February 22, 2023
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One of the popular metrics e-commerce brands use to measure success is conversion rate. Your conversion rate can be calculated by taking the overall number of visitors to your store, and dividing it by the number who actually make a purchase.
If your company generates a million dollars per year in sales, a 1% increase in your site’s visitor-to-purchase ratio can add thousands of dollars to your bottom line. Leveraging industry best practices and our merchants’ success stories, we’ve outlined some tips that could help you convert more shoppers to buyers on your site.
Mobile is a big deal. By 2018, global mobile e-commerce revenues are projected to reach $669 billion — that’s 45% of the projected revenue for the entire e-commerce market. When you’re looking to increase traffic, mobile could be a good place to start. Leading search engines are experimenting with mobile first indexing. To help optimise your site for mobile, be prepared to go beyond a responsive design or m.dot site. Make your site easy to navigate from start to finish and include an intuitive, frictionless checkout process. Optimise for touch screen when designing your call to action, product images and form fields, and don’t forget to A/B test different checkout form lengths to find the right balance for optimal conversion rates!
Customers will leave your site if product information is confusing or they can’t quickly locate what they came for. Visitors often enter a site through the home page or category page. A flat navigation, or condensing your hierarchy to 1-3 layers, combines some of your pages vertically so that it is easier for users to locate specific products in fewer clicks. With in-site search navigation, many buyers will look for generic phrases rather than product names to find information. Using generic phrases, (i.e. “Men’s sandals” or “Phone cover”) rather than specific product names, gives them the opportunity to broaden their search and find what they want.
Attracting buyers who don’t need your product won’t convert to sales. Low conversion can be the first indicator that you may be promoting content and messages in the wrong places, or to unintended recipients. Take a look at the search queries in your paid search account and discern whether you will benefit from adding negative keywords to relevant audiences. One common targeting error is selecting rich keywords or buzzwords that may relate to your overall product group, but are still too broad to appeal to your intended audience. Have a strong understanding of who your audience is before you optimise your site and keywords to help align your product more closely to the buyers who need it.
Longer loading times can significantly decrease your customer’s patience during the buying process. If these customers leave, you may have lost them forever, 28% of customers won’t return to a slow site. Search engines also penalise slow websites with lower search rankings. A few ways you could improve your site speed today include compressing your Javascript and CSS scripts, optimising lossless or lossy images, limiting third-party advertising space and testing your site speed to ensure you are working with a quality web host.
Asking your customers to fill out lengthy, redundant information may be part of the reason they decide to go somewhere else. 27% percent of shoppers abandoned an order because the checkout process was too long or complicated. You could help reduce points of friction by minimising the number of fields to be completed. Look for technical fixes that can infer information you need (i.e. auto-populating zip, city and state).
Users sometimes feel uneasy about sharing their payment information with e-commerce sites. According to a Baymard study, 18% of users who abandoned their checkout did so because they didn’t trust the site with their credit card information. Trust is earned. If you are a new business, it can take time to build this trust. One way to increase perceived security is include a site seal or security badge on your checkout page. Badges from Norton Secured, Google Trusted Store and BBB give users the best sense of trust when paying online.
35% percent of users from the same Baymard study didn’t want to create an account to checkout. To keep users on your site, consider offering an alternative payment method, such as Amazon Pay. Alternative payment solutions can provide a faster checkout and increase trust between you and your customers. Established payment methods have proven security. By providing recognised payment methods on your site, you can help your customers feel confident and safe making their purchases.
When it comes to product images, studies show that quality can lend credibility. 75% of e-commerce site users rank the ability to zoom in on product images as one of their top reasons to purchase. Providing product visuals with various angles, including a full view and size comparison of the product, can deliver valuable context for your buyer. For example, if a customer is on your site reviewing backpacks, it could be helpful to showcase a person wearing the backpack. The customer may be able to visualise how the bag will look when held over their shoulder and that context can bring them closer to purchasing.
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