27 Tips To Boost Your Website Conversions

The goal of every e-commerce business is to increase website conversions. To do that, you have to consider how your website is being received by users and what you are doing to support website conversions. Closely tracking and optimizing can help you do just that.

I’ve put together a list of tips to help you increase your WEBSITE conversions by as much as 200%...

Do not force your visitors to create an account when they are about to checkout. This creates an extra burden for them and many of them will opt out, even leaving the site completely. Instead, allow them to create an account after their payment is complete.
Consider the text on your call-to-action buttons. Test your copy with different variations (Buy Now vs. Buy vs. Add to Cart, for example) and track the performance. Then, you can accurately make decisions about what your sales buttons should say.
Make your landing page very clear and simple. Do not dress it up with unnecessary content or images which will distract your visitor. You want to guide them to purchases, not overwhelm them. Simple is best in this case.
Consider building a live chat option into your website. When visitors interact with this feature, it can help to foster deeper customer relationships. But you have to properly staff for it. This tactic is only effective if customers feel truly attended to.
If you have something very important to tell to your visitor, make sure that you include it “above the fold” of your website. Having important offers and specials immediately in your visitors' eye line will greatly increase the chance that they will interact with that content.
Incorporate copy like “act now," “ending soon," “only valid for two more days,” etc. to compel your visitor to take an immediate action on an offer with a time limit. Urgency increases conversions. Fear of missing out will work in your favor. But be careful. This only works if the offer is truly noteworthy and if the limit is held to. Otherwise, you risk losing your customers' trust.
Make sure the entire process flows smoothly once the visitor clicks on a call-to-action button. And always send a confirmation email. Tools like Agile CRM and Mailchimp can help you with this automation process.
Make your website navigation easy. Visitors should not have to take on the burden of finding what they are looking for. Well thought out categories and strong user experience design can help to achieve this.
Place applicable testimonials on different pages throughout your site. These accounts can increase credibility and trust.
Make sure you are taking your online reputation seriously. The online community is very active and you need to address all of your customer complaints in a timely manner.
If you have several steps in your checkout process, make sure your visitor is aware of which step he or she is currently in. Many modern sites do this with visuals.
Always be upfront about pricing. Show the complete price to your customer before checkout, including shipping details, taxes, etc. Many users will click off (and be ticked off) if they are suddenly hit with extra charges right before they complete their order.
Make sure you customer can track his or her order. Provide a tracking code once the product has shipped and an approximate delivery time and date if possible. This way you'll avoid answering questions later AND you'll give your customers piece of mind.
Do not ask for more information than you have use for. For instance, a person subscribing for a newsletter may hesitate and end the action completely if he is asked for his physical address in addition to his email. Balance your want for information with your customers wishes for privacy.
Break your long paragraphs into smaller ones so your visitors can easily scan and read. This is especially important for mobile users.
Include links to your FAQs page where applicable (and have a strong FAQs page) to help minimize your customers' doubts.
Make sure a complete SEO optimization has been done. The number of visitors is far more for the websites which appear as the top results in search engines.
Always have a privacy policy and include a link to it on your landing page.
Create a video that showcases and explains your product.
Have a blog and update it with fresh content.
Do not direct all your PPC ads to your homepage. Try to have a specific landing page for every product you offer. This increases the user experience which in turn helps increase the website conversion rate.
Make it simple for your visitor to share your blog on various social media sites, like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
Make sure that the analytics code is installed in your website for tracking your visitor’s activity. These metrics (where people drop off, what entry points have the highest likelihood for sales, etc.) can help you make important changes in the future.
Increase the browsing experience of your visitor by having options to sort, filter and view your products in various ways.
Use breadcrumbs to help visitors understand where they are on the site relative to the rest of your site.
Take care of you 404 error pages. Visitors will get irritated (and likely quit) if a 404 error is shown during the last step of checkout process.
Do not go all in with any decision before testing and analyzing it.

All the above mentioned tips will help you improve your web conversions, but not every tip is valid or necessary for every website. Consider your customer and market and then try out the ones that may make sense for you. Good luck out there, e-commerce sellers!

This is a guest blog post by Sivarama Krishna of Agile CRM. Have something to add to this conversation? Reach out to us or Sivarama!