Let’s face it! Launching and building an eCommerce platform takes a lot of effort. First, you have to decide what to sell, where to source items, how to set up the store, and how to gain traffic to your website. However, there are some dos and don’ts for encouraging customers to purchase from you in an increasingly competitive digital space. This is known as conversion.
Therefore, you need to optimize your eCommerce site for better conversions which, in turn, increase your sales. Here are nine proven tips that will help increase sales on your website.
#1. Lower The Number of Steps in The Checkout Process
Once visitors land on your site, they should be able to shop for their preferred products without having to endure long processes. Research shows that 60% of visitors are likely to leave the site without carting away if the steps are more than four. The hack is to lower the number of steps required for adding to the cart to at most four.
This shortens your conversion funnel process and encourages visitors to make their purchases. Remember, the customers also want to spend less time finding and purchasing their preferred products.
#2. Improve On-Site Search
When visitors use the on-site search engine, they let you know about their user intent. They type in what they are looking for in their language. The data you gather from the information keyed in by the site visitors can help you improve your overall eCommerce website. To improve the visitor’s search experience, you should:
- Place your search bar in a conventional location where shoppers expect to find it with ease, for example, at the upper-right corner of the pages.
- Offer advanced search options to help visitors refine their searches
- Evaluate on-site search analytics data to see what people are looking for regularly.
If you can make it possible for visitors to search for items on your site, you will inevitably increase the conversion rate.
#3. Improve Ranking on Google
To stay competitive, you will have to ensure that your eCommerce site ranks among the top searches on Google. This is important as customers will not have to dig through many sites to find your site. Increasing the visibility of your site can be achieved in different ways. First, ensure that the content is optimized. Use keywords that people search online and try to answer questions people often ask on Google.
Another tip is to acquire a wildcard ssl certificate to secure your chosen main domain and an unlimited number of subdomains under it. This will not only eliminate incidences of MITM attacks but also engender trust amongst customers. Google prefers sites that value and protects the privacy of its users.
Hence, it has taken a stance to ensure that its data is protected. It does so by ranking secure sites higher on search rankings than the ones which are unprotected. With an SSL certificate installed on your site, you will likely rank higher on the Google search engine.
#4. Optimize Your Site Speed
57% of online shoppers say they have left a slow eCommerce site and then bought from a competing retailer. Business psychologists state that online brands have only three seconds to capture a shopper’s attention in today’s hyper-fast world. Optimizing your page for speed will help customers experience consistently fast page load times across the site. Many eCommerce business owners agree that loading speed is the most significant and instant impact on business. Some of the steps to increase the speed of your site may include:
- Reducing the size of the page
- Utilizing caching and in-memory technology
- Specifying image dimensions; and
- Avoiding redirects
#5. Utilize Product Images Strategically
Unlike a physical store that offers the clients a tactile experience, an eCommerce store will require you to make more efforts to create believable experiences. For example, you will find it more difficult to sell clothes online than you would in a physical store. This is because people cannot fit on the clothes before buying, making them a bit wary.
However, you can use product images strategically. The images should exactly show the colour and design of the item. In addition, a short product description will go in handy. Hence, you can complement model images with customer-submitted visual content to give your site visitors a sense of authenticity.
#6. Include Social Proof
Customers will be drawn to buy from businesses that others have bought from before. Hence, it has become an increasingly valuable thing to include social proof on your eCommerce site. This includes adding a page for reviews from other customers, testimonials from previous clients, and shared pictures of clients and their products. Social proof makes customers or users trust your website and services.
Besides, a potential client is likely to believe what other customers say before deciding to purchase from your business. Furthermore, genuine reviews from customers will include positive and negative feedback. This creates a sense of credibility and balance and is likely to encourage the site visitor to buy from your business.
#7. Improve Your Site Security
Customers and site visitors are now more vigilant than ever when it comes to online shopping. The reason is, they leave a trail of data, and they want to know that it is safe. For example, clients will fill in details that include their names, emails, and passwords while providing information to your site. And when paying using their credit cards, they will leave personal data with you. Hence, it becomes crucial to promise them that their data is safe from unauthorized access by third parties. That is why you need to consider getting a cheap wildcard ssl Certificate for your eCommerce website.
A Wildcard SSL is highly effective, affordable, and easily manageable. Besides, it allows you to secure various domains and first-level sub-domains, thus protecting the security of your clients on any page of the website.
You can protect the login page, the shopping page, and other first-level subdomains under the main domain with a single wildcard SSL certificate. This eliminates the need for buying and managing separate single-domain SSL certificates for each new subdomain that you add.
#8. Optimize Product Pages
You can reduce the time your site visitors spend looking for products. Instead of cluttering your pages with products and their images, you can categorize them thematically. For example, if you are dealing with clothes, you can categorize them based on the age of the prospective buyers.
You can have a list of children’s clothes and adult clothes. You can also categorize them based on gender. It will significantly lower the amount of time a site visitor takes to look for the product they intend to buy, increasing the conversion rate.
In A Nutshell
Starting an eCommerce business takes intentional effort. This is especially due to increased competition on online stores. The good thing is that you can take a few effortless steps to increase your brand visibility and conversion of your site.
