Conversion rate. It’s internet marketing jargon that nearly every business owner throws around. If you’ve ever done a joint venture or a swap, your partner has asked you at what rate is your promotion converting. It’s a number any boss wants to know when deciding if a promotion did well or not. Basically you can’t get away from it.
First of all let me explain what a conversion rate is. It’s a measure, usually in the form of a percentage, of how many people you convert from browsers to buyers. The higher your conversion rate, the better. The more browsers you convert to buyers the more successful business you’ll have.
Isn’t that what we all want anyways? A highly successful business that makes us tons of money for as little work as possible. I sure do. So I make damn sure I do my best to make my business successful.
The next question is how do you do it? How do you improve your conversion rates? It all has to do with your site. A nip here, a tuck there, and you’ll see your conversion rates soar. How big of a nip and tuck are we talking about? Read on to find out…
An easy nip to make to your website is your buttons. When a user tries to buy a product from you what do they do? They add it to their shopping basket. How do they do that? They click on a button. Take a look at your buttons. Are they obvious? Are they bold? Are they located in a convenient spot for the shopper? Ask a friend or colleague to take a look at your buttons and their placement to see if there is any room for improvement. Your buttons don’t need to be gaudy, but they do need to be brightly colored and large enough to see easily.
The wording that appears on your buttons is also important. You need to make a call to action without being pushy. The word ‘Add’ isn’t enough. Users may be confused as to what they are adding to where. The words ‘Add Product X to Cart’ is better. Its meaning is clear, but not overly forceful. Make sure the words are written in bold, black text, against a light and bright background of the button. No need to lose a sale because the user couldn’t figure out how to buy from you. I’ve heard estimates of sites that went from having small, inconspicuous buttons to bold, well placed ones improve their conversion rates by as much as thirty percent. That’s a great little nip, tuck if you ask me.
Another quick and easy change you can make to improve your business’ conversion rates is to make your business look like a traditional brick and mortar store front. I’m not saying you have to go out and rent a physical space in a strip mall to appear legitimate. But think about the kinds of things that traditional brick and mortar stores have that make customer’s trust buying from them. They display store hours, have customer service people who can answer questions, list their address and phone number, etc. You should do all these things too. On a contact page list the address and phone number for your business, list what hours your customer service representatives are available to answer calls, and if possible post a picture of yourself. All of these tidbits signal to a customer that you are a credible business that they can trust buying from.
Speaking of gaining a user’s trust…you can take this one step further. If you’ve received any press from other trusted sources of news post that on your site. Positioning yourself alongside trusted brands or news outlets gives credibility by association. If you’ve been mentioned in other blogs, magazines, news stories, or received any awards display those with pride. In other words brag about yourself to visitors. The more the better.
Another advantage traditional brick and mortar stores have over e-commerce sites is their ability to be transparent. If a customer walks into a store location, browses all of the merchandise and then settles on an item to purchase they are made immediately aware if the product is in stock or not. They don’t have to go through a whole check-out process where they fill out boxes asking for their name, billing and shipping addresses, phone number, credit card number, etc. only to find out the product is unavailable for another six to eight weeks. Going through all that just to get a message that says product out of stock drives customers nuts and makes them mad at you. Don’t anger your customers. If you are temporarily out of stock of a product, say so on your site. Be up front with them.
It’s the same with shipping costs. E-commerce customers hate finding out after they’ve filled in all the boxes to purchase a product that the shipping charges are almost as costly as the product itself. Nothing stops a sale quicker than finding out astronomical shipping charges apply. When possible list the approximate shipping costs next to the price of the product.
Speaking of filling out all those boxes to complete the check-out process…make it as easy as possible. I see a lot of online companies asking for too much information. This scares customers off. Don’t make a customer create an account to purchase from you, don’t ask for their phone number when they fill out an inquiry form, don’t ask them for their address when downloading a report. All of those things are unnecessary and scares off customers. Only ask for the information that you absolutely have to have to complete the transaction. Your customers will thank you for it by becoming repeat buyers.
Displaying your return policy is another way to be as transparent as possible to your customers. Returning things bought online is another one of those things that annoy customers. With traditional brick and mortar stores, the customer can easily return an item at their convenience to the store. They can get their money back on the spot. Online buyers don’t have this luxury.
That’s why e-commerce businesses that offer good return policies are more popular. Give the customer at least 30 days to review the product before deciding to keep it, 60 to 90 days is better. Make returns as easy as possible by listing a phone number for customers to call to process their return easily and quickly. People like having the ability to talk to a person when it comes to returns, it’s important to them. They don’t want to just send it back and hope for a refund. They want to hear from a real person that the return is being processed and they will get their money back quickly.
On the same page, convey to the customer that your website is secure and you will keep their information (like credit card number, phone number, email address) under lock and key. Most internet users do not know the “https” rule. They do not know that any website address that starts with “https” is secure. You have to show them their information is secure in other ways. Adding the Verisign and Truste logo to show security will go a long way towards building trusting relationships with your customers.
Perhaps the best piece of information I can give you has to do with browsers. Ask your webmaster or graphic designer what internet browser they pay most attention to when working. In nearly 100% of cases they will say Internet Explorer. If they don’t you should worry that they are incompetent. While it’s true that nearly 80-90% of users come to your site via Internet Explorer, that does not mean you should ignore users coming from other browsers. It never seems to occur to webmasters that the reason they have so few visitors originating from other browsers is that their site comes across as somewhat broken in views via other browsers. This lack of compassion and understanding could be holding you back by as much as twenty percent increase in your conversion rates. It’s something worth investigating at the least.
Good Luck!
Ethan Warrick
