10 Ways to Improve eCommerce Conversion Rates

While implementing a conversion rate optimization (CRO) strategy may seem like a daunting task, imagine what improving your conversion rate by even 3% would mean to your monthly sales revenue. That seemingly small 3% increase multiplied over the course of  several years could compound into a lot of money you otherwise wouldn’t have earned. If you’re a eCommerce website owner, improving your conversion rates may not seem like a priority; after all, you’re probably already growing and hitting your goals. However, investing a just a few small adjustments that you may not be making already could take your business to the next level. Here are 10 ways to improve your eCommerce conversion rates.

 

1. A/B Test

Let’s say you have a landing page about a new product or service you’re offering. After including a short description that leaves the user wanting to know more, you have placed a call to action button (CTA) at the bottom of the page. The words on that button say, “Contact Us”

What if you changed the words to “Try For Free,” or “Try Free Now”? Would conversions improve? What if you move your CTA button to the top of the page instead?

A/B testing call to actions can give you more insight into what drives your potential customers and what website changes perform best.

 

 

Similar to testing CTA copy, you should also test the placement of buttons and content on your website pages and see what performs best.

Create some sort of tracker document in which each week, you test two or more different versions of a CTA and record the number of website visitors, sign ups for each version, and conversion rate. Maybe dedicate half a week for testing one version, and the rest of the week the other version. Drive traffic to your website and then compare the results. Small changes and experiments are the key to incremental, huge gains over the long term.

 

2. Use Google Analytics to track the best performing pages and content

Track your best performing pages on Google Analytics, comparing pages with high traffic, high amount of time spent on the page, and low bounce rates. Once you have established which pages are driving the most traffic, you can optimize the content on those pages to rank for high search volume keywords and bolster your SEO rankings.

 

 

 

For example, say you are an online store that sells men’s casual dress shoes. You have written an article about the high-quality leather used in some of your products and its benefits in terms of style and durability.  The page seems to be driving a good amount of traffic to your website, yet these leads aren’t turning into conversions.

It’s super easy and free setting up Google Analytics. All you have to do is copy and paste some code into your website.

 

3. Think like your customers

Sometimes you have to take a step back and put yourself in the mind of a shopper who is coming to your website for the first time. When analyzing pages, ask yourself questions like “what purpose does this page have?” or “where would I intuitively click to find something?”.

Remember, each page of your website should serve a purpose. Be it to attract, educate, convert, or close a sale. Ultimately, each page on your website should help identify and push the visitor further along through the buyer’s journey toward an end goal.

 

4. Provide onsite support options

 

Would you rather wait a day or more waiting for someone to get back to you over email for a question you had? Or would you rather simply open a chat box and ask someone from the website your question? Most of the time, people prefer the latter. There are free chat services from Hubspot and Tawk.to that very easily let you set up live-chat support functionality on your website to start handling those live inquiries. It’s as simple as copy and pasting some code to your website. If you can better serve and support your users quicker, the better their experience and the more likely they will convert.

 

5. Optimize Your Page Structure & Product Pages

Does your page structure intuitively guide the user toward what they might be looking for? Tommy Hilfiger is a good example. They have categorized hundreds of products they sell on their site into different categories. Each category has numerous subcategories that help a consumer narrow their product search. Their page structure leads shoppers to what they’re looking for, while also giving them the freedom to choose between multiple styles or products using simple on-page filters.

 

 6. Improve Your Search and Linking Functionality

Have you ever left a website because of a frustrating experience trying to find a product, either because the search function didn’t work or the top navigation wasn’t helpful?

Helping your shoppers quickly and painlessly find what they need, will help you drastically increase eCommerce conversion rates.

The first step to improving your website’s search functionality is to setup search in Google Search Console. This free tool will track what your customers are searching in the search engines so that you can best optimize the keywords and phrases on your website to better match what is being searched. It also provides invaluable search and website data about your website and how it’s performing.

The next step would be to make sure you have good internal linking. If you have a product page and there are other similar products or information pages related to it, theres a good chance that having some links to those pages as well would help the user find the information they need easier.

 

7.  Improve the Checkout Process

In a study by the Baymard Institute, an overly complicated checkout process can account for 27 percent of cart abandonment rates for any online retailer. To help reduce these high rates you can first try to remove any distractions for customers by creating a checkout window with minimal navigation. This allows the customer to focus solely on completing their purchase. Ideally, the checkout page should have one link that navigates away to the homepage in case someone decides to continue shopping.

 

Provide a clear view of shopping cart prices and delivery charges (if any) to re-assure the customer of their total amount. Provide alternative payment methods, visible security logos or certifications to back up your product warranty. Distrust of payment is also a leading cause of cart abandonment as customers can be skittish about placing their financial information online without such logos.

Show a progress indicator. At every stage during checkout, the customer should know where they are in the process and what remains to be done before the purchase is complete. Most of the time, there are 3 stages you should include, a review page in which all of the products or services and their prices are displayed, a payment page, and a receipt/confirmation page indicating the purchase was successful.

 

 8. Use heat mapping software

Services like HotJar,ClickTale, Lucky Orange, CrazyEgg, etc.… let you track visitors on your site and visually demonstrate areas where users might linger for the most time on. Heat maps also help website owners see what areas of a website people are most attracted to and what areas need improvement. The flow of user interaction from the first page a person lands on to the last page a person visits can tell you a lot about how well your website is structured and how you can improve CRO. Heat mapping tools allow you to track user interaction on your website and are also great tools for testing landing page copy, CTA copy and CTA placement.

Another benefit of heat mapping is the ability to track a website’s mobile vs. desktop experience. Are you confused why you are getting a ton of mobile traffic but sales are plateauing? This might be due to a poor user experience, confusing navigation or tough checkout process on your mobile site. By using heat mapping tools, you can easily compare both site experiences, determine user bottlenecks and improve your eCommerce mobile strategy.

 

9. Add videos whenever and wherever possible

Let’s face it, people love to watch video content. Video helps instill confidence in shoppers and will reduce product questions they may have. Online shoes and clothing retailer Zappos, found that sales increased from 6 percent to 30 percent for when product videos were added.

Video now appears in 72 percent of the top 100 search result listings and viewers are 55-70 percent more likely to buy after watching a product video. Video can help grab your visitors’ attention, increase on site time and show them (not tell them) about your product. Many time, people also like to see or watch what they’re going to buy before they buy it. Although they are more complex to make, videos definitely have a huge, positive impact on eCommerce conversion rates.

 

10. Foster your FAQ page

Your FAQ page should be a “living” document that is updated as time goes on. Collect and queries you receive over the phone, email, or website and compile them on your page. The more FAQ’s you have, the better informed and aware your shoppers will be. This helps instill buying confidence and can mean the difference between an abandoned cart and a sale. Helping your website visitors easily find the answers to the questions that might have could only help right?

We hope these 10 tips help you improve your CRO! If you have any questions or need help setting any of the free tools mentioned above, let us know. Share these tips with any of your friends or fellow eCommerce owners below.