Many ecommerce owners get website visitors but end up making no sales. Customers prefer buying products online due to technological changes, convenience, and comfort, and it is cheaper than visiting physical stores. The demand is very high, and for you to stand out, you must implement several ways to stand out from the rest.
According to the Unbounce report, most ecommerce platforms average a conversion rate of 4% despite having thousands and millions of visitors. Optimizing your site for conversion increases sales, which only happens when you implement different actions on your site. In this guide, I will look at several ways one can implement for ecommerce site for more conversions.
15 Ways on How to Design Your E-commerce Site to Increase Conversions
Many users struggle with what actions to take to improve their site to make users purchase something. You must make your e-commerce site very friendly when it is visited. Some of the tips for increasing conversions include the following:
- Increasing website speed.
- Making your site responsive to all devices.
- Use of Call To Action buttons.
- Use of a trusted SSL.
- Use of live chat service.
- Perform A/B testing.
- Implement Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
- Track customer analytics and clicks.
- Use of clear images.
- Use of social media.
- Use a simple design layout.
- Implementing product reviews on your ecommerce site.
- Easy checkout.
- Free shipping.
- Several payment methods.
1. Increasing website speed
When your site loads faster, users are likely to make purchases, increasing conversion. Some websites you can use to check your site’s speed include Pingdom, GTmetrix, and Google PageSpeed Insights. Understand your site speed and implement the recommendations as per your checker used. If the site takes more time to load, it can lead to timeouts making customers run away.
To increase site speed, implement the following activities:
- Minifying all HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code.
- Improving your hosting plan.
- Optimizing and compressing the images using different software and plugins.
- Caching all the website pages.
- Use of asynchronous loading when dealing with JavaScript and CSS.
- Use of CDN and elimination of unnecessary plugins.
2. Making your site responsive to all devices
Most customers use their mobile devices to do shopping. You can achieve this by ensuring your site adjusts according to the customer’s device. If your site is not responsive, you will lose many sales due to the difficulties customers face when navigating on your site. According to Zippia, 79% of smartphone users do shopping from their devices.
If you have an old site that is not responsive, update the existing pages or do another design from scratch. Another way to see if your site is mobile-friendly, apart from the tests across different devices, is to look at your analytics and view where your visitors come from. It also has an impact on the loading speed.
3. Use of Call To Action buttons (CTA)
Customers unsubscribe from emails that they feel are not useful once they open them. To avoid this issue, owners of ecommerce platforms should use call-to-action buttons to make customers purchase something. Many customers fear sending their data unless you convince them they will get something better.
Some examples of calls to action you can use include buy now, add to basket, etc. Ensure you use the right color that is noticeable and does not affect the user’s experience. Every page should have its own CTA; they cannot be the same everywhere.
4. Use of a trusted SSL
5. Use of live chat service
There are many cases where customers get confused about particular products on your site. It forces the customers to seek immediate help, and the live chat solves this. Once they get fast feedback from the customer service team, they will understand everything and buy the product, increasing conversion.
You can also implement a live chat that uses a chatbot to communicate with the clients. It should be well programmed to answer the customer’s queries correctly without any errors. They are available 24/7 and engage with customers well, leading them to their desired products. Producing timely results improves the brand image and creates trust between you and your customers.
6. Perform A/B testing
Several tests you have to perform after designing an ecommerce site before sticking with the one that does well. It will make more people buy your products and services. Some tests include why pages are not converting and why users abandon their carts.
After that, you can test other aspects of the site, like headlines, layouts, descriptions, colors, and navigation. Once you get what the user clicks on mostly and makes a purchase, you work with that and make changes to your website.
7. Implement Search Engine Optimization(SEO)
SEO enables customers to find you online when they search for a product. It makes customers find you on Google without ads and can improve your conversion rates. It takes more time to see the full results of SEO, learn to be patient when implementing this practice. Develop an SEO strategy to promote your site.
Some of the common practices include the use of keywords in product titles, and descriptions, the use of headings and meta descriptions, and avoiding keyword stuffing. There are also cases of Google penalties where it penalizes sites that go against the Google Search guidelines. Be keen not to be hit by any updates. One of the best ways to improve SEO is to write detailed product descriptions and use blog posts.
8. Track customer analytics and clicks
There are many software you can install on your site to monitor your analytics and performance of the site. Examples include fathom analytics, Google analytics, and Monster insights. They give you a detailed breakdown of where conversions occur, where they come from, and the pages that convert most. You can then use the data to create more marketing materials and make adjustments.
9. Use clear images and videos
When posting images on your site, ensure to use clear images to try and capture the customer’s interest. The photos must capture all the angles, be of high quality, and have all the features customers look at. When capturing the videos, ensure its detailed and customers can visualize them easily. Dont forget to implement the zoom-out feature during the development process.
Using low-quality images reduces the chances of potential customers making a sale on your site. They might judge you by the look of your images. It will also create a bad perception of your brand, making you have fewer conversions.
10. Use social media
Use large social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to create good customer relationships. Share all your announcements, product reviews, offers, discounts, and product updates on the social media pages and monitor engagement. They will engage through likes, comments, and shares, making your brand relatable to them and leading to few sales.
11. Use a simple design layout
Ensure your site design is simple, from the navigation bars, the home page, checkout, cart, single pages, etc. Having a clean design will guarantee higher engagements which lead to higher conversions. Ensure that it’s easy for the customers to move across your site without any struggle. It makes them find products easily and make a purchase.
12. Implementing product reviews on your ecommerce site
Many customers read reviews before making any purchase. It enables them to understand other customers’ experiences and the quality of the products. Ensure your site accepts and shows reviews to the customers. Ensure you get positive reviews, as negative reviews can turn the customer away, reducing conversions.
Another method that works is the use of testimonials. It works mostly for service-based businesses. Good reviews and testimonials show your site credibility and that all your products are legit and high-quality. It also indicates that many users purchase your products and enjoy using them.
13. Easy checkout
Optimizing the checkout page increases conversion rates very quickly. It makes it easy for the user to understand it and use fewer fields on the checkout form. Other ways of ensuring an easy checkout include:
- Using guest checkout. Many customers are fast and like to buy fewer products. When you offer them guest checkout, they are likely to purchase. When you ask them to create an account, it increases the chances of having many abandoned carts.
- Use of Persistent shopping cart- All the products are saved in the customer cart in case they don’t buy, and when they come back for a purchase, they still find them there, and the user might end up making a purchase.
- Use of one-click checkout. It is where the customer adds the product to the cart and checks out without moving out of the product pages.
14. Free shipping
When a customer visits your site, they always have some expectations from the ecommerce sites they visit. Many expect free shipping, and if they miss it, they look for someone else who does it for them. Many site owners worry about implementing this to cover the total costs.
One of the common ways to achieve this is by adding the shipping cost to the product’s price and then offering free shipping. You must be keen as shoppers are very keen on prices, they can run away when they notice someone else with cheaper prices.
15. Use of several payment methods
There are hundreds of payment methods online, from direct deposits, bitcoin, credit cards, and invoices. Determining which one to use can be challenging for first-time ecommerce owners. All you need to do is analyze your market, look at the commonly used payment methods, and apply them to your site.
Most shoppers, i.e., credit cards, must use the payment method you select. Some commonly used methods include PayPal, Stripe, Braintree credit card, and Coinbase for bitcoin.
Conclusion
Ecommerce sites have become the leading shopping platforms for every individual, and there are many sites that or on the web but not making sales. As a site owner, implement some of the practices above and do everything to satisfy the customer. For better conversion, you must stand out from the rest.