We all want to make sales so, naturally, our conversion rate is something we keep a close eye on. Though, when you seem to be putting in a lot of effort, and your conversion rate just will not shift, it can be incredibly frustrating.
Luckily, there are lots of little tweaks you can make to get your conversion rate moving in the right direction, and it can make all the difference to your e-commerce store.
Understand Your Target Audience
It is easy to think more traffic will equal more sales. Indeed, getting more traffic to your site can be a great way to boost sales, but if it is not the right traffic, then it will not have the desired impact.
The products you sell are not for everyone. They have a target audience that is most likely to buy them, and your pages should be optimized for these people.
If you do not have a good understanding of your target audience, then it is going to have an impact on your conversion rate. You will find it harder to reach the people who actually buy your products, and this is going to hold you back.
Think About the Customer Journey
How does someone go from never having heard of your business to buying a product?
Of course, customers will come to you for many different reasons and in many different ways, but there are often distinct patterns. You will find people tend not to land on your website and buy a product there and then; instead it takes multiple touchpoints to create a sale.
So what do these touchpoints look like and how can you optimize them to improve your conversion rate?
Site Speed/ User Experience
Think about the things that put you off using a website.
It is likely that slow load speeds are right at the top, followed by other user experience errors such as poor navigation and broken links.
If your e-commerce store has problems in these areas, then it is going to impact on your conversion rate. People will not hang around and wait for pages that are slow to load, or buttons that do not appear to work.
There is so much competition on the internet that people will just go elsewhere, increasing your bounce rate and lowering your conversion rate.
Customer Experience
We talk a lot about customer experience when it comes to physical stores. However, it is just as important when it comes to online stores.
Modern consumers see the experience as equally important to products and services, so you have got to get this right. If you have not got the right support, then people are less likely to follow through with their purchase. Likewise, if you do not have good after-sale care, then people are less likely to come back to you.
One way to improve this is to use proactive chat messages to engage customers. This opens the channel of communication and improves the customer experience.
Calls to Action
It is easy to underestimate the power of a call to action.
You have got to guide people through your website, and the way you do this is through calls to action. Consumers are accustomed to seeing calls to action, and subconsciously, they are looking for them to guide them into taking the next step.
If you are not using good calls to action, then fewer people are going to follow through and take the next steps. Think about what action you want people to take, and then create good calls to action to guide them through the process.
Social Proof
Social proof plays a huge part in modern-day consumer decisions. People want to see that other people have bought your products and had a good experience, and you need to be able to demonstrate this.
The first step towards using social proof to boost your conversion rates is collecting reviews, so this needs to be an important part of your marketing. Make sure you are checking in with your customers and asking for their opinions. If you make it easy and convenient for people to leave you a review, then there is no reason why they should not.
Once you have got a good collection of social proof, then you can start to use it to help boost your sales.
Shipping
It is a complicated journey people go on when they decide to buy your products. They carefully weigh up all the pros and cons and make what they believe to be an informed decision.
If they get to the checkout page only to find there is extra shipping to pay on top of the price of the product, then all their equations change. By not outlining the shipping costs from the start, you are giving people a reason to abandon their cart.
Shipping is an important issue, and it is something that is easier to address upfront. Allow people to understand the full cost from the beginning and they are less likely to change their minds right at the last second.
AB Testing
One of the great things about an e-commerce store is that there are so many different things you can tweak to improve your conversion rate. A great way to keep track of this is through AB testing.
This allows you to compare the performance of multiple pages and see which aspects work well and which do not.
Sometimes when we make changes to our site, it is hard to tell if it is actually having an effect, but AB testing allows you to do just that. It is a great tool that is often under-used.
Analytics
Lots of answers are hidden in your analytics. It is important you have these set up properly and that you are checking in regularly.
If a product page has a high bounce rate or low time on page, then you can immediately see potential reasons why your conversion rate is low. By comparing the pages that are doing well with those ones that are not, you can find little things that work.
Analytics are a key part of an online store, so make sure you are getting the most out of them.
