20 Ways to Promote Your Online Bookstore

During our consulting practice, we are often asked how to promote a particular line of business online and/or offline. Today, we are going to discuss how to promote an online bookstore. The suggestions may apply to other online businesses as well. So, let’s get started without any further delay.

1. 1.  Design and develop a professional nice looking website for your bookstore. How funny?  But this is obvious. This is the very first step you are going to take while getting advice from SEO and usability professionals like us
   2. Offer a clutter-free checkout process on your website. This is THE most important feature an online store of any nature MUST have to promote their business.  However, many e-commerce stores utterly ignore this aspect of their business
   3. Encourage your readers and customers to create book fan clubs in their geographical areas
   4. Provide guides for book club members on various books
   5. Publish interviews of favorite authors on your website
   6. Offer advice to librarians and other interest groups on how to launch reading and discussion programs on various topics of interest to the general public
   7. Announce upcoming author lectures in various cities
   8. Invite your visitors to signup for newsletters, email alerts, and similar informational programs
   9. Offer book reviews on your website
   10. Offer a feature “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought.”
   11. Offer ‘advance order’ feature on the website so that the customers could reserve a copy of their favorite writers before it is actually published
   12. Invite authors to write blogs on your website if possible or at least ask them to write an introduction of the book they want you to promote on your website
   13. Offer an author tracker program by which your visitors can track where their favorite authors are going to make an appearance
   14. Involve authors to answer questions your would-be customers may have regarding the book(s) in question
   15. Give advance news of the upcoming books on a variety of topics of interest to your online visitors
   16. Offer your readers and visitors to sell their own books on your website
   17. Provide an online forum where your visitors can chat with one another on various topics of interest
   18. Offer readers to rate a book of their choice
   19. Offer an excerpt of a certain portion of a book online so that the target customers can be enticed to actually buy the book
   20. Create a special offer section to attract more visitors and customers

Now, it is your turn to give suggestions on how to promote a bookstore online.