Every entrepreneur can find it difficult to increase sales in their online shop. You may need to find new customers, run paid ads and drive more traffic to your website. The goal is always to get more: more ads, more traffic and more customers.

Imagine if you could increase your sales while lowering your acquisition costs. Conversion rate optimization is a way to make more from your existing customers and potential customers.

This article will cover everything you need about conversion rate optimization. This article will explain what conversion rate optimization is, and how to find areas that are profitable for your store. Eight common conversion rate optimizations you can implement today are also discussed.

What’s conversion rate optimization (CRO),?

It is best to dissect conversion rate optimization and ask more fundamental questions. What is a conversion?

When a visitor completes an action on your website, it is called a conversion. These goals are called macro-conversions. They represent the most impactful actions that potential customers can take, such as making a purchase or signing on for a free trial. These goals could also be called micro-conversions. They are smaller actions such as creating an account and subscribing for your email newsletter. Both macro- and micro-conversions play an important part of a healthy eCommerce channel, but they require different strategies and levels of effort. You’ll focus on repeat sales for macro-conversions, brand loyalty and retention. For micro-conversions, you may need to use a more personal approach to nurture visitors. You will need to send frequent emails to educate them about your company and products. This article will focus on macro-conversions. We’re referring to getting visitors to make a purchase.

The conversion rate refers to the percentage of visitors that complete the desired action. This is done by multiplying the number of conversions by your site’s total visitors and then multiplying it by 100.

This is how to calculate your conversion rate:

(Conversions/Total Visitors) * 100

Let’s take, for example, 50,000 people visited your store last month. From those 50,000 people, only 2,000 made a purchase. Your conversion rate would then be 4%, as 2,000 * 50,000 = 4.

This brings us to optimization, which is the process of increasing conversion rates for your site visitors. If your baseline conversion rate was 4%, you can increase it to 5%, or even 6%. Even a small increase in conversion rate can help you make thousands more dollars per year.

How do you identify areas that need optimization

You would optimize every aspect of your store in an ideal world. This could include the homepage, individual product pages, and the shopping cart. You have limited resources and time, so it is best to focus your efforts on those pages that will make the most impact on your business. How do you know where to begin?

There is no single solution that works for all businesses. To optimize your conversion rate, you need to understand your customers and create a custom plan. Optimizing your homepage could be the best way to increase sales. Others may find it more efficient to focus on the last stages of the buying process (like the shopping cart experience).

These are five ways to better understand your customer journey, and pinpoint areas that need optimization:

01. Find out how your customers navigate to your site

To see how customers use your store, look at your website analytics. The Google Analytics report “Users Flow”, for example, can help you see which order your customers visit your pages. In other words, which pages are most visited by customers after they have visited the homepage? The “Navigation Summary Report” can be used to choose a page (e.g. a product page) and then see where customers go next. This behavior will help you to focus optimization efforts on the most important pages and guide customers to those pages. You can also identify if customers are being directed to the wrong page or dropping off after visiting that particular page.

02. Identify your best-selling items

Many small tweaks can make a huge difference in conversion optimization. You can achieve faster results if these tweaks are made to your most popular product pages. You should identify your top-selling products and make sure that you are making the pages as appealing as possible. (Conduct A/B testing so you don’t risk making negative changes!)

03. Analyze search data

You can use a search function on your website to find out what customers are searching for. To find out which keywords customers are searching for when looking for your website, use Google Search Console and SEO software MOZ. If customers search for your store’s shipping policy and fees frequently, this could be an indication that they are looking for it too often on your site.

04. Read customer support inquiries

Pay attention to customer questions and identify patterns that can help you develop your website strategy. What are the most frequently asked questions, for example? These questions can be answered on your website, which could reduce the need for customer support and enhance the customer experience. You should incorporate the answers naturally into your store, if possible. To answer all questions, create an FAQ page.

05. Do user research

If your metrics don’t paint a clear picture, you can go straight to your customers. Wix chat allows you to communicate with site visitors in real-time and gain insights into their shopping experience. To encourage customers to complete a form and give feedback, you can add a lightbox. This form can be included in your automated email to customers who abandon carts or make purchases.

Eight expert examples to improve your conversion rate

After you have identified the areas where optimization will be most effective, you can start thinking about what you want to change.

These are eight examples of optimization that will inspire you:

1. High-quality visuals
2. Clear CTAs
3. Use whitespace
4. Mobile Design
5. Highlight customer reviews
6. Create a clear navigational system
7. Accelerate the checkout process
8. Offer payment options

01. High-quality visuals are a must

Professional product photography and videos will bring your products to life. Customers will feel more confident buying from you if there is a strong visual element on your product page. 90% of Etsy customers stated that images are very important in their decision-making process. A video explaining how to use complicated products or showing the before and after of your product could be helpful to customers to get them to click on the “Buy Now!” button.

BeagleDrones integrates videos seamlessly into product pages. You’ll see more of their drones as you scroll down, from filming fast car chases to aerial views of landscapes. These videos are a two-fold benefit for BeagleDrones. First, they show off the drone footage’s quality, which underlines the product’s value. They also inspire, motivating you to create your own films with your drone.

02. Clear CTAs

A button displayed on your website will not necessarily encourage customers to click it. Your CTAs must be clearly written and designed to eliminate any ambiguity. Make it clear for shoppers what happens when they click on the CTA. Use active words such as “Start Shopping”, “Add to Cart,” and “Buy Now” to ensure that your CTAs are not lost on the page.

The “Add to Cart” CTA is easy to see on Furry necks‘ product pages. The CTA font is bold and easy to read. The button is also highlighted in a different color to grab your attention. (It’s important to remember that the green and blue outlines don’t overwhelm the rest of their page. It is also clear from the start what happens when you click on the button. This eliminates any confusion or questions.

03. Use whitespace to your advantage

To create a clear path to conversion, avoid clutter. Customers can be distracted by too much text or imagery, which can lead them to the wrong direction. The rule of thirds is a great guideline for deciding how much whitespace you should leave and how to use it. Divide your page into three rows, three columns. Your page’s focal points are located where the horizontal and vertical lines intersect. This is where you should put important imagery and text.

Surf City Still Works is a distillery that designed their product pages with plenty of whitespace so potential customers can focus on the most important things: the product description, image and CTA. Although the page is minimalistic, it’s not empty or bare. You still have enough context to read more about the product and navigate to other parts of the page. This is what you should keep in mind when you use whitespace in your designs. You want to reduce clutter but not eliminate valuable information.

04. Mobile design

Mobile devices now account for about half of all web traffic globally. An online store that functions smoothly on mobile devices is not only a necessity, but a must-have. You can do more than just make the site mobile-friendly (such as automatically scaling the page or using hamburger menus). There are many ways to make shopping easier on smaller screens.

Wix users can optimize their mobile website by using the Wix Editor. To edit yourstore, click on the phone icon. You can easily resize and rearrange your content so that it works well for mobile shoppers.

Women’s clothing store provides a mobile-friendly experience that complements their desktop site. The site is beautiful even on a smaller screen. It retains its visual aesthetic by using clean pages, well-defined CTAs and uncluttered pages.

Cottons takes this one step further and puts the user experience first. Cottons’ buttons are large enough for larger hands and unsteady fingers. The “Contact Us” form displays the number keypad automatically to make it easier to enter your telephone number. Additionally, the hamburger menu makes it easy to navigate the site.

05. Highlight customer reviews

Studies show that customer reviews can increase conversions by 270%. Social proof is a powerful tool. You can feature customer reviews to help customers browse your store. While you, the company, may write about how amazing your products are, it is far more effective for this message to be shared by neutral third parties.

Lamarsa is a company that makes coffee machines. They allow customers to leave feedback and display it on their product pages. The product descriptions provide information about the machine’s technical specs, but customer reviews give more detail about the overall experience. These include shipping times and how easy it is to use. To make the review feel more personal, each review includes a customer name.

06. A clear navigational structure is essential

Although the navigation bar may not be the most interesting part of your website, it is an important one. Your customers will find products and information in the navigation bar. Do not hide important features or policies in sub-menus or footers. Instead, make it easy for potential customers to locate FAQs and learn about your return policy.

Thanks to a simple structure and clearly labeled menu options, Bakery Fisher & Donaldson have perfected their navigation bar. Potential customers will be able to find the most useful information quickly, such as delivery details and return policy, without being overwhelmed by the many options. It is simple to read and indicates what content can be found on each page.

07. Accelerate the checkout process

Customers may enjoy adding items to their shopping carts while they browse your site. Others may prefer to spend time browsing through your product pages before making a purchase. Some customers want to quickly find the right product and make a purchase. You can speed up the checkout process by including a Quick View option in your product catalogue. This allows customers to take a closer look at an item and then add it directly to their shopping cart. Customers can also choose to speed up the checkout process by adding both an “Add To Cart” and Buy Now buttons to your product pages.

If they take longer to make a decision, encourage them not to abandon your site and to finish their purchase by sending automated abandoned cart emails. This will remind them to return the item they have left in their cart, and it will also bring them back into your store. The abandoned cart emails can be used to optimize conversion. Nearly 50% of cart recovery emails are opened, and a third leads to a sale.

You will be taken to the checkout page immediately after you click on the “Buy Now” button on Abbyspace. Once you click the “Buy Now” button, you will be taken to a page where your shipping information, delivery method, payment details and order details can all be entered. It would have taken three clicks more to reach this page if you had clicked the “Add To Cart” button.

08. Accept payment options

16% will abandon their shopping cart if they don’t have the option to pay via PayPal. You should offer a range of payment options to ensure that your customers are as comfortable as possible when they make a payment on the site.

Useless Treasures is a fine-art shop that allows customers to pay with PayPal as well as credit cards. PayPal is a trusted payment option that makes it easy for customers to pay. Customers don’t have to manually enter their credit card and billing address. Instead, they can use the PayPal payment information that is already stored.

Get more from what you already own

One of the easiest ways to increase sales is conversion rate optimization. Its greatest quality is its ability to make more of what you have. It doesn’t require you to allocate budget or acquire new customers. Instead, focus on creating a better online shopping experience for customers and reap the benefits of increased sales.

source https://www.wix.com/blog/ecommerce/2020/09/conversion-rate-optimization