How Do I Increase Ecommerce Conversion Rate?

A study says, over 90% of the average website visitors don’t have any intentions to purchase.

Many e-commerce businesses simply focus marketing on social media and opting for SEO services to rank higher on search engines. While that’s essential, it’s only half of the task. The other half is getting those people on the way to goal conversion. This could be either buying the product, successful form fill-up or signing up as a member.

In short, the website conversion or conversion rate optimization process is transforming the traffic you get to your website via SEO, social media ads, content marketing, and other digital marketing efforts into paying customers.

Find out the 6 distinct factors that will optimize e-commerce website conversion rate.

1. Convert time into money

Time matters, whether you’re trying to get the attention of the visitors on social media or on your landing page. So, you’ve done your study, and slowly but steadily, you are getting visitors to your website. But there’s one catch. Getting them to your website is only half the battle won. Keeping them there to browse your products is a completely different ballgame. Keeping visitors on your website long enough for them to take an action (a.k.a. make a purchase) can be even harder.

According to a study, 92% of first-time website visitors don’t have any intentions to buy. What’s even more alarming is that most users will leave your website after 10 to 20 seconds.

According to another study, most visitors seem to be using mobile to browse your site on the go, making it even harder for ecommerce businesses to capture the attention of their visitors.

So, what should you do?

This is where having a rich value proposition can hook the attention of the spectators.

As the ‘Weibull Hazard Function Test’ proves that, most visitors are ready to bounce almost instantly, even if they had started browsing to buy. The best way to stop your visitors from clicking away at this crucial stage is to give them an offer they think twice.

This can be in the form of a discount coupon, sweepstake for when they do purchase the product, or a promise of delivering them the best quality product or service available. That last part will have to be backed up by solid proof, whether it’s a testimonial from past customers or social proof in form of reviews and ratings of your product or service. The idea is to give the potential customer something to delight that they even considered clicking on your site and not the hundreds of other options out there.

2. Put yourself in your customers' shoes

Take a good, deep look at your website. How does it look and feel to you? Is it appealing? Does it provide you the answer you search for? And more importantly, does it have a clear call-to-action (CTA)?

Needless to say, you will have to put yourself in your audience’s shoes to get an answer.

The websites that have the best conversion rates are the ones who nailed the following:

• Simplicity – They don’t use flashy colors and unconventional text sizes to distract the reader.
• Navigability – They have easily located dropdown menus that are simple to navigate.
• Hierarchy – The most important information comes first and is presented in simple language.
• Consistency – All the thematically related pages appear uniform.
• Accessibility – Web pages should appear the same on handheld devices and PC screens.
• User-Centricity – Don’t cloak. Be clear to your audience, and they’ll repay it.

If the web page contains multiple products with an equal level of importance – problem. If the web page contains multiple products but with only one product highlighted – no problem. Allow visitors to filter through the product’s features according to size, color, style, price, etc. When it is designed and developed intelligently, your website should be coherent and lightning-fast.

Now, what does that look like?

Let’s take a look at any successful e-commerce website like Amazon or Flipkart. Go ahead, check them out if you haven’t visited. Your time won’t waste. I promise.

What will you see is exactly what the website creators want you to.

The case study given above ticks all the boxes of what makes a website that converts – simplicity, navigability, hierarchy, consistency, accessibility, and user-centricity.

The visitor is at once guided straight to the landing page and the information they are most likely going to be interested in:

• Free shipping (boosts your average order value)
• Price (no surprises or hidden costs)
• Call to Action (make sure your CTA is visible)

3. Optimize checkout funnel

For a better conversion rate, you need to shorten the checkout journey. We already know that the average load time of a website should not be more than three seconds. It has been found that conversion rates drop by an average of more than 4% with each additional second.

But, that’s just the time it should take for your website to fully functional on the user’s screen of choice.

The checkout process is the steps that every buyer has to take to complete the transaction. It goes from getting on your product page to complete buying the product.

Needless to say, your visitors who have an intention to buy a product will want a simple in and out procedure that doesn’t complex. So, the shorter the e-commerce checkout flow is, the more likely it is to convert a potential buyer into a paying customer.

For improved website conversion, you need to keep the buying process as fluid as possible by collecting minimal buyer information. Once they become a recurring customer, you can always ask them to provide personal information for a customized solution, at which point, they’ll be glad to share.

Ideally, this is what a checkout form should look like:

• Simple layout
• Multiple yet orthodox payment options
• No redirecting to another website to make the payment

4. Utilize virtual assistants and chatbots

Chatbots are completely revolutionizing the way everyday business processes are carried out on the web. One of the major reasons why chatbots, automated chat, or chat widgets have become an indispensable part of the e-commerce model nowadays is because they allow visitors to get the information they need on the fly. This is far more efficient than anything else since that’s the beauty of machine learning, AI, and IoT. But, you get the point, which is, chatbots offer customers the information they need regardless of the time of day or location.

Chatbots are intelligent enough to sense the context of the question and execute the right bot flow. However, chatbots cannot find answers or perform a set of activities on their own. On the other hand, a virtual assistant (for example, Google Assistant) can crawl through indexed resources and offer assistance for a wide range of conversations.

Both chatbots and virtual assistants are great for website conversion because they do not need refreshment breaks like humans, can work round the clock. This means your visitors get the information they are searching for in real-time, 24X7. For example, an e-commerce virtual assistant (VA) can help a visitor with product and research-based tasks.

This alone is enough to give your visitors a push in the right direction i.e., the path of conversion.

Chances are, your average consumer likes to use chat services. So, why not use chatbots to get a conversation started on your website?

5. Optimize CTA

A call to action (CTA) that’s easily identifiable and understandable prompts the visitor to take a particular action. Whether that’s to make a purchase or register for something. This CTA needs to be clear in its intent.

Placement

The CTA typically needs to be placed at the top of the fold. This is the place where the visitor can easily read it without having to scroll down. CTA’s that are placed at prominent positions are far more effective as compared to those that are below the fold or other sections of the page.

Shape and color

The shape and color of the CTA also matter very much. For example, in the name of consistency, many businesses make the mistake of designing their CTAs using a similar color and font size as the rest of their website. This only blends the CTA in with the rest of the content on the page, making it even harder for it to catch the attention of your visitors.

Being benefit-centric

All too often, we read CTAs that are just poorly written. A bad copy is like a spoiler. Bad CTA copy looks something like “buy here”, “click here”, “download”. All of these CTAs typically do not perform well because they are vague and not benefit-oriented.

To encourage the visitor to click on CTA without hesitantly, you need a CTA copy that is benefit-centric, as in, offers the visitor something in return for their action, and not just a promise of what might happen. Some good examples of CTAs are – “sign up”, “try for free”, “get started”, “learn more”, “join us” etc.

6. Deal fairly and honestly

An important factor while setting up a business is to remember that getting people to buy from you is all about creating trust. A conversion rate optimization plan for an e-commerce website is no exception. Think about it. You wouldn’t want to invest in a brand if you didn’t know where it was based, nor would you lend money to a stranger.

For the customer, buying online is pretty much the same thing. They want assurance. They want to know where you’re based, your authority in a niche, and even more importantly, that you’re not going to sell them snake oil. Since people tend to rationalize a purchase based on emotion, you need to make them reassure that you’re a real person, your products are genuine, and your website is legit.

The best way of doing that is by providing your contact information (NAP – name, address, and phone number), whether it’s a physical address, phone number, or email address, or all three. Your customers need to know that they will have somebody to talk to if there’s a problem. Getting fluid post-purchase service - is their main concern. So, address it professionally.

Conclusion

Hopefully, these 6 tips should help you get off to a good start with your e-commerce website conversation rate optimization. Since websites are created for different markets and along different verticals, you can always find ways of fine-tuning your landing pages and web pages for better conversion using the right combination of A/B testing, industry best practices, and the latest trends.

A Technical SEO Checklist For Ecommerce Website Revamp

Revamping an e-commerce site? Don't lose domain authority or organic search traffic and conversions. This checklist will help you avoid the most common SEO consequences during your reform.

Reshaping an e-commerce site is part of the natural brand progression.

Reforms keep your brand relevant and your message up-to-date can radically improve the user experience and may be necessary to keep up with changing web standards.

At the same time, restructures can result in dumping SEO authority and throwing away organic search traffic.

Collaboration between SEO professionals and web developers is extremely important.

SEO should be a concern throughout the redesign process from beginning to end.

The following technical SEO checklist will help you keep track of the changes made during the remake to prevent pitfalls from happening.

1. Crawling & auditing the existing site

Use a crawling tool like Screaming Frog to get an index of your web pages and various important bits of Metadata that you will want to refer back to throughout the development.

Make sure to save the original crawl report. You will need this information to ensure continuity between your existing e-commerce site and the upcoming version of it.

After you complete your crawl, categorize any of the following issues from within the original crawl report, creating separate tabs in a spreadsheet or separate spreadsheet for each:

• Duplicate page titles, image alt, H1 tags, or meta descriptions
• Missing page titles, image alt, H1 tags, and meta descriptions
• Page titles too short or too long
• Meta descriptions too short or too long
• Links to 404 pages
• Links to 301 pages
• Links to any other 3xx, 4xx, or 5xx status code URLs
• Any inconsistent use of HTTPS vs HTTP or www vs non-www

You have to also:

• Check for a mismatch in the number of URLs crawled by Screaming Frog and the number of URLs indexed by Google. You can find the same by doing a “site:my-site.com” search or through Google Search Console.
• Make sure you have a valid XML sitemap and make a copy of it.
• Ensure you have a valid robots.txt file and make a copy of it.

2. Setting up the test site

In setting up the test site, help the developers to keep the following in mind during their development if required:

• Preferably, the existing site’s crawl report (the original one) should act as a base for the upcoming site. Make a copy of the original crawl report and keep notes of any changes to be made on the redesigned site, especially any URLs that will be altered or removed, inside it.
• Address any issues you faced in auditing the existing site and map the changes to the redesigned site and keep notes in the original site crawl report.
• Make sure that the test site in a non-indexed state from within the robots.txt file. You do not want Google to start exposing your pages on WIP (work is in progress) mode in the search results.
• Make no changes to any of the URL folders and filenames unless absolutely necessary. They should be as close to identical as possible, with exceptions only to deal with discrepancies and web pages you do not want to carry over.
• Any URLs that are changed should have the links (links from within the same website or domain) to them changed. You should also set up .htaccess to redirect the old URLs to their equivalent new ones, but this mustn’t be an excuse to leave the internal links untouched. Links to 301 pages lose Page Authority and create unnecessary server load on top of wasting your crawl budget. Your original site crawl data will tell you about internal linking along with the anchor text. Make note of these modifications in your original crawl report.
• Eliminate any links to pages that you are removing and make note of the changes in the original crawl report.
• If you are combining any of your pages into a larger yet single central resource page, update the internal links on your pages so that they point right to the new resource page, rather than simply redirecting or removing the links. Make note of these changes in the copy of the original site crawl report.
• Do not create “soft 404s” by replacing missing pages with redirects to the homepage or any other irrelevant page. Google has been very clear about the logic for removed pages to display as 404.

3. Crawling & auditing the test version of the site

Do a complete crawl of your test site, again using a tool like Screaming Frog that you used on the existing site. Download and save this as your first test site crawl report.

Start by verifying that all of the issues discovered in crawling the live site are not present in the test site’s crawl data.

Now make a fresh copy of your original site crawl report, having all of the change notes, and do a find and replace operation inside it so that the URLs have the same structure as the test site. For example, replacing https://my-site.com/folder/page with https://test.my-site.com/folder/page. Save this as a testing crawl data file.

Now set the Screaming Frog tool’s crawler to “list mode” and crawl the test site using your testing crawl data file. This will check each URL individually to see if there is a matching page on the upcoming site (i.e., the test site) for every page on the existing site. Download and save this as the final test site crawl report.

To recap, at this point you should have:

• A crawl report of the existing site and a copy that you have made with notes to address any fixes.
• A crawl report of the test site and a copy of that you can edit.
• A testing crawl data file containing your existing site’s URL is edited to match the test site’s URL structure.
• A final test site crawls data file containing the results of checking each individual URL using your testing crawl data file.

You will use all these files to ensure there are no inconsistencies between the new site (i.e., the test site) and the old site (i.e., the existing site) in the following steps.

4. Matching up your content (existing site vs. up coming site)

You will need to take the following steps to ensure that the existing site and the test site line up in the approved manner:

• Address any 404 pages in your final test site crawl report first. If you noted that these pages were being removed entirely, no need to do anything. If you noted that these pages were being moved or merged, you will need to set up redirects in .htaccess. And add these 404 URLs to a spreadsheet of relocated pages; you need to make sure that all internal links to these pages will have to update at a later stage.
• If you encounter any 404 pages in your final test crawl report that are not noted as either removed or relocated, do a search for a matching title tag, meta description, or keywords on the first test site crawl report to see if there are any good matches. If not, verify that the old page is intended to be removed or if it should be present on the upcoming site but is missing accidentally and needs to be added.
• Like 404s, create a spreadsheet of any 301 pages in your final test site crawl report. While the redirects mean that the site should be operational, you will still need to ensure that internal links to these pages are updated at a later stage.
• Verify that there are no duplicate or missing title tags, Meta description tags, image alt, or H1 tags on any of the pages in your final test site crawl report.

5. Prepare redirects for all changed URLs

You will need to pinpoint any URLs that have been reformed that you haven’t yet set up a redirect for:

• Filter out the list of 404 pages from the final test site crawl report.
• Search for the Meta title of the first 404 pages on your original test site crawl. If there is a match, set up a redirect in .htaccess from the old URL to the corresponding new URL.
• Repeat this process for each 404 URL.

If you encounter a 404 on your final test site crawl that doesn’t have a matching Meta title tag, search for keywords or Meta descriptions or any unique identifier that matches.

If there are no matching pages on the upcoming site, note this in your spreadsheet and leave that 404s for the time being. In the next step, you will ensure that no internal links are pointing to these missing pages.

6. Audit internal links

Now it’s time to take care that all of the links on the upcoming site point to the appropriate page.

• You may find it now easier to run one more crawl of your test site after updating .htaccess in step 5 to ensure that all pages are either HTTP status 200 or 301.
• Do a bulk export of all of the links on the site from your crawler tool.
• If any 404 links remain, address them first. If .htaccess was applied correctly, all of the remaining links to 404 pages should be removed.
• You will need to update the links to your 301 pages so that they point to the appropriate page instead of the redirected URL.

7. Finalization & launch the revamped site

By now all crawling issues should be addressed and the upcoming site should be ready for launch, but you will want to run a final crawl before doing so.

There are a few things you will need to verify during the launch process:

• Remove noindex entirely from the test site’s robots.txt during the migration.
• Ensure that .htaccess is operating on the correct URL structure, not the dummy URL structure of the test site.
• Run a final crawl after the launch to ensure that there were no issues in migrating the test site to its live location.
• Re-upload the updated sitemap.xml file to your server.
• Re-upload the updated robots.txt file to your server.

Note: .htaccess is a fantastic way to manage all the redirects but remember that it’s essential to keep it organized, else, your site’s restructuring work will face some serious consequences. If required, consult with an SEO professional for hassle-free site migration.

Conclusion

As I said in the beginning, a collaboration between developers and SEO professionals is critical.

Make sure that you have correct crawl data on the original site as well as the test site throughout the development.

Be as clear as possible with all the stakeholders about what will create issues and what needs to be avoided throughout the reform.

Remember that this checklist is a guide. You will likely end up with a customized one base on your unique project requirement.

Keep a record of which issues have been addressed and which persist.

Nonetheless, this checklist will help you avoid some of the most common consequences brands face during site restructure.

COVID-19 & E-commerce Digital Marketing

COVID-19 has definitely made an impact on e-commerce businesses over the past couple of months now that isolation and social distancing measures have been put in place.

Employees in many infected countries have been asked to work from home, have been placed under quarantine and offices have been shut down.

Naturally, many brick and mortar stores have since forced to shut down, pushing traditional consumers to adopt e-commerce as an alternate.

Reconsider your e-commerce digital marketing strategy

Many businesses are reviewing their options in light of COVID-19, the budget of digital marketing and advertising will be a target for businesses looking to make cuts.

There is indeed a need to work smarter under the current situation, but it’s a crucial time for marketers to adopt strategies for long-term profitability.

1. Manage PPC budget smartly

Strategies like switching off PPC campaigns entirely could clearly be hugely damaging.

Instead, look to manage smartly across accounts where possible.

• Recheck where search-n-demand is waning, accordingly adjust the whole campaign
• Allot budgets for keywords with a higher chance of generating conversions

CPCs at the moment will likely be lower as many advertisers trim down theirs too, so think about capitalizing on this where possible.

Also, if other businesses stop advertising, you can make CTR gains which will improve your QS and lower your CPCs.

The reverse is also true as other people are also looking for opportunities and studying the market’s movement. So you should not just switch off campaigns unless absolutely necessary!

2. Maintain organic visibility

When it comes to organic traffic, SEO is clearly a longer-term strategy and must retain its effectiveness.

It is expected, Google will be regulating its algorithms now more than ever to ensure that the community gets the most relevant results, so to ignore the SEO basics would risk decreasing organic visibility.

The organic channel is one of the most sustainable traffic sources in any situation.

People will always be searching, perhaps more now than ever before as many are now at home with an internet connection.

Businesses with online exposure are in a better position than any to continue to do business in what is a tough time for many.

3. Continue with digital PR

Yes, digital PR activity shouldn’t break during coronavirus.

Now is a great opportunity to get connected with the audience with your news stories that are aligned with COVID-19 logically. Because many are searching for news as usual.

People still want to read worthy news stories and want updates about how the pandemic presently affecting the industries.

If the news is good, it can get noticed by many on news sites.

If your business is willing to help other businesses and people during this tough time, entice them strategically through your digital PR campaigns!

4. Stay social on social media

There will be a lot more people spending time on social platforms as almost all start to adapt to the working from home routine.

This is a great time to re-ignite your social media strategy.

Below are some common tips for brands looking to renovate their social media plan based on current trends -

• Be accurate: Give customers trustworthy information about the things they care about. Be unbiased and clear
  
  
• Be organized: Try to connect both locally and globally with prospects
  
  
• Be convenient: Consumer’s habits are evolving and it’s important to let shoppers know that solutions are available anyplace, anytime
  
  
• Be innovative: Find out-of-box ways to provide solutions as the customers are isolated and combating with both boredom and anxiety

So even though we all feel quarantined, this ongoing crisis actually gives our businesses an opportunity to be even more social and more community-led.

It also lets your brand become even more popular during this gloomy period.

Resume the business

The things discussed in this post are a general guide to adapting to COVID-19.

Clearly, there’s no one approach to digital strategy for all kinds of e-commerce businesses.

But one thing is sure, it’s that we as a marketer must ensure our brands must perform optimally online all the time so customers never feel reluctant to do business with us.

This will enable us to avoid a long-term impact on market share and keep us ready to do the business whenever the situation demands.

E-commerce Business Basics: Respect Your Customer Now More Than Ever

Do What You Do So Well That They Will Want To See It Again And Bring Their Friends. ~ Walt Disney

Hi Ecommerce Business Strategists,

We are living in a smart age. Most of the shoppers are now take smart steps too. The way they use information, compare and make purchases has changed.

It’s imperative to stay impressive all the time as a seller or buyers will shop somewhere else.

According to a research report, 75% of customers hope for an unfailing familiarity anywhere they connect with your brand.

Another study claims, 50% of customers are likely to change brands if a business doesn’t think likely.

If you want to make your trade a sensation, there’s only one way: take a customer-first approach.

This may sounds cliché to you now but the real question is how? How to draw customers’ attention and feel satisfied?

• Develop a durable relationship with them
• Offer personalized service/solution
• Pay equal attention to all

From my previous experience, I can tell you, you do not have to do special things, rather stick to the basics to make an impact on your potential customers. All you need to understand their pains and offer them a timely solution.

Bear in mind, if you keep your customers happy, then prospects can come to you again-n-again to do business with you.

So to convince a customer, first emulate their psychology. Then try to sell your service to them.

Just listen to them and realize what their actual problem is. And then present you as a solution provider.

Here are five common ways to make an impression on your customers and influence them to do business with you.

• Do not show them your power by displaying ads wherever they are on social media
• Do not send them every day or every alternate day emails full of offers
• Do not treat first-time buyers and returning customers separately
• Do not stop listening to what they are trying to say to you
• Do not see them as ATM machine for you

Have a nice day.

Best,
Partha