Getting traffic only matters if you can convert it.

There are so many websites, new ones launched every day but only a few generate revenue because they are able to convert traffic into paying customers.

This is not something easy to achieve, in fact, for most eCommerce businesses a purchase conversion takes more than one micro-conversion which might include: Ad click - email subscription - email click - purchase.

By definition, Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who took the desired action.

The main examples of conversions events to track in eCommerce include:

Email subscription
Product browser
Add to cart
Initiate check-out
Purchase
Review
Refer
Contact

For example, if we generate 10,000 visitors on our blog and only 500 subscribers to our newsletter, the conversion rate is 5%. Only 5% of the total visitors took the conversion event.

It’s important to optimize for higher conversion rates because generating new traffic from existing channels like Facebook and Google is increasingly becoming more competitive and expensive.

And by improving conversion rate, businesses are able to get more value out of any traffic they attract mainly two ways:

More revenue, the more visitors take desired actions on your website like purchases, the more revenue you generate. This is how eCommerce stores with low traffic volume are able to generate more revenue than those with a lot of traffic.

Increased customer engagement, An engaged customer is a happy customer.

If the traffic generated is consistently converting on different offers, downloads, contests, it shows an increase in customer engagement and interest in your brand.

According to Invespcro.com the average conversion rate for an eCommerce website is 2-3% and if this is increased even by a slight margin, revenue generated can increase proportionately.

How to improve conversion rate

Before we go into the strategies you can use to improve conversion rate, there are two basic fundamentals you need to get right if any of your optimizations are going to work.

Traffic

Before you implement any on-site changes to increase conversion rate, first make sure you are generating the right traffic.

This happens a lot more times than you’d expect. People driving the wrong traffic and then wondering why they are not converting.

People don’t convert if something is not relevant to them or can help them in some way. Chances are whatever you’re to sell applies to only a specific group of people.

Don’t be surprised if an older audience is not converting well on your “Free TikTok eBook”

So before you drive any kind of traffic, make sure that they match your target audience otherwise your offer will seem useless however valuable it might be.

Reason to convert

If you want visitors to take a specific action, give them a compelling reason to do so. This can be anything of value to the visitor that they can get when they convert.

That can be an ebook, template, whitepaper, discount, coupon, or even products and services at purchase.

Whichever offer you choose, it has to be attractive enough for the visitor to take action.

This is why most eCommerce stores sell their products with a bunch of add-ons like discounts, free shipping, info guides, exclusive communities, custom packing, payment plans, good return policies, and so on.

Just to make the entire bundle attractive enough for someone to buy.

If your offer is not attractive enough, best believe Amazon or another competitor offering free shipping will make some sales.

Optimizing for copy, keywords, and designs is cool but you have to have a good offer for people to convert or at least better than your competitors.

Because trust me, people check.

Why do you think they take so long to purchase even when they saw the Ad or product page days before. They are looking for better offers.

Okay, suppose your offer is good and you are getting the right kind of traffic, what other improvements can you make to increase the conversion rate.

There is always room to improve. That 2-3% conversion rate is not standard. There are stores like NatoMounts doing 5% on average because they’ve invested more in getting more out of all the traffic they generate.

Here're a few things you can do on your site to boost conversions:

Onsite experience

There are a number of ways you can boost conversion rate but it’s always best to start with making improvements to your website including:

Page speed

Page speed is a measure of the time it takes for a page to load.

Page speed matters a lot to customers because nobody wants to sit around waiting for a single page to load when there’re a million other alternatives.

It’s not important that a one-second delay in load time means an overall 7% loss in conversions according to Skilled speed study.

Page speed also affects other components of your marketing including the quality score of your Facebook or Google Ads will be lower if visitors don’t convert.

And organic ranking in favor of pages that load faster.

But page speed is something that can be measured and improve in a number of the way like:

Use faster hosting solutions. It’s understandable to use a cheaper option in the beginning but as traffic grows, you need a hosting provider that can handle it.
Reduce the number of tracking codes or pixels implemented on your website because they affect loading speed. This is why businesses use tracking solutions like Segment.
Reduce image size, this seems simple enough but with the need to use high-quality images which are often large files. eCommerce businesses end up slowing their websites down.

There are more ways you can do to increase page speed, start by running a speed audit/test then implement changes to improve where necessary.

Navigation

Site navigation is about using design to help users move around your site and find whatever they are looking for.

As an eCommerce business, you want to have store navigation that easily guides a visitor to complete a purchase, even on the first visit.

No matter the devices used, whether it’s on mobile, desktop, or tablet visitors should be able to access the full functionality of your store without affecting their user experience.

Here are 2 best ways you can improve store navigation without redesigning the entire site.

Make top categories prominent

Make it easy for visitors to move across key pages on your website by turning them into categories. Categories can be blog topics, features of your product, or just a list of product types depending on what’s important for your business.

In eCommerce, the main/header navigation bar always has product categories, to make it easy for people to find what they need across the entire site.

The point is to make it easy for visitors to navigate your site and find what they want across devices

Add a search bar

A search bar is the only site navigation element you should not miss.

By default, if people don’t find what they are looking for on your site, they search for it.

Either on your site or back on Google.

2. Conversion experience

The most important conversion event for eCommerce businesses happens when a visitor completes their checkout.

eCommerce checkout usually comprises a series of steps a customer is supposed to take in order to pay for the products they want.

Some going to up to six steps:

View item page > Shopping cart > review items > Shipping & Billing info > Payment > Order confirmation.

According to Baymard, 21% of carts are abandoned because of complicated or too long check out processes.

Your checkout experience should be optimized to be as smooth as possible, or otherwise have over 20% of your earned conversions fail to get through.

Here're a few things you can do to improve checkout/conversion experience.

Make sure the cart is accessible on all devices. People use mobile phones, tablets, and desktops to browse and pay for products online. If your cart is not available on mobile then all mobile users won’t be able to checkout.

Keep the entire checkout process as short as possible and Keep the forms even shorter. Nobody wants s to spend time filling out forms.

Show checkout progress, sometimes the steps can’t be reduced but showing people their progress shows them
Allow for guest checkout. How about you make the sale first then you go after the account creation?

Chances are their people interested in buying without creating accounts, guest checkout helps you convert them as well.

At Humanlytics, we use data to help eCommerce businesses improve their conversion rate.

Using Dataslinger, we are able to collect data from different channels, analyze it, and provide you with a set of actions you can take to improve your conversion rate at any stage of the customer journey.

Get started with Humanlytics

3. Retargeting

It is normal for people to leave your site without converting. There’s a lot that happens in people’s daily lives that may distract them from converting to your offer.

With retargeting, you have a chance to remind such visitors to your products and give them a more compelling reason to convert.

Retargeting is one of the best ways to improve conversion rate because you’re able to bring back lost traffic into the funnel, providing you with another opportunity to convert them.

There are a number of channels used to bring back visitors including Ads for non-subscribers and email for subscribers.

Here are a few ways you can improve your retargeting campaign performance:

Provide relevant content

At every stage of the funnel, customers require different content to nurture them before they buy. Sometimes they miss such information, that’s why we use retargeting to ensure they receive all the necessary information.
For example, to new visitors, you can send more brand-related content, product benefits, social proof, and other top of the funnel content.
Matching content provided to the stage in the funnel helps improve conversion rate because you’re providing information customers need to convert.

Use compelling offers

If a customer didn’t convert on the first offer means that your offer is not good enough for them to take action or they are still considering other options. So the second time around, in your retargeting campaign, make sure you provide a better offer.

For example, if a customer didn’t convert on the 10% discount offer, in your retargeting campaign offer more than 10%.

Use different channels

Facebook is not the only channel you can use to retarget customers. For good reason, it’s usually the go-to channel for eCommerce businesses mainly because of its advanced audience targeting and lower cost of Ads.

But it’s not the only channel you can use to reach potential and past customers. Once someone lands your site, you can use retargeting campaigns to bring them back, and the more channels you cover, the better.

Channels like EmailGoogle Ads, Bings Ads, Snapchat, and other native ad networks can be used to ensure you reach more people even though not on Facebook.

Conclusion

Improving a store’s conversion rate requires constant testing. Even if some things will get you an instant increase in conversions, so will take time.

Keep improving customer experience, as long as customers are happy, conversions will follow.

In the next part, we shall be reviewing how you can improve eCommerce conversion rate by building trust with your visitors.