7 Ways To Increase eCommerce Conversion Rate
It’s all well and good having a lovely looking site that works beautifully, but if it does not convert visits to sales, then it’s about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike!
As eCommerce business owners, you will know that the key to a successful online store is to hone focus on improving the site-wide conversion rate – that’s exactly why we’ve compiled what we think are the best ways to increase your website conversion rate into an easily digestible blog post. Enjoy!
It’s all well and good having a lovely looking site that works beautifully, but if it does not convert visits to sales, then it’s about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike!
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Data Is Key
If you don’t already analyse your website data then it’s vital you start… and straight away!
The basis of analysing website data is to gather an insight into what areas of the site are working particularly well and what areas could be improved to ensure the site achieves the best results possible. This allows site optimisation to be based on cold, hard fact, offering a much likelier chance of conversion rate growth. By not analysing data, you cannot possibly determine where or how to improve your site, allowing it to continue to perform at a mediocre rate.
While we could go on for hours about how best to analyse your website data, we’ll leave that to our marketing team who would be happy to help offer any further information. Give them a shout here!
Test, Test And Test Again
You’ve probably heard it before and here it is again: the best way to improve conversion rate is through testing, specifically A/B testing.
But what is A/B testing?!
A/B testing, also known as split testing, in the web industry is the method of comparing two versions of a webpage against each other to determine which one performs better. For example, if you had two possible category titles to use on the site and you cannot decide which to use, running a split A/B test over a certain period of time allows you to trial the two titles and note which one worked better. A/B testing software works by directing 50% of the incoming traffic to page A and 50% to page B. Both pages have a measured call to action, and at the end of the trial period, the page with the most conversions on that action wins.
As you know, there is no correct method when it comes to your website and its design, and the only way to learn about what works and what does not work is to regularly test. Test anything from the colour, copy, position, and size of features on the site to the page layout and navigation, and marketing offers. However, what you should test should always come from what your website data flags up as needing improvement – again reiterating the importance of data analysis.
Create A Compelling And Clear Value Proposition
Changing page elements on the site is often the most common method of improving the conversion rate. However, it is worth noting that changes to page elements will only help increase conversion if strong value propositions have been defined on the site.
What Exactly Is A Value Proposition?
A value proposition is a primary reason why a visitor should buy from you over the competition. The customer not only wants to know “what is in it for me?” but also “why you over others?”.
To craft a compelling value proposition, you will need to reflect on what is unique about your company, your products and your services. Additionally, having a powerful value proposition is not enough; it must also be communicated effectively across the site to achieve optimal results.
So What Makes A Good Value Proposition?
A good value proposition is differentiated from what competitors offer. You can match a competitor on every dimension of value except one – in other words, your company must excel in at least one element of value.
To know the true effectiveness of your value proposition you must test to see how it resonates with your ideal target audience. Additionally, you can test different value propositions through A/B testing (refer to point 2).
Cut The Jargon
Another common mistake we see time and time again is heavy use of fancy, complicated business language (jargon). Whether this fancy business speak was done intentionally to try to impress users or completely unintentionally – it doesn’t help conversion rate, get rid of it. Your site is for people, so write in a style people will understand. The easier your site is to understand, the more likely visitors will spend time on the site and make a sale. Simples!
Top tip: an easy way to reword any current jargon on your site is to imagine you are explaining your products to a friend.
Increase Trust
Add trust elements to your website and watch your conversion rate increase!
Some trust elements include:
- Allow customers to leave product reviews
- Provide evidence that there is a real organisation behind your site
- Make it easy for visitors to contact you
- Regularly update the content on your site – people and Google assign more credibility to sites that have been recently updated or reviewed
- Add well-known partner organisation logos to the site
- Make your site easy to use and useful
Make It Easy To Buy From You
An obvious one here… make buying from your site as easy as possible by reducing barriers to entry on the site.
Visitors should not have to spend time trying to figure out how to buy from you or where to click on the site. It must be intuitive and self-evident.
- Make sure your site has clear calls to action so they know what they should do next
- Give users limited options – the more options you give, the easier it is to choose nothing. Keep it simple. If you have a lot of products, build better filters so they are easy to manage.
- Minimise the number of fields required on the checkout page
- Enable checkout as a guest as opposed to needing to sign up
- Wherever possible, offer free shipping
Add Incentive / Urgency Notifications
I’m sure you’ve seen an increase in urgency notifications and timed offers appearing on sites recently. This is because they have a huge impact on conversion rate. Exit surveys, often show that users leave a site because they need to go away and think about the purchase, particularly if the purchase is important or complex, or it is non-urgent. While you can’t do much about important and complex purchases, you can help to create urgency on your website.
Classic websites which use notifications to create urgency are booking sites for things such as hotels, flights and events. However, we are now more frequently seeing retailer sites embody these tactics.
Take ‘missguided’ for example. When you go to the site, immediately you are greeted with discount offers and next day delivery deals whereby if you make a purchase before a certain time, you can benefit. These notices are accompanied by time restrictions plus a continuous countdown, creating increased urgency. But it doesn’t just stop there. The product pages also follow suit with notifications warning the user of others looking at the same product as well as how many customers bought the product recently, working as a real-life approval of the product.
Yes, these tactics won’t necessarily work for every business since they can appear as ‘pushy’ to some. The most common and more subtle urgency notification used on eCommerce stores in the initial limited time discount offer or the free/next day delivery signage. If you aren’t already employing these then you need to be.
Follow these 7 top tips and you’re almost guaranteed to improve your conversion rate! Each point is just as important as the next, so if there’s something to take away, make sure you are doing them all!