Perhaps the most import metric of any online store is the Conversion Rate. Here are a few tips that could help you to improve it for your eCommerce website:
What is a Conversion Rate?
The definition is simple:
The percentage of visitors who take a desired action.
In most of the cases about online store, by a conversion rate we mean the percentages of people who actually make purchases.
For example, if your website visitors per day are 100 and 2 of them place orders. Then your website conversion rate is 2 / 100 = 2%.
Measure the Conversion Rate of Your Website
Before start with any improvements, it’s a good idea to be able to measure the actual conversion rate of your website. For that purpose you will need two things:
- Measure the traffic of your website – it can be done using Google Analytics. In short, it provides you a JavaScript code which you need to insert into your site. then you will be able to see statistic about your site traffic such as number of visitors, traffic sources, etc.
- Measure the number of Orders – it depends on websites functionality you already use to process Orders, i.e. if you use WooCommerce plugin to sell products on your website, it already adds such statistic panel into the WordPress Admin Dashboard.
So, once you have the above statistic, you can calculate the Conversion Rate percentage using the below formula:
Conversion Rate (in percentages) for a day = ( number_of_sales / number_of_visits ) x 100.
Tips to Improve the Conversion Rate
1. Improve Website Load Speed
When a website loads slow, it increase the risk of visitors simply to leave it. So, one of the most important optimization is to make your website as fast as possible.
You can use the Google Page Speed Inside tool to check the loading speed of your website.
2. Improve Product Images
The product image is the first thing that customers will check when open a product page. It’s simply because people want to see that they are planning to buy.
Hare is a list of image optimizations you could apply:
- Use large images – you can use a Zoom Plugin to display Product image when user hovers over the main product image.
- Use as High Quality Image as Possible
- Multiple Product Images and/or 360 degree images to display the product from different angles
- Add white space around the product – the best option is to use photo of the product only over a white background.
3. Add Online Preview Demo (for Digital Products)
In case you sell digital products i.e. WordPress Themes, it’s highly recommended to add live demo of your products. In this way, users will be able to check how product works according to their specific needs.
4. Add Multiple Contact/Feedback Options
Let’s look at an eCommerce website from a client perspective – you visit a website, there’s a product which seems to be what you actually need. However, there’s NO email, NO contact form, NO phone, etc.
Would you trust such website? Of course, Not 🙂
That’s why it’s mandatory to provide options customers to be able to contact you. Different people prefer different options to contact you: a contact form, sent an email, call you via phone, write you a message on Facebook, etc.
So, the best option is to provide as many different contact options as possible.
5. Negative Customer Feedback is The Best Source of Improvement Ideas
I don’t think there is a customer who wants a negative shopping experience 🙂
When a customer has some issues during the shopping, in most of the cases he or she will contact you. Such feedback is usually the best source of ideas what can be improved in your website or your products.
So, when a customer contacts you with negative feedback, do not simply try to resolve the issue for that particular case. Analyse it, measure the issue would affect other users and try to resolve it globally.
A good sign of such issue is if you receive same or similar feedback about a product feature.
6. Add as Many Payment Methods as Possible
In case you provide a few payment methods, some customers may want to buy a product from you, but they simply won’t be able to complete the order.
If you sell products only for a specific country or region, you may research first what are the most popular payment methods there and add them into your website.
7. Keep Website Design Simple
The purpose of any eCommerce website is to sell products online. The design should be implement in a way that makes that process as easy as possible.
That’s why when it’s simple enough it will help your customers focus on their product review and subsequent purchase.
For example, you may like a site background image, but it will distract customers when they browse your website.
8. Improve Product Description
The product description is used to provide additional info to customers and help them to make a final decision.
A poor description would make the unsure users to cancel their purchase. So, you could review your current product description and if necessary improve it with a valuable information.
9. Provide Free Shipping
More than 50% of online retailers provide free shipping. Having expensive shipping prices increases the risk people to cancel they orders after choosing products and navigate to the Checkout. On of the reason for that could be that total order amount (product prices + taxes + shipping prices) exceeds their budgets.
So, if possible provide free shipping for your products.
10. Handle Cases with Abandon Basket
Sometime users add product to they baskets and/or navigate to the checkout, but do not place Orders. Reasons for that can be different i.e. they may simply forgot to complete it.
What can be done here is to send reminding emails to these users to complete their orders. Amazon and eBay send such emails, so what’s your excuse for not doing same too?
11. Remove Any Popup Dialogs
Here is what happens – a user opens a page from your website (i.e. a single product page after finding your product from Google). After 1-2 seconds the whole page becomes disabled and a popup is displayed – usually for collecting email for newsletter.
It maybe a good way to subscribe people for your newsletter, but it will affect negatively customer experience.
So, simply consider if you could remove these popup dialogs. Alternatively, you could make the newsletter subscription form more visible on your site instead of displaying it as a popup dialog.
12. Add Product Reviews and Ratings
People make decision to buy products based on opinions of other people who already used these products. So, adding sections in product pages to display feedback of existing customer or their rating will help other people to make a final decision to make a purchase.
In conclusion, keep in mind that the Conversion Rate optimization is an ongoing process – it always can be improved. So, do not stop thinking how to optimize your online store.