When it comes to managing a successful online business, establishing a steady stream of traffic to your website is only half the battle. Those hard-earned clicks are being wasted if they’re not directly converting into sales for your brand. Rather than trying to drive more traffic to your site, consider focusing your attention on getting more from your existing potential customers.
Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is the process of increasing the percentage of people who take any desired action when they visit a website. Essentially, you want to enhance all aspects of the shopping experience so that customers are more inclined to make a purchase (or subscribe, sign up for a trial, etc.). Average conversion rates vary between industries, but a good percentage to aim for is around 2%. Keep reading to learn the top four tips to ensure you’re boosting your ecommerce conversion rate.
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Visuals are key
Designs are product pages that are especially important. This is where people make a decision to purchase and you need to leave the best impression possible.
Max Funding say, “humans are visual creatures. If your website isn’t capturing the attention of your visitors in the first 8 seconds then you can almost guarantee they won’t be making a purchase.”
They suggest, “to increase your chances of finalising a sale, pay attention to your landing page. High quality images and graphics not only grab attention, they also increase the perceived credibility of a website.”
The same goes for the use of colour, font and the overall layout of the site. In a fiercely competitive market, your website needs to convey your unique brand identity in a way that is persuasive, genuine and eye-catching.
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Seamless Navigation
Once you’ve established an engaging layout, you need to optimise website navigation and usability. Customers want to find what they’re looking for in as few clicks as possible. Intuitive navigation and clearly labelled headings are crucial. Breadcrumbs are most helpful for larger websites, and drop-down menus can be advantageous if they’re short and specific. Customers don’t want to spend unnecessary time learning how your website works – so work on reducing the amount of time it takes to get them from the landing page to a completed purchase.
By making the navigation easier for visitors, people can find the exact service they want easily. When navigation is more complicated, people have to jump through hoops to find the right page.
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The Checkout
The checkout page can either make or break your conversion. Too complex and you can say goodbye to the sale – but you can’t just ask someone for their credit card details and hope for the best either.
It’s at the checkout that you really need to reinforce the security and credibility of your business. The customer needs to feel confident handing over their cash and personal details, and offering multiple payment options has been proven to help with this. Speaking of personal details, make sure you offer a guest checkout option. Customers list the absence of this option as the second highest reason for not completing a purchase.
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Follow It Up
So you’ve implemented the first three tips and your conversion rate is creeping up, but you know that you could still do better. That’s where the abandoned cart email comes in. If a customer has added items to their cart but then left the site, a gentle nudge may be all that’s needed to get them to come back and hit that checkout button.
Following up on potential customers is the easiest and cheapest way to boost revenue. A lot of the time, people genuinely forget to finish what they were doing. With all of the distractions in the modern age, like social media or Netflix, people honestly just forget. This is why following up is crucial. You can send them alerts for free and you have nothing to lose.
Don’t neglect this potential sale – up to 50% of customers go on to complete their order after receiving an email prompt!
Final Thoughts
While there are countless ways to increase your ecommerce conversions, some easy ways include upgrading your visuals, improving ease of navigation, creating a checkout page, and adding follow up emails to your sales process.
