To increase your online sales, it's important to focus on two key factors: driving website traffic and improving your conversion rate. While many marketers prioritize generating website visitors (through social media or email marketing campaigns), the most effective way to increase sales is by growing the percentage of visitors who actually convert into customers, also known as your average conversion rate.
Improving your conversion rate can result in more sales from the same amount of traffic, leading to a higher return on investment (ROI) and a better user experience for your visitors. Similar to a fuel-efficient car traveling farther on the same amount of fuel, a website with higher conversion rates can generate more sales with the same amount of traffic.
There are several tactics you can employ to achieve this goal.
What are conversions?
A website conversion is the act of a visitor taking a specific action that fulfills the website's intended goal, resulting in an exchange of value between the visitor and the website. There are two types of conversions: macro conversions and micro conversions.
Macro conversions are the primary actions that are most valuable to the website owner, such as making a purchase on an ecommerce site.
On the other hand, micro conversions are steps that lead visitors towards the primary conversion, such as signing up for a newsletter or clicking on a specific link.
Conversion rate is a key performance indicator (KPI) for marketers, representing the percentage of site visits that result in a conversion. For example, if a site has 100 visitors and two of them make a purchase, the conversion rate is 2%. Increasing the conversion rate is known as conversion rate optimization (CRO).
How to boost conversions
Increasing conversions is a blend of the scientific and creative aspects of marketing. The first step is to collect data, which is the scientific part. The second step is to use this information to generate creative ideas for improvement. The ultimate aim is to create a smooth and seamless experience for potential customers.
Here are five ways to gather information about your site experience and some of the ideas this data can generate:
1. Talk to your customers
Many marketers believe that increasing conversions begins with quantitative data. However, in many cases, especially for businesses with fewer daily visitors, the best insights can come from directly communicating with customers.
You can conduct formal customer interviews and ask questions such as “What made you buy this product?”, “What was the most important feature?” and “Did you face any hesitations or problems during the purchase?”. However, you can also obtain insights more naturally by using on-site surveys or chat tools and reviewing the responses from customers and non-customers.
Shopify Inbox can help you manage these conversations more easily, allowing you to convert more browsers into buyers, build strong customer relationships, and reduce the time spent on support, all without leaving Shopify.
2. Analyze your website data
Quantitative data is crucial for gaining user behavior insights and making informed decisions that are not influenced by selection or memory biases. While a customer may express a preference for Product Page A's design, the data might indicate that Product B leads to 20% more conversions, confirming that Product B is the better performing page.
Your conversion rate, which is the percentage of visitors who convert, is the most important data to consider. Analyzing your conversion rate by page and traffic channel through segmentation and comparison can provide valuable insights. Google Analytics is a popular tool for generating this data.
- By segmenting and comparing your data by page and traffic channel, you can gain valuable insights to improve your conversion rate. Analyzing user behavior on each page can help you identify which pages are performing best and why. This information can help you create an ideal user journey and optimize your site's navigation to guide users towards the most valuable actions.
- Additionally, segmenting data by traffic channel can help you understand which channels are driving the most qualified traffic. For example, you may find that visitors from organic search are more likely to convert than those from social media. This information can inform your overall traffic strategy and help you allocate resources towards the most effective channels, ultimately boosting conversions.
3. Review your site’s friction points
All websites have areas of friction, which are parts of the user experience that could be smoother. Although a smooth and seamless experience might appear subjective, it is quite measurable.
Here are a few ways to quantify it:
- Track which FAQs are most viewed on your website to identify important questions that can be integrated into the core site experience. You can use apps like Helphub to measure FAQ interaction.
- Scroll depth and heat map reports can show where users are dropping off on the page, indicating high-friction sections. Heatmap.com offers a free ecommerce-focused option for both reports.
- Additionally, reviewing purchase funnel drop-offs and comparing them to industry benchmarks like those provided by Littledata can help identify friction points in the conversion funnel. For example, the payment information page is a common friction point that can be improved with social proof such as testimonials or money-back guarantees.
4. Test and enhance your value proposition
The value proposition of a website is a critical factor that influences conversions. Even if a website has technical issues or friction, visitors who are genuinely interested in the product may overlook them.
To determine if your value proposition can be improved, conducting an A/B test is the most effective approach. If you're running digital ad campaigns, you can test various tagline versions in your ad copy and use the best-performing one on your site. Additionally, tools such as Google Optimize can be utilized to test different taglines directly on your site and determine which version generates better conversions.
5. Audit your technical setup
Many sites’ conversion rates are held back by elements of their technical setup. The most common issues are slow page loading times (also known as site speed), poor mobile optimization, and broken links.
The good news is that these elements are easily testable using various tools. GTMetrix provides an actionable page speed review for ecommerce sites, Google provides a free compatibility test for your mobile site, and Screaming Frog can check your pages for broken links.
By actioning the ideas you generate from these types of analyses, you can increase your conversions.
