Increasing one’s website’s conversion rate is one of the hot topics of all e-commerce websites. They all want to increase their sales and for that, there are 2 basic methods:
- Increasing the Website’s traffic;
- Increasing the Website’s conversion rate.
In this article, we shall discuss effective ways to increase a website’s conversion rate.
What is a Conversion Rate?
The conversion rate of a website is the proportion between the number of people that visit the website and the number of people among those visitors who made a transaction or purchased a product through that website.
It is usually measured per thousand people. For instance, if about 1000 people visit your website, and 20 people out of them make a purchase, your average conversion rate would be 0.2% per 1000 people. However, the conversion rate can be used for per hundred or even per million, depending on the traffic. What is important is to mention what the conversion rate relies upon.
What methods shall one utilize to increase the conversion rate?
There are a plethora of ways you can increase your conversion rate. Some of them are as such.
Use on-site chat service
Allow the customers to avail of the benefits of customer service on the website. You can do it through 2 ways:
- Keep a group of agents who are available online at all times to respond to customer queries;
- Prepare a good chatbot that can help customers automatically.
Although having proper agents for customer service would be much more expensive, they are more effective as compared to the bot, mainly because the bot may not understand the customer’s needs through their tone. However, an agent would be able to understand that.
You should use live agents for large scale e-commerce websites, and a chatbot for comparatively small start-ups.
Make use of popup advertisements
Having popup ads can increase your website’s conversion rate to a significant degree, especially if the object is pretty “hot” (much talked about) on the table. Customers are attracted to such products, and will be compelled to buy them more often, even if they have entered the site to check another product.
However, it should be ensured that the popup ads are not too frequent, as it can result in the annoyance of the customer, which will have an adverse effect. Moreover, avoid showing more than 1 product using popup ads on their site because it leaves a bad overall impression, and distracts the customers by confusing them between a range of products.
Do not make the forms to complex and lengthy
While selling a product to customers, it is paramount to collect their information to keep the record and complete the purchase. However, at times asking too many complex questions can lead your customer to give up anyway.
Do not ask for information that a customer would not generally know, or would have a hard time sharing with you. Instead, ask simple things like name, email, home address, phone number etc. This would be sufficient. However, if you have to ask certain questions, make sure the fields are not required so the customer has the option to skip them.
Multiple sign-up services
You should provide customers with multiple sign-up services. That means:
- Your customer can sign up exclusively for this website;
- Your customer can sign up from a third-party service like Google or Facebook.
Having multiple options here can be beneficial. Usually, it is a pain for customers to sign up from scratch and await a confirmation email. This can make them reconsider signing up at all. Instead, if you have an external signup service, like Facebook, all your customer needs to do is to log in to the website using Facebook which will provide all the necessary info to you.
However, there may be customers who do not have third party accounts or may not prefer to use them at all, for them you can use the website's service.
Promise money return to customers
One of the major drawbacks of online shopping is customers do not know the product they are purchasing, so they may be reluctant to buy this. This is one of the leading causes of low conversion rates. Promise your customers that you will return their money if the product is not what they wanted it to be, which will give them more confidence to buy the product.
However, if you have promised, you must also ensure it. It will develop your customer’s trust in you and in turn, he or she may spread the word to others, which will ultimately benefit you in the long run.
Ask customers how they got to you
You may want to ask your website traffic what brought them to your site, or who told them about you. This is especially beneficial because it will let you know what helps your website to get the word out, and ultimately you can enhance your website's functionality in a way that will give a significant boost to that method, bringing you even more potential customers.
You could add different options like:
- From a friend;
- Online advertisement;
- Google Search.
Countdown Timers for offers
Provide things like special offers or memberships to your customers, with a countdown on the website. This is a psychological game that will make your website’s visitors more anxious and compel them to make use of that offer or membership.
This is an effective way that can significantly help increase your conversion rate. However, do not make it too obvious that it is fake, or you do not have to fake it at all. Genuity will increase your website’s credibility.
Use catchy headlines on the main page
Make sure you use headlines regarding new products and their information on your main page; and make it bold and catchy. This attracts more viewers and generates hype. It is eventually through this hype the conversion rates increase.
Many organizations or brands have used hype in the past to sell utterly useless products. However, it is to be remembered that if the headline does not match the actual product, in essence, it will leave a bad impression and ultimately harm the credibility of your website, decreasing its traffic in the long run.
Increase your rankings through Search Engine Optimization
This method is like hunting 2 birds with one arrow. Potential customers, usually search for products using search engines, mainly Google. Once the search for the thing is done, they will usually visit the first few recommendations. In fact, according to studies barely anyone goes beyond the first page, even if it is beneficial for them.
So, if you increase your SEO, it will not only attract more traffic but will also increase your conversion rate because individuals are more inclined to trust the top recommendations. If Google adds a good rating along with the search, it will even further increase the conversion rate.
Make a simple and easily usable design
More entrepreneurs are compelled to make their website look more aesthetic and complex in the hopes of improving customer service. But this may have an adverse effect.
Make the purchase and surfing easy for your customer. This is mainly because customers are attracted to feasibility. Once a task has been started, the individual will eventually finish it. So, if all the initial steps, like surfing and choosing, are easy, it will make the eventual purchase more probable, thus, increasing your conversion rate to a significant degree.
Make use of reviews
If you are sure that your products are of good quality and the customer service is top-notch, you may add reviews without a fear. Because, it is only through good reviews that the customer trust is generated, and he or she is more compelled to make purchases once they have visited the website, which will increase your overall conversion rate.
Make social media accounts for your website
Almost all of the people that use the internet (generally) have an account on one of the social media services, like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. If you make a page or blog of your website on all of those social media sites, it will compel them to make a purchase immediately. It will also increase your traffic, but most importantly your conversion rate.
Do not allow external ads
Usually, websites then make use of ads to generate revenue. It may indeed give you money, but it will pull away from your most important thing: your customer. Although having very few ads are okay, too many of them will repulse your customer and annoy him/her.
Bonus Tip
Adding a Speech Recognition could be an innovative step to increase customer satisfaction and improve user experience. Check our service to understand how you can easily add voice technology to your website in just a few lines of code.
Final Considerations
The market of e-commerce is increasingly tough because of the competition and monopoly of organizations like Amazon. However, if you systematically move your way up, you will eventually generate a significant amount of traffic and have a high conversion rate. Working smart, and providing high-quality products is essential for a good conversion rate.
