attractive website is not enough on its own. It must be seen and found easily online through search engines. An example of this is a beautiful store with a great offer that meets the needs of potential clients, but is located in a remote area with no outside signage and no one knows it exists. It is not likely to be very busy… The same goes for your online store.

You can’t leave generating traffic on a website to chance. It is continuous work and involves numerous components. Positive results will be achieved by implementing a set of measures, with regular follow-ups.

In order to achieve and maintain your goals, you will likely need an internal and external team that specializes in e-commerce and Web marketing to implement and analyze your strategy.

Here are the steps and tactics to consider for generating, maintaining and growing traffic to your website:

• First of all, work on the strategy
• Optimize natural referencing
• Attract with content marketing
• Grow your community with social media
• Leverage content newsletters
• Invest in digital campaigns
• Foster partnerships with key influencers and sites
• Analyze your results continuously to adjust your content

Is your strategy aligned with your goals?

First and foremost, your digital strategy should be an integral part of your overall business strategy. This will help you determine who your target audience is, what the best ways to reach them are and which tactics will be most effective for each customer segment.

You may even need to change your business model to adapt to emerging needs and the environment in which your business operates and rethink your online sales approach.

Have you optimized natural referencing?

To be visible on the Web and attract traffic to your site, you must pay attention to natural referencing, commonly called SEO (search engine optimization). Various factors enter into the calculation of Google and other search engines’ algorithms. Remember that search engines want to deliver the most relevant content possible to their users. To do this, you must help them by giving them some keys.

Include key words in your meta tags

Meta tags are hidden keywords and phrases embedded in the code of your web pages. Titles and subtitles, the brief introduction, words describing your images, are among the most important meta tags.

You could also add rich snippets which can be reviews, ratings, prices and other factual data.

Offer rich content with appropriate keywords

It is important to be careful with the number of keywords you include in your texts. Repeatedly incorporating the same term, for example, could have the opposite effect on algorithms. Instead, think about writing rich content with keywords, but using all possible synonyms, including long tail keywords if relevant (phrases or questions sought by your customers) and, above all, have a clear statement that will guide your customers. The search engines will take this into account.

Integrate internal and external links

Naturally, your menu should include the most important links for navigating within your site, but incorporating links into your text can increase your search engine rankings, provided they are relevant to the reader. These links can help orient your reader within your site so they can quickly get to the service or solution they are looking for. They can also lead to recognized and credible external sites that will increase your website’s credibility in the eyes of search engine robots.

Find credible partners to point to your website

Build your site’s authority by identifying partners in your field. This could be sites that have a complementary offer to yours and have established credibility. When these sites point to yours, the algorithms consider that you are a reference in the field and they will take this into account in their calculation.

Guest posting on other websites is an effective way to generate backlinks, increase referral traffic and increase your site’s ranking in search engine results (SERP).

However, avoid duplicating content between the two linked sites, as this will have the opposite effect; you will be penalized in the algorithms calculation.

How do you attract with content marketing?

Content marketing is about creating eye-catching, informative and engaging content to naturally attract customers to your site. The content must be related to your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy and must meet your customers’ needs. This can be in the form of feature articles, videos, podcasts, webinars, guides or e-books, for example.

The goal is to generate content that responds to search engine queries, but also to stimulate interest in your site and offering. In addition to integrating the SEO elements already mentioned, you must create well-written and well-sourced content, taking into account certain characteristics specific to the Web. The more fluid and relevant your content is, the more captive visitors you will have and the more attention search engines will pay to you.

This content can be published directly on your website or on other platforms that will give visibility to your website in return. For example, videos on YouTube can reach a good proportion of a target audience among 2.6 billion users. Of course, relevant and high-quality content remains the key factor.

How can you grow and mobilize your community with social media?

Search engine algorithms will take into account the popularity of your content. It’s cause and effect. The more you’re seen, the more you will move up in the search results. To do this, you must use all the means at your disposal to make your site and its content known.

Social networks are an excellent channel to attract and generate traffic to your online store. First, determine which media are appropriate to reach your different target customers. Each media has its own appeal and you will need to adapt your hooks and content to each of these social media platforms in order to grow and engage your community.

Do you have efficient and attractive newsletters?

Promoting your content through newsletters is another effective way to increase traffic to your website. Emails, which are non-intrusive, generally have a higher open and click-through rate than other tactics.

Among the best practices to follow when sending your newsletters, consider:

• Proposing a catchy subject line to increase the open rate;
• Inserting a link or a button for a clear action that redirects to your site;
• Creating a newsletter format adapted to mobile devices;
• Personalizing your emails as much as possible by addressing your subscribers directly and offering them targeted content;
• Performing A/B tests to determine the success rate of your various mailings and optimizing them;
• Respecting the anti-spam rules: there are heavy fines if you’re not careful.

Have you planned digital campaigns?

Natural referencing will not always be enough. You will probably have to plan paid campaigns on other websites, on search engines (SEM) and on social networks. This will allow you to target your customer segments more precisely and reach them more easily. Of course, you will have to measure the results regularly to ensure that the budget invested has a consistent return.

You can opt for advertising on social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest and LinkedIn, depending on your target audience. Advertising on search engines, such as Google and Bing, can also be beneficial. Google has a broader reach that includes sites that are members of its network and affiliate sites like YouTube.

Who are your offering’s complementary influencers and partners?

Influencer marketing is about building relationships with credible influencers whose image and words are in line with your own brand. The trustworthy relationship that influencers have established with their audience could help you reach some of your customers.

There are influencers on the various social networking platforms, but also think about blog sites and press sites.

How do you measure traffic when all is said and done?

Knowing how to properly measure your traffic is crucial to understanding how to generate more traffic. Some tactics may not apply to every business. Your strategy must take into account your type of organization and target audience.

Analyzing your visitors’ journey and knowing the source of your traffic will allow you to customize your approach and better identify successful tactics. Several tools exist, but Google Analytics is the most widely used. However, you must understand how to use it.

The better equipped you are to measure your results, the better you will be able to adapt and continue the conversation with your customers, strengthen your ties with them and attract new ones. More traffic to your site means more conversion opportunities on your online store.

This article was written with Guy-Jacques Langevin, co-founder of Buzztroop.

The Grant Thornton International IFRS team has three new publications in the Insights into IFRS 8 series:

• Segment Information to Be Disclosed;
• Entity-Wide Disclosures;
• Other Application Issues and Standards Involving Operating Segments.

For entities that operate in a variety of types of businesses, geographical locations, regulatory or economic environments or markets, high quality management accounts are essential. They enable management to monitor performance, allocate resources and devise business and market strategies.

IFRS 8 Operating Segments requires much of this management information for publicly listed entities to be published externally, so that investors, analysts and other users of the entities’ financial statements can review an entity’s operations from the same perspective as management.

The Insights into IFRS 8 series considers key implementation issues, provides interpretational guidance in certain problematic areas and includes several examples illustrating the standard’s requirements.

Read the Adviser Alert below.

Mis à jour le 18 juillet 2023

A good employee wants to leave your company. Here’s how to keep them… or nurture their post-employment experience.

The current average tenure of a job is just over four years. It is therefore essential to positively nurture your employees’ post-employment experience.

There are many reasons for leaving a job: inadequate salary, uncompetitive benefits, lack of recognition, limited advancement prospects or simply a desire for something new. In this period of significant labour shortage, it is more important than ever to take care of the relationship with your employees, including those who may leave you for other opportunities.

Talk to your employee

It is in your best interest to meet with the employee early and open a discussion. Whether or not you are trying to retain the employee, you need to understand their reasons for leaving the organization. You will need to show a degree of openness during the discussion so that the employee will share with you the reasons that led to this decision. This is particularly important if you want to do the right things to encourage them to stay with your organization.

In fact, salary is rarely the only reason given. Of course, if your organization is not competitive in this area, you risk losing other employees. However, there are other factors that contribute to a positive employee experience and strengthen their emotional connection to the organization: schedule flexibility, open management, enjoying the work, etc.

For example, for some, working from home is a key driver that allows them to enjoy their personal lives while being productive and engaged.

Another important consideration is the relationship with their manager. If employees do not feel that they are treated with respect, if they feel that they are in a toxic work environment, they will quickly lose any emotional connection with the employer.

However, you have to be careful and strike a balance between trying to retain employees and meeting all of their requests because of concerns about the labour shortage. This could cause some unfairness to other employees and the problem could grow. Take time to think, talk to your managers.

Keep the door open

You can also keep the door open, telling them that they can contact you if they’re not happy with their new job. Who knows, maybe there will be a position for them in the future?

As for an employee who is being let go, that’s a whole other situation. The best thing you can do in this case is to proceed with respect and meet with the employee to explain the reasons for the dismissal. They say there is no right way to fire an employee, but there are wrong ways… You have to be diplomatic.

Conduct exit interviews

Exit interviews can provide valuable information about employees’ views of your business and help you determine if your employee retention strategies need to be improved. You need to make employees feel that you are not taking their departure lightly. If they leave on a respectful note, they are more likely to speak highly of the organization. They will not hesitate to recommend you to their friends and family.

You can also take advantage of employee departures to ask your managers to meet with their team to take stock of the situation. Of course, in a large organization, where there are more departures because of the greater number of employees, you don’t necessarily have to go through this process every time. However, it is something that should not be neglected.

Pay attention to the exit process

When building a strong employer brand, you need to work on all aspects of the employee relationship, from the recruitment process to the end of employment, including all stages related to hiring (training, respectful management, working conditions, etc.).

The termination process is often neglected. However, it is an integral part of the employee experience. This is a factor that can help you maintain a good brand image and attract talented personnel who will bring added value to your entity.