Unless it’s an NGO, every business runs to make a profit. For many businesses online, the first issue encountered when trying to grow sales is gaining solid and sustained traffic through inbound marketing. Other businesses have awesome traffic coming from all sorts of channels, but are not maximizing that traffic’s potential for sales.
Attracting an audience is only half the battle for an online business. Major effort should be put into building a relationship with your audience - both in the short and the long term. A sense of connection that a good relationship builds will increase the likelihood site visitors will also be buyers. A long term relationship can give the the user added value, and the business added sales. A short term relationship might be something built during a visitors first time on a website, but with proper ques and techniques, can increase the likelihood of a purchase. Here are some bases to cover when looking to perform conversion rate optimization (CRO) in the short term.
Call To Action: How do you expect a visitor to ‘convert’ if he does not know what to do after reaching your landing page?
A call to action can be in the form of a headline, a button (this often works best) or a sentence with a solid anchor text directing user action. The purpose is to tell the visitors what to do without making it sound too forced or like your site is a car salesman. A few things to consider include:
- The location of the CTA: Your CTA can be at the top of your page, in the middle, at the end or all three. Often times a CTA above the fold is best to ensure the user interacts with it but also consistently staying on message throughout the page is important. You can also use pop-ups for a CTA, which if done well, can have a high CTR.
- The message on the CTA: The message is obviously important. Showing the benefits or highlights of your offering and using first person in your CTA can increase conversions. For example, ‘Increase my revenue’ may be a more appealing phrase to a potential buyer than than ‘Contact Us Today’ if you are offering any type of online marketing services.
- The color, size and font of the CTA: Your CTA should stand out enough to be noticed, but not scream at the visitor. Using appealing colors and sizing that is proportionate to the rest of the page is important. With many aspects of conversions, testing is key. There is no perfect size, color or wording for everyone. You need to test and test again on your own site to find out what works best. But once you find it, all the hard work will pay off. Improved conversions from CTA testing can lead to double digit increases in conversion rate in some cases.
Offer free shipping and returns: It has been shown that online shoppers are far more likely to buy if they know they don’t have to pay for shipping. Consumers will also buy more if they know they will not have to pay for shipping on any returns they may have.
In fact, not only are more sales made, but often time consumer-friendly shipping and return policies lead to higher returning customer rates and brand loyalty. People like things they know they can count on. Provide value and shoppers will return.
You should also offer multiple shipping options. If you offer expedited shipping (at added costs) you will be able to cater to customers who need a product urgently and those who are not in a hurry can enjoy your free shipping.
Offer discounts: Often times a simple discount will increase conversions and lure in more buyers. But be careful not to take this too far. Discounts should be chosen wisely and not appear shady (80% off, buy one get two free etc.) or you risk lowering the perceived value of your product and pricing.
Providing discounts at the time of checkout is an easy way to push sales. You can also thank your long-term or loyal buyers by providing them discount codes for their next purchase.
Have an easy checkout option: A number of people are still afraid of buying online due to the potential risks involved. If you offer multiple payment methods (PayPal, Credit Cards, etc.) and a secure encrypted checkout process, people will feel more confident in the buying process and will be more likely to purchase from you. Make these things clear to the user with badges or banners on your site
Lastly, make the process simple. Unnecessary registration, sign-ups, or email confirmations may be a major turnoff to the user. Asking for additional steps past the purchase they are trying to make may cause frustration and take time they don’t want to spend, potentially leading to them abandoning the process.
Offer live chat: One of the major reasons why shopping cart abandonment rate is as high as 75% is due to business’s failure to answer buyer’s questions. You can decrease this rate by offering live chat which will allow users to directly interact with customer support and get answers to their questions immediately. Live chat is quickly becoming the preferred method of customer - business interaction.
As with any customer support, live chat is there to help the consumer. Make sure your staff is well trained and always thinking client-first. Happy clients mean more sales and chat is a great way to quickly please people shopping your site who may have pause and are in need of answers or help.
A well trained and experienced live chat support person can also handle multiple chat sessions at once - maximizing client interaction and efficiency. Compared to phone calls or emails, live chat has the potential to be far more useful to the client and the business.
Provide as much information as possible: Whether you have live chat or not, make sure the buyer has all the information they need to make a purchase. Shopper are more inclined to leave a site and look for the same product on another site if they do not find all of the information they are looking for.
In addition to product or service information like pricing, shipping, and basic details, shoppers love to see feedback from other buyers. Not only do they learn about those other buyers experiences with your brand - hopefully reinforcing why they should purchase from you - but other buyers also provide context and information on products that you won’t have on your site and that others may find valuable.
There are very technical and strategic ways to work on conversion rate optimization that can have huge impacts for small and large businesses. But many businesses simply need to start with the basics and grow from there. If you are lucky enough to have consistent traffic to your online business look to focus on one CRO technique at a time, gradually refining and testing until you improve. Then move to the next.