One of the most common questions e-commerce owners ask is how to increase sales from their website. The familiar pattern is that ads get impressions and clicks, yet conversions never follow. When visitors do not buy or place an order, many owners conclude that their advertising is ineffective. To work out how to improve online store sales, you first need to identify the stage of the customer journey where the problem begins.
How to identify what is stopping your online sales from growing
Improving online sales requires work on both your advertising and your website. Start by checking whether your campaigns are working as intended and fix any problems you find. Only then should you move on to analyzing the site.
People are willing to buy. If your market has more than 1 competitor, there is money to be made and other businesses are already making it. A complete lack of competitors is more concerning: it may mean that nobody in that region or niche wants the product.
A customer takes 3 steps before buying a product:
- They enter a search query.
- They form an expectation after clicking an ad.
- They complete a conversion on the website.
To find out where the connection between the ad and the website breaks down, examine each step separately.
How better advertising can increase online store revenue
Analyze the audience seeing your ads. Open Search terms in Google Ads and review the language people use to find you. As you read the queries, picture the person behind each search and consider:
Why I start with margin when growing an online store
I begin by breaking each order down into revenue, gross margin, variable costs, and an acceptable customer acquisition cost. Only then do I decide which categories can be scaled with advertising and which ones will simply generate losses faster as revenue grows. In Google Ads, I pass purchase values that allow the algorithm to distinguish between orders with different economics instead of treating every sale as equal.
Google’s official documentation explains how conversion values help optimize advertising around business outcomes.
- what they are interested in;
- what they need and how urgently they need it;
- how much they can afford;
- their educational background.
Next, compare this person with the customer you actually expect to visit your site. If the two profiles do not match, you have probably selected the wrong keywords.
For example, the search terms may show a clear desire to buy something cheap while your prices in dollars place the product in the premium segment. Alternatively, you may sell wholesale while the queries clearly come from people looking for individual retail purchases.
If your Google Ads campaigns reach the wrong audience, they will not be effective.
Analyze the expectation created by your ad
Your ad should set the right expectation before the click. In Google Ads, go to Ads, select View asset details, and open Combinations. As you review each ad, ask yourself: what will someone who clicks this particular message expect to see and get on the website?
Suppose the ad promises a “Free masterclass.” The visitor will expect to learn more about the session and register for it. If the click takes them to a page that says “Buy the course,” the landing page does not match their intent. Conversions are unlikely because the ad and landing page are not relevant to each other.
To increase e-commerce sales, change the ad so that it creates the right expectation before the visitor reaches the site. It should also discourage people who are not a good fit from clicking.
Imagine that you operate a premium car wash. Your ad should make that positioning clear by using words such as “VIP” and “premium.” Bargain hunters will be less likely to visit, so you will not pay for their clicks. CTR may fall, but conversions from the more relevant traffic can rise.
How a better landing page can increase online store sales
If you have checked everything and found no advertising problem, the keywords match the offer, the ads are relevant, and more than 1 competitor is active online, the landing page may be at fault. It needs to be improved or rebuilt.
Look for anything on the page that might put a visitor off. Open the websites of 3 or 4 competitors and imagine that you are a shopper who wants to place an order quickly. People rarely study every detail. They scan the page and leave if nothing catches their attention.
Website problems can range from poor design to basic technical faults. The checklist below will help you assess whether your site is properly set up to sell.
Check that your landing pages work properly
A visitor should arrive on the relevant landing page, not the homepage. A homepage is rarely the best place to expect sales or other conversions. Build a separate landing page for each keyword. Someone looking for a specific product or service should immediately see information about that exact offer after clicking.
Check the user experience:
- Do the forms work?
- Do the buttons respond?
- Can visitors navigate to other pages?
Run this check regularly, with at least 1 full review each month. Remember to test the site on a phone. Make sure photographs and other images display correctly, buttons are conveniently placed and easy to see, and the content remains readable.
Keep one point in mind: landing page quality can only be assessed in the context of the keyword and the ad. Without that information, you cannot judge whether the page is effective because you do not know who is visiting or what they want.
Review competitor websites at home and abroad
Put yourself in the customer’s position and compare your website with your competitors’ sites. Which business would you buy from? Look at the factors that can influence the decision:
- the photographs they use, as genuine team photos always work better;
- the design and wording of their buttons;
- the structure of their product pages;
- how clearly they display prices in dollars;
- the benefits they emphasize;
- how their customer support works;
- their payment and delivery options.
This analysis will give you plenty of ideas for improving your site. It can reveal which landing pages to add and how to present them to increase online store sales. Save screenshots of the approaches you find especially effective, then adapt the underlying idea for your own site.
It is also worth studying businesses that sell the same products or services in other countries. Enter the search query your customers use, then add different cities: New York, Paris, London, Sydney, and Hong Kong. Review how those companies build their landing pages.
How site structure affects online store sales
If your website does not inspire trust or answer a visitor’s questions, sales are unlikely to grow. Every site should include the following sections:
- Services. Give every service its own landing page. In an online store, organize products into categories so shoppers can find them easily.
- Pricing. Do not assume customers will call a sales representative just to ask how much something costs. It is easier to close the page and visit a competitor that clearly displays prices in dollars.
- About and Contact pages. Create them only if you have useful information to include. Nearly empty pages are more likely to undermine trust than build it.
- Promotions. Develop a loyalty program, show how much the customer saved on an order, highlight limited availability, or explain how long the offer will remain open.
- Reviews. Ask customers in your follow-up emails to leave a review or send a photograph with the product they bought. This helps build confidence.
- Pages that do not appear in the main navigation. These can include an order confirmation page with extra information, a 404 page explaining how to reach your services or pricing, and dedicated pages for remarketing audiences or bonuses.
Reviewing a competitor’s site structure can also be useful. In Google Search, enter the site: operator followed by the website address beginning with http.
How to write a landing page brief that supports sales
You can build landing pages yourself or hire a specialist. Use the ideas collected during the previous stage and focus on solving your audience’s problems. It is often best to plan your most important pages yourself. In the brief, specify the following for every section:
- the headline;
- the subheadings;
- the photographs you want to use.
The page needs to answer the 5 main questions a potential customer will have:
- What are you offering? Describe the product or service, add photographs, and highlight its benefits. E-commerce product pages need high-quality original descriptions and photographs from different angles. A product video can work even better for items such as clothing or electronics.
- Why should someone buy from you? Explain how you are better than your competitors and which customer problems you solve.
- How much does it cost? Show at least a starting price or a price range in dollars. You can list prices for typical services or projects, or state whether you serve the premium or budget segment.
- How does the customer get the product? Place an order form, a phone number, and an “Order now” button where they are easy to see. You can also offer a quick ordering option through messaging apps because some people prefer not to submit their contact details. Make the path from adding an item to the cart through checkout as simple as possible. Provide several payment options, remove distracting banners, buttons, and competing calls to action, request as little personal information as possible, and use automation tools where appropriate.
- What proves that the site is trustworthy? Include screenshots of genuine reviews, photographs of the team and office, your logo on staff clothing or a company vehicle, and access to customer support through several channels, including social media.
How ad and landing page relevance helps increase sales
Close alignment between your advertising and your website is one of the most effective ways to increase online sales:
- Use the same visual style and brand colors in the ad creative and on the website.
- Use consistent calls to action and benefits. The main purpose of a call to action is to turn the visitor into a customer. Do not send people to other platforms or distract them with different services or an invitation to subscribe.
- Use the relevant keywords naturally in the headline, subheadings, descriptions, and other page copy.
- Every landing page should give the customer complete information about the offer, including prices, guarantees, contact details, product or service information, delivery terms, and a button and form for ordering or booking a consultation.
- Send remarketing audiences to dedicated pages that differ from the ones they have already visited. These pages can include discounts, video, a more detailed service explanation, a downloadable catalog, or related products.
Conclusion
Every business needs its own marketing strategy for increasing e-commerce sales. The diagnostic process is broadly similar, however. Check and correct your advertising so that ads reach an interested audience and create the right expectation. Google Ads is not the only possible traffic source. Search engine optimization and brand promotion on other platforms, including social media, can also attract visitors.
Then turn to the website: improve its structure and optimize the landing pages and product pages. Once both stages are complete, you can increase conversions, average order value, and other online sales metrics.