posted by ADMIN // March 18, 2009 // Build Your Website

Getting visitors to your e-commerce website is a hard job, getting visitors to make a purchase is even harder. However, it is much more cost effective to improve your website's performance and convert current site visitors than to generate new ones.

If you are selling inexpensive items under $50, a good rule of thumb is that one in fifty visitors will make a purchase. Websites selling higher-end merchandise may need a hundred or more visitors to make one sale. An e-commerce website with many visitors and no sales needs to find the problem that stops visitors from making a purchase.

Your first step should be determining at what point your visitors are leaving your site before making a purchase. Conversion rates can easily be increased by studying your website analytics and pinpointing the problem.

Visitors that leave your ecommerce website in under 10 seconds after viewing the landing page are considered “bounced.” A bounce rate of 50% or more is a cause for concern. You may be attracting visitors that are not interested in your product. If this is the case, your marketing efforts need to be re-directed to your target audience. For example, if you sell diamond jewelry including the keyword phrase “buy diamond jewelry” in your marketing campaigns may eliminate visitors who only wish to learn how to clean their diamond jewelry.

A high bounce rate may simply be the result of a poor landing page. Splash pages may alienate visitors using dial-up connections. A home page that loads too slowly due to large graphics or unnecessary animations will have your visitors hitting the back button in about 20 seconds if the page is not fully loaded.

In addition, your landing page should let your visitors know they are in the right place and that you are selling the products that they were searching for. Your sales copy should include the benefits your website offers visitors and include strong calls for action. A "call to action" is simply a prompt asking the website visitor to do something, such as purchase your product or request more information.

Websites that don't look trustworthy have a hard time converting visitors into buyers. Visitors will not make a purchase if they get a bad feeling about your website. All e-commerce website should have their full contact information highly visible including a physical address. The entire website should look professional with no spelling or grammatical errors. Trust can also be earned by offering guarantees and making sure that your privacy policy and security features are clear and concise. Add testimonials to your website to show your potential customers that there are other people just like themselves who have purchased and were pleased with your products.

Trustworthy websites with great products still need to make a visitor's shopping experience pleasant. Navigation should be geared toward the customers convenience. Products should be easy to find and easy to purchase. Detailed product descriptions and clear pictures will convert browsers into buyers far more than vague descriptions and blurry pictures.

Visitors that do not convert into buyers may simply not like your prices. Selling a hot product at a cheap price sounds like a great way to make sales, but you may actually be hurting sales. People are naturally suspicious of a deal that sounds too good to be true. Your prices should be in line with your competitors prices. Too high, and you will lose sales. Too low, your items will appear to be of inferior quality.

Conversion does not occur until your visitors complete a purchase. A high rate of shopping cart abandonment indicates a problem in your website's checkout process. Visitors want an easy and quick checkout without registration forms or the need to supply unnecessary information. Offer customers other checkout options such as phone or fax orders.

Sometimes the best websites still may have trouble converting visitors into buyers. One or two small simple changes can make a huge difference in conversion rates. Change your 10 point ad copy font to 12 point. It may not look at good to you, but it will be easier on your visitors eyes. Avoid lengthy paragraphs, try bullet points instead. The easier it is for your visitors to read your website, the longer they will stay. Longer visits equal better conversion rates.

Are you too close to your site to notice the problems you have? Sometimes it takes a fresh set of eyes to notice the small details that keep your site from reaching its optimal conversion rate. Ask friends who regularly shop online for an objective opinion. Sometimes the simplest things have the biggest impact on conversion rates. A few simple changes could significantly increase your bottom line.

Article Source:

Please login or register to post a new comments