Ecommerce Conversion Rate Optimization for 2X Visitor Retention

Trying to capture someone’s attention in the digital realm is like trying to catch a squirrel on Red Bull.

It’s tough!

Studies shown that most internet users are more skimmers than readers. So, if you want to keep someone’s attention, you better make sure your content is as exciting as a squirrel on Red Bull (or at least close).

As an ecommerce company or a store owner, attention grabbing is crucial. You only have a window of 8 seconds or less to hook your visitors. Failing to do so will make them bounce away.

Potentially forever!

The ecommerce sector is a tough nut to crack (get it? Squirrel – nut). On average an ecommerce website only manages to convert 2.35% of the visitors.

So how do you make sure your visitors stay long enough on your website and convert before leaving it?

Well, conversion optimization holds the key you need to charm and captivate those irrational web wanderers into sticking put and becoming devoted customers.

If you’re desperately trying to stop your website visitors from running away like cats from a bath, we’ve got you covered. In this blog post, we’ll share with you the best Ecommerce Conversion Rate Optimization strategies to turn those bounce rates into cha-ching rates!

Fast Page Load Speed is a Must

It doesn’t matter how nice your images are and how persuasive your copy is.

If your site doesn’t load fast enough, the user will leave the page before they see it.

Source: Razor Rank

Even a delay of just a few milliseconds is enough to lose a visitor.

• 0.1 second is about the limit for making the visitor realize that the system is reacting instantaneously, meaning that no special feedback is necessary except to display the result.
• 1.0 second is about the limit until which the visitor’s focus remains uninterrupted, even though the user will notice the delay. 

Excerpt from Chapter 5 of “Usability Engineering” by Jakob Nielsen

Google has reported that improving a website’s speed by one second can potentially result in a 27% increase in conversions for mobile users.

To achieve better ecommerce conversion rates, having a fast-loading website is crucial. Therefore, it’s important to choose an ecommerce hosting provider that can optimize your site’s speed. A reliable hosting provider can offer server optimization, content delivery networks, and caching systems to ensure your website loads quickly and efficiently. With improved page load speed, you can enhance your customers’ experience and increase your chances of converting visitors into customers.

Fast Ecommerce Store = More Conversions!

Ecommerce Stores Hosted on Cloudways Are Lighting Fast, Secure and Offer a Reliable Browsing Experience to Their Visitors.

Start For Free!

Simplify Navigation

Don’t make things complicated for your visitors.

Many ecommerce websites have loads of information crammed into pages. And finding something in there is also a challenge because of complex navigation styles.

That’s a mistake. Keep things navigable. Some tips to do that can involve:

• Following KISS – Keep it simple, stupid!
• Using easy to understand web copy.
• Making your design easy to understand.
• Using colour schemes that don’t take the attention away from the website text.
• Making the website menu navigable.

A good example of simplified navigation comes from Petersham Nurseries. Its has two navigation bars at the top plus a navigation bar footer – making it very easy to navigate and finding relevant information.

Keep Your Content Relevant

Grabbing someone’s attention is not very hard – there are lots of gimmicks out there that can help you.

But irrelevant content will make your visitors bounce away. On the contrary, if your visitors see something they are looking for, they’ll stay and likely convert.

“There is no such thing as an attention span. There is only the quality of what you are viewing. This whole idea of an attention span is, I think, a misnomer. People have an infinite attention span if you are entertaining them.” Jerry Seinfeld

Relevancy is extremely important.

So, instead of getting millions of visitors to your store, focus on talking to the audience that’s actually interested in buying your product.

See how Apple communicates what’s relevant without an information overload.

Simplify Checkout

17% visitors abandon their carts when they find the checkout process is too complex.

24% people don’t purchase if an ecommerce site wants them to create an account.

The stats make one thing clear – if it’s a hassle to purchase from you, people will bounce off and buy from someone else.

Source: Urban Outfitter

Look at Urban Outfitter’s checkout page as an example. It’s so clean and simple.

Make your checkout process really easy. Here are a few ways to do that:

• Allow guest purchase. If you make people go through the arduous signup process before purchasing, they’ll likely go away.
• Make it easier to edit orders. Many people like to make last minute changes. If they have to go all the way back to step one to make the changes, you can lose them.
• Offer several payment options. You’ll not want to lose a customer because they couldn’t pay via their preferred payment method. 9% of ecommerce sales are lost this way.

Get Reliable Tracking Tools

You’ll need assistance from reliable tracking tools if you want to reduce conversion rate leakages.

There are several areas that you’ll need to track effectively, for which you’ll need reliable tools. Here are some tools to consider using:

• HotJar – helps you track user behaviours.
• Google Analytics – helps you track the traffic to your website
• Woopra – helps you track customers’ journey

Less Is More

Ever heard about analysis paralysis?

That usually happens when you have too many options and can’t choose just one.

When given too many options, the visitors can feel overwhelmed and may choose nothing at all.

Fewer distractions on your landing pages will pump up the conversion rate.

Neal Taparia from Cribbage-Online says that “That’s why we minimize distractions on our game pages. There are no unnecessary pop ups or other elements that annoy the user and distract them from the core goal which is to have a rich user experience. In fact, we see engagement increase when we avoid additional elements”

But how much is too much? According to Oli Gardner, Co-Founder of Unbounce, two is already too much when it comes to objectives.

“One page. One goal. Period.” Oli Gardner

Source: Allbirds

See the above page as an example. It hardly says anything yet communicates what the business sells.

Accentuate Customer Reviews

There’s an avoidable ruckus in the ecommerce world about authenticity.

When purchasing online, people will heavily rely on the words of your existing customers since they can’t see or feel the product.

The duty then comes upon you to provide your customers with fair reviews and customer feedback on your ecommerce platform. Make sure that the reviews appear authentic. And if you see any negative review, don’t hesitate to reach out to the customer and resolve their issue. This will encourage the person who left a bad review, to revisit and leave a positive review.

Source: Amazon

And remember, if you leverage fake positive reviews, you’re not going to go far. For example, if all your products have 5 stars reviews, it may be hard for the visitors to believe the authenticity of reviews.

Surveys

Getting real-time feedback from your users will greatly help you with conversion optimization. Surveys nowadays have come a long way from the annoying, interruptive forms that took ages to complete.

Today, surveys are nice and layered pop-ups that stay in the corner of the browser. Make sure you use them if you want to know what your users are interested in.

Source: Google Meet

This simple survey, for example, from Google Meet, gives Google the data they need to improve their product.

You can use several tools to create surveys as well, such as:

• Zoho Survey
• Google Forms
• SurveyMonkey
• Survey Planet

A/B Testing

Optimization isn’t something that you do once and then forget. It’s an ongoing process that you do via A/B testing.

A/B testing means testing different elements on your landing pages to see what delivers the best results.

It can be design changes, color scheme variations, text-copy changes, etc.

Only one in every seven A/B tests is a winning test, so optimization is a repetitive process that requires research, conducting tests based on hypotheses, and learning from the results.

Knowing what your users are responding to will help you serve them better content and thus grab and keep their attention and convert them more easily.

Below is an example of A/B testing by Cloudways. You can see several changes in the elements of both the pages. We ran tests on both the pages and saw which one reaped better utility.

You can see that the newer variation is better. It looks more credible with the stats as well. Plus, it looks more sorted than before.

Original ↓

Variation ↓

But remember, perfecting the landing page is a journey. You’ll constantly need to work on the page so that it delivers results.

Personalization

Personalized content always hits home. And for that you’ll need deeper insights than just assumptions. Stats show that 80% people will prefer to become customers to businesses that offer a personalized experience.

Personalization doesn’t work if you don’t know your customers. 

Users get frustrated with websites when content, offers, ads, promotions, etc., have nothing to do with their interests.

Can you guess what they’ll do?

They won’t pay attention to you and BOUNCE AWAY!

So, take time to understand your customers and then personalize your store to their liking.

Source: Hello Fresh

Take Hello Fresh, for example. It has a clear messaging of what they do.

On top of it, instead of offering options, this business lets customers make their own personalized plans.

Like Hello Fresh, you can offer a personalized experience on your stores as well wherever possible.

Segmentation

Segmentation and personalization go hand in hand.

There are many ways you can segment your audience (by location, keywords used, the content they’re attracted to, behavior, etc.), but the point remains the same: you must provide customers with what they are looking for, not with something that just works for the average user.

Here are some areas of segmentation to consider:

• Geographic segmentation
• Demographic segmentation
• Psychographic segmentation
• Behavioral segmentation

Source: QuestionPro

Keep in mind that there’ll be several segmentation variables at play at the time of strategy formulation. Your task is to filter out the irrelevant information and stick with the most relevant segments for your store.

Conclusion

Because of the mobile revolution, users are constantly on their phones or tablets, trying to keep up with everything.

They don’t have time (and they don’t want) to wait for a page to load or for the brand to pitch their unique selling points.

If you’ve been in the ecommerce industry for a while, you know that it can sometimes feel impossible to grab your customers’ attention and make them convert.

But fret not! High-quality content paired with smart targeting, fast websites, and reiteration on different channels will always help you attract even the most distracted of users.

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Disclaimer: This is a guest post by Valentin Radu, Founder & CEO of Omniconvert. The opinions and ideas expressed herein are the author’s own, and in no way reflect Cloudways position.