It is essential to understand what to do and what not to do to increase customer sales from your company as the online buying community continues to grow more competitive. E-Commerce conversion rate optimization is the most critical metric to keep your eye on when planning to expand your company.

The essential KPI to keep track of for eCommerce websites is conversion rate. To drastically increase your ROI, you can and should comprehend how to best benefit your website by implementing conversion rates. 

A survey administered amongst marketers in the United States and the United Kingdom revealed that nearly 90% of personalized efforts induce an optimistic ROI outcome.

Despite this, it is still crucial to acknowledge that conversions do not occur – businesses must designate time for them and, more importantly, make the most effective use of them.

This appeals to you if you are beginning your eCommerce journey, running the business alone, or acting as the marketing director or manager eager to achieve big KPIs and goals. The first big question is – how do you define a conversion?

What are Conversion Rates in eCommerce?

It is the percentage or amount of people who bought a product from your store via the Internet.

Standard conversions for eCommerce websites include products in the cart, online sales, items in wishlists, email registrations, shares via social media, and KPIs that are valuable to your brand or company. 

Conversion is quite a broad subject, as every aspect of the online user experience on your website can impact it.

CRO, or conversion rate optimization, enhances the digital purchasing venture to conduct a distinct KPI, often sales. CRO may be executed on category pages, landing pages, or customer touchpoints. 

How do You Calculate a Conversion Rate?

To determine the conversion rate, divide the conversion amount by the whole amount of visitors. Almost all analytics tools supply these rates within data segmentation.

Before trying to boost your rates, it is vital to understand how your present online visitors are acting to create appropriate conversion rate standards for your digital store. How are your online visitors connecting with your eCommerce website? Where do online customers find themselves getting stuck?

Once these benchmarks are found, you should compare them to gauge success.

When professionals discuss conversion increases, you often hear a recurring theme: testing. However, before acknowledging what you should experiment with, you must understand your present conversion rate issues.

 

How is a Promising e-Commerce Conversate Rate Determined? 

The average conversion rates range from 2.5% to 3%. Despite doing all the right things, you should still predict winning sales around 2% to 3% of the time.

A 3% or higher conversion rate must be the minimum objective for your digital store. Once you achieve your minimum goal, you can move to more evolved conversion rate strategies.

 

Different Metrics that Calculate eCommerce Conversions

A few metrics are significant when talking about conversion outside of how well your store can convert.

To naturally improve your across-the-board conversion rate for your store, you must move these metrics in the correct direction.

 

Bounce Rate

This is the amount and percentage of online viewers who depart after viewing only one page. 

Higher bounce rates are very unideal, implying that people fail to locate what they desire in your shop and depart immediately from your website.

 

Exit Rate

This is the number and percentage of online viewers who depart after looking at the page. Exit rates tell what page each online user was last on before they leave and move on.

You must pay attention to your exit rates, as high ones on one specific page can signify one or multiple red flags. You can use this to help organize the optimization of your landing page.

 

CTR

Also known as click-through rate, CTR is the specific amount of online viewers who go to your website after clicking a link from an email or ad.

To get more clicks by users on your website, you should optimize AdWords or email marketing campaigns as they most often focus on that and engaging via social media.

 

Average Session Duration

This metric provides a general idea of how much time people spend on your website online. 

An increased bounce rate indicates a lower average time on the website, which ultimately signifies that online visitors do not stay around long enough to convert.

 

Average Page Depth

Also known in Google Analytics as pages per session, this indicates the number of online pages a possible virtual shopper visited before departing. This metric estimates the number of total page views per session duration. It is essential to acknowledge that higher page views mean more engagement and a lack of transparency in your conversion funnel if there is no currency conversion.

 

Improving eCommerce Conversion Rates with Tools

To help examine your present conversion rate problems, you should utilize one of the many helpful and practical eCommerce tools, such as HotJar.

This is an excellent tool for comprehending how your online users engage with your site from a higher point of view.

Through HotJar, it is treated like a heat-mapping tool. Depending on which plan you are utilizing, each heatmap experimentation allows you to see where exactly your online users are clicking, moving, or scrolling on your site. This gives you a more detailed look into their behavior habits on your website.

If you are looking at how to best supply your company with data on how to best engage with online users and which specific assistance they need, you should look at tools like live user playback, real-time suggestion boxes, and personalized user surveys. 

In addition, to focus on exact features and specific types of online users, you can manage your attribute-based criteria based on page views, location, device, online visit length, and much more.

 

Quantcast Measure

This analytics tool is tag-based and supplies a slot between Facebook Analytics and Google Analytics. It calculates the site utilization of online users and supplies advanced demographic information based on clicks.

Quantcast Measure gives you a detailed understanding of who your online visitors/consumers are on a much more personal and thorough level which can then be used from a business intelligence perspective. This is helpful for creative teams, who can then fit specific messages and images to apply more sincerely.

In addition, Quantcast has a choice to regard metrics on a design layout that shows the statistical data as an amount of the total.

Google Analytics

This is an advantageous asset to several websites. The outlet provides you with a great perspective of your online visitors. This includes:

• How people discovered your site online could stem from Google keyword searches, direct visits, or referral websites.
• The duration visitors remain on your site.
• The origin of online visitors.
• Whether the online visitors are new or returning.
• Which browser was being used in addition to what device was used.
• The number of online visitors that converted and which exchange led to the conversion
• Being able to track paid traffic.

 

30 Tactics to Increase Your eCommerce Conversion Rates

 

1. Utilize high-definition photos and videos on your products’ pages.

Visualize what you would like to see when shopping online. When buying things online, you are unable to touch the item physically. The next best thing to do is to have a high-definition video or image to help the buyer understand precisely what they’re purchasing.

Using high-definition videos and images on these pages that display products can help improve the online users’ visualization of the items they are intrigued by and can therefore boost conversion rates.

 

2. Provide free shipping as an option.

Digital buyers anticipate a specific baseline that they have gotten used to and are familiar with, like Amazon. In today’s day of age, shipping things for free is necessary, and if your digital store cannot offer to ship for free, there is a high chance that buyers will look at other online stores.

Another alternative to shipping things for free is to raise the prices of products and items, ultimately covering what would have been the price of shipping. Despite this alternative, online buyers are intelligent and clever. If your online store’s prices are astronomical, they will most likely look at another online store.

 

3.  Offer coupon codes for a limited time only.

Make discounts or coupon codes that shoppers can utilize when checking out for only a certain amount of time to receive a portion of their purchase.

Once your discount expires, a feeling of urgency will rush over your online shoppers, and they will soon want to buy something.

 

4. Price your products competitively.

When your store sells brand-name items, there is a high chance you must list your products either below or at the moderate or average price to contest against others. You must be conscious of changing the costs often to learn what resounds.

The rate of your commerce skills will significantly affect the cost that people want to pay. If you advertise your company to the correct group of people, you will surely see profits.

 

5. Change and experiment with your eCommerce checkout strategy.

When your online store has too long of a checkout process, it is possible to lose customers when they’re prepared to purchase. You should not have any complex checkout process.

Several enterprise norms or benchmarks exist for most of the hosted eCommerce websites. However, there is still the possibility of needing to alter the strategy depending on your buyers.

 

6. Use programs that monitor abandoned shopping carts.

When handling abandoned carts, programs that manage abandoned carts will be able to boost your online store’s conversion rates.

A few eCommerce outlets present this software version for free as it is a feature of the store’s functionality.

The triumph of this program is not the same for every company; however, it is without suspicion that it can aid eCommerce website stores that utilize these programs.

7.  Utilize programs for live chat and chatbots.

When your stores use live-chat programs and chatbots, your company can aid your online buyers to respond to their inquiries quickly, all without waiting for long times via phone calls. 

While chatbots usually replicate the human element of live conversations, these two options are generally regarded as other choices to one another. However, businesses utilizing both have the highest chance of the best triumph despite being chosen over the other.

 

8.  Make sure your shoppers know that your online store is secure and safe.

Associations must develop trust between their online buyers to have them confidently input their payment data into your digital store. Trust signals can boost conversion, as proven by split tests significantly.

Being able to find different methods to improve your credibility and trust must be the foundation for your site’s conversion rate optimization movements.

Online buyers want to be aware that they’re engaging with a fair and honest online store with security measures that align with the industry standard. Doing this promises your online buyers that their digital payment details will be guarded on your website.

 

Here are some ways to help:

• Download and utilize SSL site-wide and at checkout.
• Display smaller images of PayPal, credit cards, and various payment alternatives. In doing this, you show a visual sign of utilizing payment choices that customers can and should trust. 
• Security badges like GeoTrust and Display McAfee ensure that your account with them is active. Steer clear of adding images when you are not protected. 
• Organize your website to guide your online shoppers to products easily.

You want your online buyers to be able to reach the product they are looking for as quickly as possible. To achieve this, you should organize your item/product sections analytically by sectioning different categories like “Shop by Product Type,” “Shop by Color,” etc.

Suppose you implement a banner that rotates to display the top items and set up a search engine on your website to help your online buyers quickly find the products they seek. In that case, you can create a more accessible online shopping experience for your buyers. When visitors to your website can find an item quickly and easily, they are much more likely to go through with a purchase from your company.

 

9. Have an easy checkout process.

When checking out at the end of an online sale, ensure everything is completely transparent and easily understood—your input formats and CVV.

Try to restrict what can be entered into exact form fields, which simplifies the method for online users. 

• When online buyers input their credit card information, make an automatic layout. Therefore, it is easier to move along as a checkout process and much more difficult for them to make a mistake. 
• When inputting dates, do not allow the online user to type freely. Instead, have a dropdown option for the date or a date selector to be more specific. 

It is essential to ensure your users do not feel any discomfort or difficulty while checking out of your online store. This is primarily because online users often start hesitantly sharing their personal payment information. 

 

10. Turn to digital wallets to help immensely.

Digital or electronic wallets are the newest payment options that serve as apps or payment processors, such as Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, PayPal Express, and more. These programs enable online users to log in with their profile information, which is one of the faster and safer ways to checkout.

 

11. Preview what’s in their shopping cart.

When online users cannot find their shopping cart, they can’t complete the purchase and checkout.

If you implement a digital shopping cart icon with a link to get to it following the online user putting a product into the cart, it will permit your online buyers to view what they’re attempting to purchase as they are wrapping up and checking out.

 

12. Permit guest checkout

Make sure there is an option to checkout as a guest rather than mandating they have an account. You will probably have their email and name following their purchase.

Suppose you mandate that they have a registered account before checking out. In that case, you are giving them another task before being satisfied with their order and giving them a different excuse to exit your digital store.

 

13. Provide precise descriptions of your products.

If you depict each product in detail, your digital buyers will know what they’re purchasing. 

It is important to remember that they cannot touch or see the product in an in-person store. In addition, providing exact details will prevent future returns.

In addition, if you add a video that displays your products, it can represent a great accessory to descriptions of your products.

 

14. Permit customer testimonials and show product reviews.

Amazon is so successful for many reasons, but one of the main reasons is the large scale of product testimonials left by real customers.

Real customer testimonials are necessary for the online buying universe. Customer reviews portray your company’s excellent and positive success, so having a high abundance of them will help influence other future buyers.

Maintaining positive reviews on your website will make your business grow immensely. To help keep thoughts positive, you can provide your online buyers with discount codes or other versions of encouragement. Therefore, when they make an online purchase on your website, they receive a reward when they provide a review.

In addition, testimonials on your products are great for businesses based on service. When your digital buyers publicly write why they picked your organization and the advantages you give them, you establish your business as a trusted and valuable company with a valuable item.

 

15. Display your “Checkout” and “Add to Cart” buttons.

Once an online buyer is debating purchasing online, they can be further motivated to go through with the purchase with the help of an actionable button. This button guides the buyer into following through with the purchase as it shows how to add it to the cart or checkout and is visible compared to the other factors on the page, like photos or text.

When you do not have these buttons on your online store, it is usually because marketers are overthinking things.

BigCommerce has a Buy Button that is customizable. They offer to contribute to your website to receive said modifications.

 

16. Provide a fantastic return policy for your products.

Before online buyers go through with their purchases, 2 out of every 3 consumers wait to read a company’s return policy before completing the sale. Make sure not to create a return policy you cannot adhere to, but make sure it is as simple and easy for your consumers as it is to return and refund products potentially.

While this is not strictly under conversion optimization, it is a different example of classic business strategies working as a CRO. Once you can create a trustworthy relationship between you and your digital buyers, your sales will drastically increase along with your conversion rates.

 

17. Make your website optimized for shopping on mobile devices.

In about three years, over 10% of retail deals and sales in the US are expected to generate via mobile commerce. This is increased growth by over 6% since four years ago.

You will lose significant sales if your online store has a bad mobile experience.

BigCommerce, along with other hosted stores, supports this need. However, you may have to change how it appears and functions on a portable phone for your business requirements.

 

18. Show your company’s contact number clearly.

Having a contact number displayed well on your site can reduce the customer’s anxiety as they will have a precise contact number to turn to if something goes wrong.

Having a phone number seems small and insignificant. However, it can go a long way in proving your authenticity and boosting your conversion rates.

 

19. Supply valuable written content.

Supply your online products with valuable written content. When your website’s products have more useful information, they are much more likely to follow through with their purchase from you.

In addition, to increase organic SEO traffic on your website, you must include written content on your product’s landing pages. This educates, informs, and engages your targeted audience.

 

20. Collect emails addresses

Visitors visiting your company’s website might take over one sitting to convert. Therefore, ensuring to capture emails used on your company’s website is vital.

Consider offering discount codes if you enable a graphic that pops up that can grab emails. Therefore, you can sell your products and company to them frequently while they’re still in the decision-making phase, drastically increasing your conversion rates.

 

21. Quickly get your online shoppers’ attention

Making sure you grab the attention of your website visitors within the first initial seconds is very important, as if you do not have them in that time frame, you most likely lose them.

What somebody on your site first sees and judges on a website is the company’s product images. Therefore, you must use high-resolution and more prominent photos on the main homepage to immediately grab the viewer’s attention.

 

22. Utilize calls to action, but not too frequently.

You want to avoid having too many choices and CTA buttons on just one singular screen, as it tends to overpower your visitors. Ensuring that all of your CTAQs are in the same place will ensure they aren’t too cluttered.

When you want your online buyer to use a specific CTA button, guide their eyesight to the one you hope they use with the correct text. For example, when on the product page, have and utilize an ‘Add to Cart’ button.

 

23. Unquestionably communicate your selling proposal.

Make your online visitor understand why they should purchase from your company.

Why are you as a company different from others that sell the same things? Is your value proposition unique? Why should I purchase from your company?

Make your online visitor want to shop with your company over everyone else.

 

24. Utilize spell check on your writing

Make sure to avoid any form of unprofessionalism, starting with typos and bad grammar. Spell everything and format everything correctly.

Despite typos and grammar seeming like minor detail, it is essential to have correct grammar and spelling as it will portray you in a much more competent and more legitimate company. The failure to ensure this may result in hurting your sales.

 

25. Calculate your conversion rate optimization success.

Ensure that your website changes and improvements are working as you want. The easiest way to do this is to check your company’s conversion rates and ensure they are increasing.

However, while increasing conversions is essential, you must pay attention to your worth per consumer and make sure your bottom line increases. You must prioritize knowing what you’ll do with the digital traffic that you receive rather than just trying to keep getting traffic.

 

26. Enforce a campaign for abandoned browsers.

If you want the software to activate emails to send to your company’s consumers once they’re on your digital site and don’t purchase from your website, you should utilize Klaviyo.

This program allows you to send a discount to them for the items they were searching for, all while reminding them why they must take advantage of such a great deal.

 

27. Consistently test

You want to be A/B trying new ideas very frequently as that is the ideal way to better your site’s conversion rates, specifically from the button’s color and font size to entire page redesigns.

 

28. Make it personal

If you want to speed up boosting your online purchases and growing your site’s conversion rates, you must prioritize making personalized moments for your online shoppers. Personalized online user experience allows you to prioritize your wanted action and message as the immediate attention of the online user.

 

29. Apply progress bars at the checkout.

You want to guide your online shoppers, so they know exactly how to checkout with a smooth and easy process, including letting them know how long it takes to finish their online purchase.

When you make the checkout process easier for your online shoppers, you have a higher likelihood of those same customers returning due to the fantastic online shopper encounter.

 

30. Put filters on your site’s category pages.

When you want to help steer your online shoppers in the right direction to find what they are looking for, you want to add filters.

Once you have done enough online research, you will be able to understand the types of questions your online shoppers have about your items. Based on those, you can make categories and filters for them.