While many stores invest lots of resources into being ready for their grand opening, few are truly great until they’ve observed how shoppers interact with their stores and made adjustments accordingly. Whether in-store retail or online E-commerce, the best stores generally look at data on a frequent basis, finding ways to improve their merchandising, layout, customer service, and even checkout experiences. For online storefronts, this process is known as Conversion Rate Optimization.
If you have an existing digital store, and are looking for ways to turn more of your traffic into sales, here are some top tips to follow:
Make a Great Impression
- Test your site for mobile compatibility
- Use effective Trust Symbols to elicit confidence from shoppers, like shopper guarantees
- Leverage product & merchant reviews to help buyers differentiate products
- Consider if your branding is modern and consistent
- Tell your story – Don’t be shy about sharing your company’s culture and principles
- Fix any broken links or loading issues that your site may have
Provide Great Information & Customer Service
- Provide options for Live Chat, Phone, and other ways to reach customer assistance
- Use images and video to tell a complete story
- Share content that will help guide your shoppers – more than just basic product data
- Offer translated content for shoppers in various target markets
Help Shoppers Get to the Finish Line
- Ensure that your website loads quickly
- Make sure that the search box on your site delivers great search results
- Use search filters on category and search results pages
- Provide a quick checkout experience
- Leverage your analytics and webmaster tools data to identify weak links in your site
- Use advanced fraud tools to make sure that you don’t accidentally block good orders
Keep an Eye on Your Competition
- Give users shipping options that are competitive and reasonable
- If you aren’t the most affordable vendor, help promote why you’re better
- Offer loyalty / rewards programs, free gifts, gift wrapping, discount codes, and other unique benefits
Don’t Lose Touch!
- Collect email addresses, even from shoppers that aren’t ready to purchase yet
- Get visitors to engage with your social media pages
- Use Remarketing to remind visitors to come back to your store
- Send emails to shoppers that left items in their cart
- Offer mobile apps with push notifications
Kick it up a Notch
- Split Testing allows you to see if different content, designs, and features impact sales
- Personalization tools allow you to show different products and messaging to different shoppers
- Advanced Analytics systems can help you to more readily identify where you need to improve
Not sure where to begin? Consider a digital agency help to audit your site. Often, a fresh set of eyes can bring a lot of value to the table. At Rand Marketing, we offer a complimentary initial conversion optimization review of your site, looking at many high-level factors that we can observe just by reviewing your website.
About the Author
Robert Rand of RandMarketing.com was educated at NYU Poly and has managed the development and marketing of hundreds of websites. Along with Rand’s award winning team, he helps clients take their businesses to the next level by employing best practices, while staying at the forefront of the eCommerce and internet marketing industries. From technical issues to traditional marketing efforts, Robert takes pride in providing our clients with services that will make a difference in their bottom lines.
