It’s a step-by-step guide that will help you further understand how small things like website speed and professional homepages can improve the conversion rate on your website! Head over here to download it!It might be tough to figure out which aspects of your e-commerce website are influencing the conversion rate. There’s probably a huge amount of untapped potential lying dormant in your store, and I can help you identify it!
I work with e-commerce business owners to help them squeeze more revenue out of their online stores. Anything from design to usability issues can harm the conversion rate on your site.
If you want to see more growth in your business, you’re in the right place! In this post, I’m going to share 7 practical tips that will help you maximize your conversion rates and get more paid customers with conversion rate optimization!
What is Conversion Rate Optimization?
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the process of using data analysis to improve your website’s conversion rate. This can increase the number of visitors who complete key actions on your website – like signing up for your email list or making a purchase.
Here’s how to calculate your conversion rate percentage:
- Divide the total number of conversions you have by the total number of visitors on your site.
- Multiply the result by 100.
So, let’s say you have 1,000 conversions divided by 100,000 visitors, which equals 0.01. If you multiply the result by 100, you get a 1% conversion rate! As your conversion rate percentage increases, you will get more visitors to your site that convert into paid customers.
On Shopify, this is called your “online store conversion rate.” You can find this on your Shopify dashboard in the analytics section. Here you can see the percentage of people who reach checkout and the total number of sessions that result in orders.
Why You Don’t Necessarily Need More Traffic
A common issue I’ve seen E-commerce business owners run into is a lack of conversion, even though they may be driving a lot of traffic to their site. This usually leads them to ask me, “Well, how do I get more traffic?”
The volume of traffic to your site is definitely important, but who cares how much traffic you’re getting if visitors aren’t converting? Imagine driving 1,000,000 visitors to your site each month, but only 0.5% of them are making a purchase. That means you only get 5,000 sales. Sure, it’s better than nothing, but you could do so much better!
The rate of conversion on your website depends on your specific e-commerce niche, but the average e-commerce conversion rate is around 2-3%. If you aren’t seeing at least a 2-3% conversion rate, you’ve got some work to do.
Our clients here at Digital Dawn typically have conversion rates around 5-8%. If you’d like some help increasing your conversion rate, contact us for a consultation!
How to Convert Your Website Visitors into Paid Customers with CRO
Unlike search engine optimization (SEO), CRO can give you much faster results. I’ve helped my clients improve their CRO in several ways, and I’m going to walk you through some of them below!
1 . Set Up Google Analytics
Google Analytics is one of the most important tracking mechanisms out there. It will help you get a clear picture of where your website visitors are coming from, how long they’re staying on your site, and what pages they’re visiting.
You can set up specific tracking features within Google Analytics to evaluate whether or not the testing you do for your CRO is effective. If you need help setting up tracking features, check out this course so you can feel more confident about increasing conversions with Google Analytics!
Note: The Google Analytics course above is an affiliate link. At no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission if you use this link to purchase the course.
2. Analyze Your Site’s User Behavior
If you don’t have a plugin on your website that shows user behavior, it’d be a good idea to consider adding one! Hotjar is a tool you can install on your website that measures things like:
- where people are bouncing on and off your website
- where people may have struggled to find information
- missing hyperlinks
If someone tries clicking on words or images that aren’t hyperlinked or lead to an error page, it frustrates them and causes them to bounce off your website. I think we’ve all encountered this issue before.
Hotjar visualizes these issues for you so you can see the problems your users are running into and fix them!
3. Incorporate A/B Testing
A/B testing, or split testing, is a great way to figure out what changes will convert the most customers on your website. Here are a few things you can test with AB testing:
- colors
- product videos
- copy
- images
- call-to-action button placement
- email subject lines
- and more!
If you use Shopify, I recommend checking out a plugin like Unbounced or Zipify. There are plenty of other plugins that you can use for AB testing, no matter what e-commerce platform you use!
Check out my podcast here for an in-depth example of how to run successful split tests!
4. Get Creative
Once you have narrowed down where people are struggling on your website, you can have some fun with conversion rate optimization! I like to play around with color and user intention. When you want to analyze user intention, be mindful of these questions:
- Are they going to your website to find out more information?
- Are they going to shop?
- How do you leverage your website to ensure that people are going there with a certain intent?
Every step in a customer’s journey, from beginning to end, is crucial for creating a successful funnel. The term “funnel” comes from marketing and sales where people think about how many customers are “leaking” at each stage in the funnel. If your customers are leaking at the right spots, you could end up with a really nice funnel cake!
5. Improve Website Speed
People tend to have less patience in today’s digital world. Customers will bounce off of your site if it takes too long for pages and images to load.
If you want visitors to your website to convert, compress your images and use plugins that will optimize your site for speed. A lot of people shop on their phones, so make sure the mobile version of your website is optimized as well.
Google has a free tool, PageSpeed Insights, that allows you to analyze the speed of your website. Just input the URL of the page you want to analyze, and Google will give you tips on how to improve your page speed.
6. Use Impactful Call-To-Actions
Grab your customer’s attention with clear and effective call-to-actions (CTAs). This makes it easy for customers to immediately understand what you want them to do on your website, which can decrease your bounce rate!
A good CTA is important at any stage of your funnel at any stage of your business. Whether trying to drive traffic to your website or encourage people to sign up for a webinar, a good CTA can help you achieve your goals.
7. Make Sure Your Website Looks Professional
A quality website that is easy to use makes it easier for customers to trust your e-commerce store. Here are a few things customers like to see:
- contact page
- professional email
- return policy
- secure checkout process
These little things might not seem important, but they will help establish your website as a legitimate e-commerce business and reduce customers’ fears about shopping at your store. A professional website is an essential part of conversion rate optimization.
If you want customers to convert, then it’s important that your website is optimized for conversion. If there are aspects of this process that you’re still struggling with, check out my FREE Shopify checklist!
It’s a step-by-step guide that will help you further understand how small things like website speed and professional homepages can improve the conversion rate on your website! Head over here to download it!
BIO
Dawn Sinkule, the Founder of Digital Dawn, is an MBA graduate, Strategy and Business Growth Consultant as well as a Certified Online Business Manager with more than 16 years of corporate experience working for a Fortune 50 company. Dawn and her team work with passionate six figure business owners who want to grow, expand, and explode their businesses. Dawn and the DD team provide your choice of self-implementation or fully done for you solutions, and both include detailed business strategies, automation, systems, and most importantly the satisfaction of knowing your business is heading the right direction. Her clients get not only the experience of a Fortune 50 leader, but also a personalized and customized strategy as well as an implementation team: AKA your secret weapon for success.