Every Tuesday, the Volusion team will be posting quick educational videos to help you further succeed online. Today’s episode teaches you 6 easy ways to boost conversions on your ecommerce site.
Hello and happy Tuesday! Thanks for joining us for the latest installment of our Two Minute Tuesdays video series. Today you’ll learn a few simple tips to give shoppers that extra push to make a purchase from your ecommerce site. Not a bad lesson for only two minutes of your day, right?
As always, please let me know if there’s any topics you’d like covered in our next series. Just leave a comment below or hit my inbox at matthew_winn(at)volusion(dot)com.
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And if you’re one of the few studious folks left who choose to read over watching a video, here’s the transcript:
Hi everybody, my name is Matt and I’m a Marketing Associate here at Volusion. Welcome to Two Minute Tuesdays, where we give you two minutes of ecommerce advice to bolster your online success. Today we’ll give you a few tips and tricks to boost your conversion rate.
Of course it helps to know what a conversion rate is before we get started. Ultimately, for our purposes, it’s getting people to your website and turning them into a customer via a purchase.
So, with that in mind, you’ll first want to have a clean site design. When people get to your website you’ve already accomplished half of the battle, so you want to make sure that they’re impressed when they get there. Thus, make sure your site is easy to navigate and looks credible.
Next, tell people what to do. When people get to your website, you need to take them down the path that you want them to take. Thus, make sure your calls to action are high. For example, calls to action like “add to cart,” “buy now,” “learn more,” things of that sort – make it prominent, and make it easy for customers to find and click through.
Then, sell, sell, sell your products. You’re not operating a retail store here, so your customers aren’t able to physically touch the products, try them, on, or see how they look. This means that you need to describe them very well through robust product descriptions and have several product images from multiple views that customers can zoom in and see.
Next, have multiple payment options. Not everyone likes to pay the same way. Some people prefer to pay through PayPal. Some people also don’t have a PayPal account. Others might prefer to use MasterCard instead of Visa. So giving people more options to choose how they want to buy will increase the likelihood of people actually going through with their purchase.
Next, watch out for surprise shipping costs. One of the biggest reasons that people bounce is because when they put an item in their cart and move to the checkout page, they see a surprise surcharge for shipping. So make sure you let people know ahead of time of shipping costs so they’re not surprised and bounce from your site.
Finally, make shoppers feel secure. With the amount of identity fraud and theft going up across the world, it’s definitely important to remind customers that they’re safe on your site. Of course you need to have your SSL installed, but you also need to let customers know that it’s there. Having phone numbers where people can contact you also helps your business look credible, and having your SSL logos prominently displayed lets people know that they’re safe. Now they’re much more likely to enter their credit card information and get funds straight to your bank account.
As always, if you have any questions about selling online, we’re happy to help. From me to you, happy selling!