How to Effectively Optimize Ecommerce Conversion Rates

As today’s consumers demand access to products and services at a moment’s notice, more and more brick and mortar stores are looking to expand their reach through the creation of eCommerce websites. However, if a digital store isn’t customized to provide an effortless user experience and optimized for reaching target users when they are searching, conversion rates will suffer.

So how can an eCommerce website increase customer loyalty, drive sales growth and connect with new audiences? The conversion optimization specialists at blue chair have proven strategies we’d like to share to help get that ball rolling.

Identify and Target Users

If you’re trying to target every online consumer with your eCommerce website, you’re going to fail. Instead, you should be utilizing web analytics to better define and reach target visitors of your site. By reviewing Google Analytics data, you’ll have a better idea of who web visitors are, where they come from and what they are looking for. With this insightful information, the digital experience can be customized to user wants and needs, increasing online conversions.

Pro Tip: Use a survey to ask converters what they like and dislike about interacting with your online store. This valuable information can assist in generating more conversions in the future.

Create Sales Funnels

Have four or more pages the user has to tab through before submitting the purchase? Simplify it! Nothing turns users off more than a confusing website that doesn’t intuitively get them to the desired goal. People want a path. Show them what to do and they are much more likely to do it. This translates to creating navigable menus, cutting down clicks and customizing the eCommerce experience for both desktop AND mobile.

Pro Tip: Map out these sales funnels before creating the user journey within the eCommerce design. By having a clear understanding of the desired behavior, the experience is more likely to convert.

Unify Your Message

It’s likely that your eCommerce website shares material with multiple digital channels – like email marketing, social media, PPC ads, etc. – and these materials are cohesive with one another. But, do your print materials match? Every interaction the user has with your company should scream your brand. If it doesn’t, you’re confusing your users. Make sure that every little interaction a user may have with your company boasts a united message.

Pro Tip: Create a content calendar to ensure all messaging is focused on trending topics, sales promotions and upcoming events.

Use Data to Optimize

Guessing ways to improve your eCommerce website design and content never works. Why guess when you can use real, reliable data? By reviewing web analytics, you can determine where people are bouncing during the sales funnel and optimize the experience to keep them down the right path.

Pro Tip: With Google Optimize, you can implement A/B testing without touching the website’s source code. Once you have determined a better user experience, eCommerce developers can restructure the code to always provide the users with the path they desire.

Don’t Forget SEO

Creating content for an eCommerce website can be daunting, especially if the online store carries hundreds or thousands of products. When creating the content, however, it is critical to keep in mind the search engines as well as the user. After all, the search engines are leading the users to the website. Because users continuously change the way they search, SEO is a never-ending job. Make sure that you have a defined content strategy, monitor your ranking keywords and expose opportunities for improvement.

Pro Tip: Using tools like Moz, SEMRush or SpyFu will help you stay on top of current rankings and new opportunities.

Diversify Marketing Strategies

Relying on one marketing channel alone is risky, especially when your original plan presents unforeseen issues and you have no backup. By diversifying through PPC ads, display ads, organic search, organic social posts, social media ads, email marketing and more, you’ll protect the success of the eCommerce website should one of these channels unexpectedly take a turn for the worse.

Pro Tip: Is one of your strategies not working? Check the data and change it accordingly! Don’t just pump time and resources into an underperforming approach. If you find that one of your channels simply isn’t converting in spite of your best efforts, discontinue it and focus your efforts on your high performers.

Share Compelling Content

User persuasion in 2018 is much more different than advertising of the past. What was once incredibly effective is now a big turn-off. Think about it – we’re surrounded by advertising all day long and naturally, we’re better at identifying it and ignoring it. So, instead of sharing content that pushes a user into your products and services, inform them of the benefits and perks. Think pull, not push. Pull your users in and draw them to your products with valuable content rather than pushing your products onto them. This should be one of the essential goals of your branding and content strategies.

Pro Tip: Implementing keyword rich blogs that focus on engaging, relevant content will not only keep your users coming back for more, it will also generate higher SERP ranking.

Utilize Social Media

With so much noise online, standing out from the pack is essential. Social media is a great place to develop a brand, connect with users and share important company information. Not to mention, it’s another avenue to share your blog content and drive traffic to your site. Finding out which social channels your target markets prefer and building a presence there will help to keep your brand front-of-mind for your users when they’re online. Make sure to share specials, sales and news to entice the users to visit your eCommerce website.

Pro Tip: When marketing on multiple social channels, use analytics to tell you more about the users following your eCommerce business. Then, tailor your messaging to better relate to those users.

Whether your eCommerce store has been open for a decade or has yet to be developed, the time for implementing conversion strategies is always now. Even if the first round of trials doesn’t produce an overwhelming amount of conversions, your team will have data to help them achieve greater success in the future.

Not attracting users and converting them with your ecommerce website? We know a team that’s ready to roll-up their sleeves and get to work. Contact the team at Blue Chair Digital today!