So you have made this really great e-commerce website and are ready to see the traffic on your site and people hitting the ‘check-out’ button. But wait – that’s not happening – or at least not as much as you were expecting. You start to wonder what you might have missed out on. You start to question the site’s layout, the theme, design – everything and anything – except for the one thing that matters the most: Have you chosen the right techniques to boost your website?
And in reality, it’s this factor that makes the biggest difference when it comes to converting traffic in to actual leads and leads in to paying customers. Because conversion is what really matters when defining the success of any website – conversion is key to a site’s success and this is what we are going to discussing at length today.
Online Conversions
What is conversion? This is a question that most new e-commerce website owners must understand. The visitors who visit your website are known as ‘traffic’ on your site – conversion is something that happens after that visitor stays on your page and completes a desired action. Now that may be in the form of an online purchase or something else.
There are different factors that are used to measure the success of your store, which include the following:
- Online Sale – When a visitor purchases something from your site.
- Adding To Cart – When a visitor adds a product to the cart on your site.
- Wish List – A visitor adding an item to their wish list.
- Signup – Visitor on site signs up for an email subscription.
- Shares – Visitor sharing your website on different social media platforms.
Conversion Rates on Your E-Commerce Website:
Most online store owners have unrealistic expectations when it comes to website conversion rates. For them, setting a high target is perhaps one of the biggest mistakes that they end up doing. It’s important to understand that while achieving targets is something that all owners want to do, conversion rates tend to typically be around 1% to 2%. This means that despite doing pretty much everything and optimizing your website for the best experience possible, you can expect the conversion or the sale to reach a maximum of 2%.
Boosting Your Online Store’s Conversion Rates:
At the end of the day, it all comes down to numbers and really for an owner of an e-commerce website the most important thing is getting sales through conversions. Keeping that in mind, here are some of our tips and tricks that can use to give your online website’s conversion rates a big boost.
- Product Images
when you visit a website such as Amazon or any other online store, what is the first thing that catches your attention? The products right? This is mainly because the product images that are shown on the site are all high quality images which instantly catch your eye. When making an online purchase, you don’t have the opportunity to see the product live – you can’t hold it, touch it or examine it closely. Whatever details that you are reading about the product and the image you are viewing on the site is what you are going to get. Therefore, to provide the customer with the best experience, focus on displaying high quality images on your online store. - Promotions and Coupons
who doesn’t like saving a few bucks? We know we do! To increase conversion rates, we suggest setting up promotions on your store or provide your customers with coupons that they can use on their purchase – this acts as an incentive to the customer who then unconsciously adds more items to the cart in an effort to save more – thereby increasing sales. - Free Shipping
Big e-commerce websites have done one thing right – offer free shipping. No one can say no to a deal – no matter what form it is in. By providing free shipping to your visitors on site can help in boosting those conversion rates. - Prices
until and unless you are selling products that are 100% unique and new in the market, chances are that there will be several competitor sites who are selling the same product on theirs – possibly at prices lower than yours. This increase in competition is something that online store owners should be aware of and price products accordingly to ensure that visitors are tempted to purchase it from your site and not from the competition. - Checking Out Complications
one of the worst things that you can do is have a checkout process that is too long and complicated. No one likes going through long and unnecessary steps just to buy something – not only is it frustrating but with more and more websites providing one-step checkout, it’s important that you incorporate that to stay ahead of competition and boost your online sales. - Layout
the layout or the structure of your online store is an essential factor that you should be taking in to consideration if you want to increase your conversion rates. By incorporating filters and designing the overall structure in to logical (and useful) product categories, improves the user experience which greatly helps in boosting the conversion rate of the website. - Visitor Safety
although obvious (and extremely important) make sure that your website provides the user with a safe browsing and check-out experience. Making a visitor on your site feel secure is something that every e-commerce website owner should be focusing on if looking to boost conversion rates on the site. - Mobile Optimization
with increasing number of users today browsing websites on their smartphones, it’s essential that you ensure that your site is optimized for mobile users. Make sure that the layout of your site displays properly on different mobile devices and functions just as smoothly as it would on a web browser.
Effectively applying these strategies has helped websites such as Couponbuffer in increasing their conversion rate by 15%. Aside from the above tips, a couple of other things that you should take in to consideration to boost your conversion rate on your online store is provide detailed product descriptions, have a dedicated section on the site where customers can leave behind reviews as well as provide contact information where the visitor can get in touch with you if they have any queries or concerns.