E-Commerce Conversion Optimisation: How to Convert Your Visitors into Buyers

There are thousands of ways you can attract users to your website – SEO, PPC, direct mail, etc.– but if you have a business that includes an online shop, it is vital to not only get the most visitors you can, but also to convert those visitors into buyers. In order to do this, you will require a specially planned E-Commerce design that is specific to your business and that understands the type of people who will be likely to buy from you.

As far as attracting people in the first place goes, there are many ways you can optimise your E-Commerce site in order to get the best conversion rates possible. Here are just a few of the most effective conversion optimisation methods that you can integrate into your development process.

1. Optimise Your Home Page and Navigation

Unsurprisingly, the most important part of your site that will need optimising is that of your E-Commerce home page. It’s the first page your potential customer will see, and if it isn’t clear what you’re selling or if the navigation isn’t easy to use, it may be the last page they see before going on to one of your competitors.

• Identify your best or top-selling products and make sure they are clearly visible from your home page.
• Don’t just rely on item descriptions; show informative photos or videos of your products that will encourage further examination from your visitors. Having them on the home page will get people interested straight away.
• Give users as many options as possible to both contact your company with queries and to actually order. They may have looked up shop online, but some people will feel more comfortable with other methods of purchasing, such as speaking to an ‘actual person’ over the phone.
• Quick and efficient navigation is key, and this includes a visible search function that is easily accessible from the home page; users don’t have time to go through extensive product categories looking for the specific item they want, but this is the only option you leave them if you hide away your search functionality – other than the option of leaving your site.
• If you do have a wide range of categories, put your most popular category links at the top of the menu, just like you put your most popular products on your home page.
• Ensure your search is ‘intelligent’ – that it will consider plurals and spelling mistakes, for instance.
• For more information on what users are searching for on your site, use analytics tools such as Google Analytics. You will then know which products and areas to spend most time promoting, and can actually create bespoke categories based on what people are looking for.

2. Improve Your Checkout Process

It is at the checkout stage that potential buyers are most likely to abandon their purchases, so special care should be taken over how you present the process.

• Use a ‘persistent’ shopping cart which remembers the user’s added products.
• The checkout has to be secure. This means giving users a chance to read your privacy policy, as well as utilising security solutions such as CAPTCHA.
• Give your potential buyers as much information as possible, regarding tax, shipping prices, and any other extra or ‘hidden’ costs that they should be aware of. Transparency is key. Including an FAQ section accessible from any part of your E-Commerce site will help with this.
• Offer as many different payment options as possible, the easier it is for the user to buy from you, the more likely they are to use you again in future. Accepting PayPal as well as debit and credit cards should increase sales.

3. Ensure Repeat Visits

Finally, encourage buyers to come back to your site – and therefore improve your conversion rate further – with the following simple methods.

• Offer deals to repeat customers, such as 10% off their next purchase.
• Make full use of email marketing, but ensure you’re only sending emails to those who have asked for them.
• Use traffic re-targeting and re-marketing tools, such as AdWords Re-marketing.

If you’d like to get expert advice on E-Commerce conversion optimisation, feel free to contact us.