When it comes to selling more online, it’s not always a case of more marketing or a bigger advertising budget.
For many ecommerce websites, the trick is to optimise what you’re already working with to increase your website conversion rate.
Here’s 5 hacks – that most business owners forget to do – that can help to grow your online sales.
1. Install free web analytics
When it comes to increasing your website conversion rate, the more data you have the better.
In order to better understand your website traffic, I recommend you make use of the following analytics tools:
● Google Analytics – for website visitor data
● Google Search Console – tells you everything you need to know about how your website is performing on Google
● Heatmap analytics – there’s a number of ‘heatmaps’ you can download and install, but essentially they help you understand activity on your website
By combining each of these tools, you’ll have a full picture of what’s going on with your website, which will help you spot any trouble areas or any design improvements that are needed.
2. Speed your website up
User experience and website speed are two important things Google looks at when ranking your site.
Having a fast website is crucial!
According to Kissmetrics, 47% of website visitors expect a website to fully load in less than 2 seconds.
40% of people will abandon the website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load!
Think of all that business you could be losing!
Try using Google’s Page Insights tool to check your site’s speed.
If you’re not sure how to speed your site up, or what’s causing it to be slow, you can find digital tools for SEO that can help you diagnose the problem.
Another way to increase your site speed is to change to a better web hosting service with more RAM. This is especially important if your site attracts a lot of traffic.
3. Use social proof to show you’re credible
Social proof is evidence of what people think of your business or products. This can be user reviews, ratings, feedback or testimonials.
Think of booking a holiday on a travel site, you’re always more tempted by the hotel with incredible 5 star reviews!
Recent research discovered a 128% increase in conversion rates when website visitors were able to see user reviews.
You can leverage social proof to demonstrate your amazing service or incredible product, which will give people the confidence to buy.
Start by creating a page of Trustpilot, Feefo or another review site. Or if you have an eCommerce store, you can add product reviews directly on the page.
Actively reach out to customers for feedback. Learn from any criticism, and showcase your positive reviews.
4. Upsell or downsell for greater cart value (yes you read that right!)
Whilst upselling is one of the most successful sales tactics in person, it’s often forgotten about online.
If you’re using shopify or another eCommerce website builder, it’s easy to download an app for upselling or cross selling.
Essentially when a customer is looking at an item, you can make an offer for 2-4-1, an additional product or bulk order savings.
One hack that most people forget about is to down sell! This applies to customers that are in the market for what you’re selling, but on a budget. So this is a hack to convert someone that would otherwise leave your site with no sale at all.
Offer them a ‘lite’ version, or cheaper version of your main product for those customers with small budgets.
5. Create an exit pop-up
I’ve previously tried this on one of my eCommerce websites, and it increased by sales conversions by 12%!
As a customer is about to leave your site without making a purchase or signing up, a pop-up appears offering them free delivery or 10% off (if they buy within 10 minutes).
This is often the encouragement shoppers need to return to the product page and buy.
Pop-ups need to be relevant.
Don’t forget you can also use it as a means of collecting email addresses for your email marketing campaign. Some shoppers may genuinely just be looking around, but will be triggered to buy from you when the time’s right and they remember your brand.
Try putting each of these hacks into play to see the effect it’ll have on your website sales. By doing all 5, you’ll be covering all bases to make sure you’re maximising on sales opportunity.
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