My online store isn't selling: find out the reasons and how to fix it!

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If you repeat the phrase “my online store doesn’t sell” and you have doubts about the reasons why this happens, you must first understand the dynamics of digital sales . “If you don’t see it, you don’t remember it” is a maxim that can be applied to describe this moment in which it is necessary, as a first action, to create a website that converts .

Your online store needs to have traffic, and you should already know this. In a sales funnel —that's why it's called that— the volume of people who will reach your page will undoubtedly be much greater than the number of people who will pay for your products or services.

Therefore, you must also understand the reasons why prospects cash app database are there . This way, you can convert them into leads, qualify this audience, convert them into potential customers, lead them to become consumers, and finally, delight them so that they become promoters of your brand.

It's not as easy as it sounds, it requires time, effort and knowledge on various topics . The characteristics of the audience at each stage of the sales funnel, for example, allow you to provide them with valuable content that is suited to their demands.

But you still need to understand some technical requirements of the website or the desires and expectations of consumers about the products and services that will be available. At Rock, we create and provide content on each of these requirements, however, in this article, we will focus on the technical part of the site.

Look at the possible reasons why your online store does not have traffic or does not convert leads into customers:

The website is not SEO optimized
If your site is not SEO (search engine optimization) optimized , you will undoubtedly have less traffic than you could get. This is because applying good practices increases the chances of websites, blogs and e-commerce appearing in the top positions of the search engine rankings.

Some reports attest to this information. According to Hubspot, the first position in Google SERPs has a 34.36 % higher click-through rate . Furthermore, as found by Search Engine Journal, 93% of all website traffic on the internet comes from a search engine .

However, in addition to organic searches, prospects can reach your page through referrals (backlinks added to content), social media posts , and advertising (paid ads).

Organic traffic versus paid traffic
To get more traffic, you need to optimize these channels to get an audience. While some improvements ensure that the audience reaches your online store more quickly, other means, such as Content Marketing, allow for more tangible results in the long term.

This means: either you gain traffic organically and guarantee good results for a longer period of time or you pay to receive more visitors who may become mere quick viewers of your content.

Gaining more traffic requires commitment, time and persistence in actions . An SEO campaign can take months to generate the expected return, but the results make it worth both the wait and the investment.

Paying for increased user traffic can increase visits to your site quickly, but it can also quickly consume a company's marketing investment resources. This is because paid traffic is the result of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads, such as Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Facebook Ads , among others.

But the increase in sales does not justify the cost and characterizes a lower ROI (Return on Investment), due to the low volume of qualified leads. However, if you want to take a risk with ads, you should analyze your campaign settings to really reach a good audience for your business.

Many professionals use paid advertising tools to diagnose a company's sales capacity. With a Google Ads PPC campaign, you can check whether the search traffic you get will lead to conversion:

If the conversion volume is good, the company understands that it can invest more in the visibility of the site through SEO;
If the quality of traffic is low, it is necessary to focus on the needs of the most qualified visitors and their experience during their visits, delivering content, increasing the usability, security and graphic design of your online store, for example.
SEO Best Practices
Optimizing a website for SEO is an ongoing process that requires commitment. Annually, Google changes the algorithm that considers website features and requirements about 500 times , but it practically bases the ranking process on evaluation metrics that promote the best browsing experience.

The most important requirements for SEO — usability, performance, security and copywriting — must be considered.

As for technical issues, also related to user experience, SEO optimization can be considered with:

the strategic use of keywords in blog content;
the creation and publication of valuable content for the audience previously defined for the business (buyer persona), which also guarantees the link earning process, helping to add backlinks and increase the company's authority;
the fragmentation of available content, to increase the scannability of the text;
using tools to check for broken links on the website;
the use of attractive headlines that draw attention to the urgency or ability to solve a problem previously identified in the public's consumption journey;
the removal of incomplete pages, those containing errors or leading to pages not found;
structuring a sitemap to help index your site in search engines;
the incorporation of meta descriptions and title tags, both for users and search engines;
the use of CTAs (Call To Action) appropriate for the stage of the conversion funnel.
My online store does not sell
Source: Hello Multicom
There are many other tactics, based on Google updates —Panda, Penguin, Pirate, Hummingbird, Pigeon, among others—, widely known by specialized professionals. Therefore, having help in the application of these good practices can be very useful for your strategy.

The site is not suitable for CRO strategies
Every online store needs more traffic, but what good is a large volume of visitors if you can't convert them ? When you have an audience, but you're not making any sales, there may be some conversion issues.

Conversion rates vary depending on business segments and the type of audience reaching your online store. In addition, some visual and performance features interfere with the user experience and, consequently, customer perception.

While a person with a negative perception becomes a company detractor, a visitor with a positive image can become a potential customer, buyer and ultimately, brand promoter.

One advantage of investing in customer perception is the increased awareness that they have acquired value from their purchasing experience and not just a product or service. In addition, a satisfied person is a repeat consumer and maintaining this relationship is much less costly for the business than investing in acquiring new customers.

In practice, increasing conversion means that you need to invest in CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) strategies : web design elements , CTAs and on-site interaction tools, so that the positive perception at first increases the chances of conversion later on.

To do this, make sure you have content formats suitable for the conversion funnel : infographics, videos, webinars, blog posts, ebooks, podcasts, success stories, demonstrations, reviews, since each of these contents is indicated for a specific moment.

Another important issue in this requirement is the website design. Combining good web design practices with SEO is a widely used tactic and has excellent conversion results. Therefore, we list some tips that can help:

use scripts to improve the dynamics of the website or incorporate media from other services using the embed function;
use the concept of negative space to draw attention to the elements on the page.
My online store does not sell
Source: Just In Mind
use the rule of thirds or F-layout to reposition strategic elements like CTA buttons.
My online store does not sell
Source: CDN Tutsplus
invest in minimalism to attract attention with few elements;
provide visual cues to make content more educational;
use page folds, although some research based on heat maps reinforces the importance of projecting the most relevant information before the fold;
opt for dark layouts;
use interactive elements when hovering or scrolling;
improve engagement by adding videos;
choose images with three-dimensional elements;
prioritize page scrolling over clicks.
The site is not responsive
Much of the world's Internet traffic comes from mobile devices and this trend is on the rise. The use of smartphones and tablets to access website content justifies all the concern of Google, which gives good ranking results to the most responsive pages.

It is mainly for these two reasons that a company with an online presence must also be concerned about mobile compatibility, a feature also known as responsiveness.

Having a responsive design means that the look and feel of the website can be adapted to the use of mobile devices . Even though buttons, content, and other visual elements move, they are still accessible and easy to find.


Source: Ingenium Web
This also ensures usability, a requirement highly valued by Google. As we said, search engines are the biggest drivers of traffic to websites and the approach followed by the algorithms prioritizes mobile devices in their crawling and indexing process.

This means that Google crawls a website and indexes it to appear among search results from a mobile perspective . Therefore, responsiveness, or the lack of it, is a feature that the search engine easily identifies.

Since a responsive website is essential for user experience , businesses that do not have this feature will rank lower in search results. Likewise, another way for search engines to identify audience satisfaction is by the time they spend on the page.

For search engines, longer usage time means that the user has found valuable content on the page, as this would theoretically justify their stay on that URL. In addition, if the perception and user experience are not positive, more and more visitors will abandon your site, which can result in fewer sales and fewer results for your business.

The site does not have a good loading speed
Immediacy is a characteristic of the 4.0 consumer. There are millions of commercial options on the Internet and if a visitor has to wait too long to see the required information, he or she will not feel bad about leaving the page and accessing the next URL.

Users expect sites to load in less than three seconds , so it's critical to have a page load speed that supports this expectation.

Performance is directly related to internal and external factors , such as website customization elements (templates, plugins and widgets in the case of WordPress ) and the hosting chosen to support business operations.

Also, according to Google's study, the bounce rate is significantly reduced on sites that load all elements in up to three seconds. That study describes the percentage of sessions on a page and highlights whether a user stays on the site or leaves without visiting any other pages.

High bounce rate and slow loading speed can cause your online store to lose traffic (and sales) by getting lower rankings in search results. To optimize this requirement, consider:

compress images;
reduce the number of redirects within the site;
optimize HTML code;
minify CSS and JavaScript ;
optimize the database;
use a CDN ( Content Delivery Network ) or a content distribution network;
add a cache plugin;
reconsider your shared hosting option for managed WordPress hosting.
By applying these best practices, it is possible to overcome the bottlenecks of low visibility and lack of conversion. As you can see, all the requirements are aimed at a better user experience, which will help you position your online store and improve the public's perception of value.

However, it is necessary to stay up to date, monitor results and more: measure the performance of the site through the right tools. Heatmap software, for example, can help you analyze the behavior of your visitors and WordPress plugins can perform many of the actions we describe in this article.

The most important thing is to stop repeating "my online store doesn't sell" and apply some SEO and CRO techniques.