5 Simple Techniques to Optimize Your E-Commerce Conversion Rate
If you don’t optimize your E-Commerce website, it will fall short of the expectations of today’s online shoppers, who expect to find what they want on the first page of search results and who get frustrated when something takes more than two clicks to get to.
If you want to grow your e-commerce business, what’s the best way to make that happen?
First, you can try to get more traffic to your store. Presumably, more visitors equal more sales, right? This method of increasing sales has been used for years in both brick-and-mortar and online stores. However, more sales don’t necessarily mean more profit. There is a much more effective way to increase your overall sales and revenue: improve your conversion rate. What does that mean?
● Your conversion rate is the percentage of your visitors who purchase from you. For example, if you have 100 visitors and three of them buy from you, your conversion rate is 3%.
● You can almost always improve the conversion rate on your website. This is good news because it means you can get more sales and revenue without needing to spend money to get more traffic. Improving your conversion rate is called Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO).
● Let’s say that, using CRO, you’re able to increase your sales from three out of 100 visitors to six out of 100 visitors. By doubling your conversion rate, you double your revenue without increasing your spending at all.
● CRO relies heavily on A/B testing. In a nutshell, A/B testing involves testing two variations of things against each other to see which produces more conversions. For example, you may try two different headlines on a page and see which generates more sales per 500 visitors.
● Some important things to remember when doing A/B testing:
○ Always test only one variable at a time. In order to measure the results properly, focus on testing one change.
○ Ensure your tests reach statistical significance. Statistical significance simply means that enough events occurred (visitors, clicks, page views, sales) to ensure that the results are accurate and not some sort of fluke.
So now, how can you actually optimize your e-commerce website in a way that improves conversion rates? Try out these 5 simple techniques:
Technique #1: Price Anchoring
● The more someone feels like they’re getting a steal of a deal, the more likely they are to purchase from you. With price anchoring, you include both a higher price and your selling price next to all your products. It makes it appear that people are getting a good deal.
● Consider using the suggested retail value of a product or how much you would charge for a consulting session. Say you’re selling a course for $199. It contains five hours of material and your hourly rate is $100. The course is valued at $500 and you can use that figure as your price anchor.
● One thing to note about price anchoring: the difference between the price anchor and the actual price needs to be reasonable and not outlandish. People will see the difference and become suspicious if the difference is too great.
Technique #2: Implement Numerous High-Quality Images
● In addition to using numerous high-quality photos and videos, all of your product pages should contain in-depth product descriptions. These product descriptions help customers understand exactly what they’re getting.
● Highlight the benefits of your product. Help shoppers understand just how much your product will help them. Paint a picture of the good life — of how your product will solve their problems.
● Be clear on the features of the product. This includes things like the size and weight, color, number of pages (if a book), modules (if a course), how many parts are included, and more. If your product doesn’t include something that people would expect, be sure to highlight that as well.
● The more informed your potential customers are, the fewer questions they’ll have and the more likely it is they’ll purchase from you.
Technique #3: Create Highly Detailed Product Descriptions
● In addition to using numerous high-quality photos and videos, all of your product pages should contain in-depth product descriptions. These product descriptions help customers understand exactly what they’re getting.
● Highlight the benefits of your product. Help shoppers understand just how much your product will help them. Paint a picture of the good life — of how your product will solve their problems.
● Be clear on the features of the product. This includes things like the size and weight, color, number of pages (if a book), modules (if a course), how many parts are included, and more. If your product doesn’t include something that people would expect, be sure to highlight that as well.
● The more informed your potential customers are, the fewer questions they’ll have and the more likely it is they’ll purchase from you.
Technique #4: Make Checkout as Simple as Possible
● If shoppers must go through a complicated checkout process, your conversion rate will fall significantly. So, how do you simplify checkout? Consider implementing the following things.
○ Allow shoppers to check out as guests. Don’t make people sign up for an account with you before they purchase items.
○ Request the minimum amount of information. If you’re selling digital products and you don’t need a person’s physical address, don’t ask for it.
○ Be sure every input field is clear. Some input fields, such as dates or phone numbers, require special formatting. Make it crystal clear exactly how the data should be entered by customers.
● Be upfront with shipping costs. Few things turn customers off like getting to the checkout page and discovering that shipping is much higher than what they expected.
● Always make it easy to get to the shopping cart. Customers should be able to view their shopping carts at any point in the shopping process.
Technique #10: Create Abandoned Cart Email Sequences
● If you’re not trying to get customers to come back to their abandoned carts, you’re leaving a huge amount of money on the table. Instead of trying to find new customers, you can work to convert these customers. After all, they’re already familiar with you and the products you offer.
● One of the best ways to recover abandoned carts is to send out a sequence of emails to the customer. These types of emails work well in abandoned cart sequences:
○ A simple reminder of what they left in their cart
○ Discount if they return and complete the purchase
○ Support if they have any questions or challenges
○ Time-sensitive (cart will expire)
● You can send out these emails over a series of days. It’s likely that when the customer sees these emails, they’ll be motivated to finish their purchase.
In conclusion, If you want a great example of what a highly optimized shopping experience looks like, simply visit Amazon and take note of the tactics used throughout their website. After all, the company has literally spent millions of dollars creating the ideal experience for shoppers and they are now reaping the benefits.
PS: if you enjoyed this blog and found it valuable, let me know and I’ll share some additional techniques that you could use to optimize your e-commerce website in an upcoming post!
