Firstly here is a list of articles I’ve previously written on this website which help improve conversion rates. I’ve linked to the article and given a brief overview of what the article is about.
Previous Articles (they open in new window so you don’t lose this page)
Show off the paypal logo, 1 in 3 shoppers look it – Many customers want to know if you accept paypal so show a clear indication that you do. If they can’t see it they may just leave. And if you don’t already accept it as a payment method then you really should. Improve conversion rates just by showing off paypal logos.
Make customers feel safe buying from you – This was a 3 part series of articles about making your business appear larger than it really is. Confidence is key when buying online and if customers aren’t confident in your business and service they won’t buy from you. Improve conversion rates by appearing larger and increasing customer confidence.
5 ways to increase customer confidence – Once again confidence is the focus, this article has 5 different ways to increase confidence covering; checkout process, contact details, customer guarantees, customer testimonials, overall service.
Other Ways
Increase product range – More choice should mean more sales, but it must be done properly. Products should fit into your niche, and the website shouldn’t become overcrowded, the products should fit in nicely into your existing range.
Checkout Process – This is touched on in a couple of the articles above. One of the key things to consider the checkout process is ‘how many steps’ does a customer have to go through to complete the checkout? Do they have to add to cart, then create an account, then fill in delivery address, then fill in invoice address, then go the payment processor page, then fill in more details, then finalise payment, then come back to your website and receive confirmation of the order. Remember; the more steps the more potential problems and the more chance of orders not going through. So try and reduce steps to improve conversion rates.
Customer Guarantees – This is covered in the third article above. Explicitly show off guarantees about ‘100% refund if not happy’ etc. Guarantees are very powerful and can result in a significant % jump in sales.
Change Sales Copy – If your product descriptions are short and missing vital details then customers won’t buy if they are unsure exactly what the product does. Improve sales copy and you should see sales rise.
Customer Testimonials – Very powerful, show lots of previous happy customers and this will improve confidence amongst visitors. If you are not naturally getting testimonials then offer customers something in return for a testimonial. EG 20% off your next order if you give us a 25 word testimonial.
Promotions & Offers – Run special offers to get visitors to convert there and then. EG one day offer. Customers often visit once, and then may return in the future to look again. Get them to convert on the same day so there is no chance of them forgetting to return, your overall conversion rate will increase.
Change Your Existing Marketing Efforts – This may not increase your traffic but it could increase conversion rates. For example if you use Google Adwords try testing offers, or reviews, in your text. Office Depot did this and saw a 23.8% increase in conversion rates, they also saw an CTR increase of 78.5%, if you can’t afford the extra clicks you could still experience a significant improvement in conversions. You can read the full article on this here: bazaarblog.com.
Web Design Tweaks – You may already have a nice web design but little tweaks can really help. For example; try moving your ‘Buy Now’ button, only a tiny aspect of design but very important. If you have it below your product descriptions, try moving it above the descriptions. Just see what happens and if results in a decline in sales just move it back. You can do this with all aspects like your navigation bar, where you place boxes of information (like payment, delivery etc), header, search box, footer etc etc.
TEST TEST TEST – The key (as always) is to try something and record the results, then try something else and record the results, and same again. Without testing different things you don’t know what works best and what will result in your highest conversion rates possible!
Conclusion
In the original article (linked to at the top of this article) the figure given was to improve conversion rates by 30%. So if you currently convert visitors into 1,200 customer over a 12 month period, you want to increase that to 1,560 customers. When you say ‘30%’ it sounds quite scary, but it isn’t really, in real terms it may be improving from a 1% conversion rate to a 1.3% conversion rate. When you say it like that you realise how possible it can be.
Obviously how close you get to the 30% figure (or how far you go over it!) depends on the current state of your business and how much of the above ideas you can put into action. But I doubt very much there is many ecommerce websites that couldn’t put at least a few of these into action!
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