Any company with an eCommerce website is continually looking for ways to increase conversions. Since there are so many things that can be done to a website to improve its conversion performance, the challenge is to zero-in on things that have the greatest potential impact. If a company dabbles in testing this and tweaking that, it will probably not move the conversion rate dial very far. However, if a company focuses on these three items, it may move the dial very far indeed.
1. Responsive Web Design
Responsive Web design is a set of techniques that enables a website to adjust automatically to give users an optimal experience on desktops, tablets, or smartphones. eCommerce sites that fail to provide mobile users with a top-notch user experience are doomed: 80 percent of Internet users own a smartphone, and they use it for research and purchasing in rapidly growing numbers.
Converting to a responsive design can be simple or very complicated, depending, in large part, on how many items are involved. Responsive websites allow companies to pick and choose what content they display on mobile devices; often, the best course is to display a smaller number of items for mobile display — usually the most popular and/or easy to purchase.
Other website information can also be eliminated for mobile display, such as detailed “about us” pages, technical product data, press releases, and other content that users are more likely to read on a desktop. A good mobile experience is easy and fast; if an eCommerce website adapts to mobile users, it will hold on to business with former desktop-only users, as well as generate sales from new audience segments that use mobile primarily or exclusively for online ordering.
2. Content Excellence
There are a lot of ways to go wrong on content. Some of the most common content issues that plague eCommerce sites:
- Too much content.
- Content that is neither useful nor persuasive.
- Content that is poorly displayed.
Fix these problems, and you are well on your way to more sales.
- Too much content. A good guiding principle is, “When in doubt, cut it out.” Generally, prospective customers are not interested in product details. Instead, they want to know what the product or service can do for them; how it can help them solve problems or improve their lives. Keep conversion pages clean by putting the technical details on less visible subpages. Users interested in the details will find those pages; everyone else won’t have to wade through them in order to read what they need.
- Content that is neither useful nor persuasive. Every element of copy on product/service pages must address this key question: “Why should I buy this?” In order to be confident about making a purchase, users must believe the company is credible and understands what they need. Content must be written from the user’s point of view, yet still convey expertise and value.
- Content that is poorly displayed. It’s not enough to create great copy, you have to make it readable. This means:
- Use high contrast — a dark font on a light background.
- Keep font size and styles to a minimum.
- Stick with short paragraphs and bullet points for easy scanning.
- Use persuasive, keyword-rich subtitles for easy scanning and SEO.
- Make sure fonts are large enough for your target audience.
- Avoid all-caps lettering and italics — they are hard to read.
- Avoid overly long or narrow line widths — very important for desktop display.
3. Conversion Tracking
Many otherwise excellent eCommerce websites fail because they have not set accurate and complete conversion tracking. Ideally, your website should tell you the exact source of every sale and inquiry — whether your new customer came from a Google Ad, Bing organic search, a display advertising campaign, etc. Unless you know the sources of your success, you will be unable to adjust your campaign properly to improve conversions. Instead, you will continue to invest in underperforming campaigns rather than discontinue or improve them — and miss the opportunity to put more emphasis on campaigns that are producing revenue.
Tracking can be far more granular than many companies realize. For instance, a PPC conversion properly tracked reveals, among other things, which keywords were used, which search engine was used, and what time of day the conversion was made. All of this information can be used to make small but powerful tweaks to the campaign, such as bidding more aggressively at certain times of the day. Over time, small changes like this add to large gains in conversion rate and large reductions in cost per conversion.
Make Your Website Generate Many More Sales
It is important to increase conversions on the eCommerce websites. To achieve positive results, you should make a responsive design so that every customer can open it with any device.
Besides, perfectly written content is a key to success. In this case, make sure that the content is useful and persuasive.
Moreover, track your conversions to be aware of every change whether it is positive or not.
Author’s bio: David Hoang works as a copywriter for Write Any Papers. He used to be a web designer, but he decided to change his career. In this case, David has an opportunity to tell others how to create a perfect website design.
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