9 tips to increase eCommerce conversion rate optimisation

Getting loads of website traffic is great, but if that traffic doesn't convert into something concrete, like a sign-up, sale or download of a site resource —then what's the point? If your website isn't fully-optimised, you could be missing out on lots of sale conversions.

Here are our 9 tops tips for effectively optimising your website to increase your eCommerce conversion rate.

Improve the visual design of your product page

This is a no-brainer. The first step to boosting conversion rates starts with the visual component of your website. Good visibility, effective description, and attractive photos all help customer engagement. Always try to use high quality images and video on all of your product pages. The importance of visuals cannot be understated, so make sure your website stands out!

Utilise a powerful site-search

Effective site-search is one of the most important aspects of your website – it’s how customers browse products after all. That’s why it’s essential to constantly review your search's performance, ensuring that your site-search works and is fully-optimised. A powerful site-search tool can offer things such as personalised results, auto-completing queries, understanding thematic searches, and automatic merchandising.

Tweak and test your eCommerce checkout process

Ensure the buying journey is as smooth as possible, with intuitive form filling and a short, seamless checkout process. Also, let customers checkout as guests to minimise cart abandonment —as many will be turned away from a sale if they have to sign up to the page. Finally, make sure any additional costs like delivery are clearly displayed to avoid the customer getting any unwanted surprises.

Clear, strategic CTAs

Appropriately positioning your Call to action's (CTAs) can guarantee that they stand out. Make sure your CTAs use imperatives like "buy now" or "add to cart" — making sure the colour stands out to maximise visibility. Research by HubSpot discovered that implementing personalised CTAs convert 42% more visitors into leads than un-targeted CTAs, so full optimisation for your individual customers is essential.

Live chat

An effective chatbot or integrated live chat can help customers easily answer key questions about your products or buying process. Recent findings suggest a 10% increase in the average order value of customers who engaged with a chat function pre-purchase over those who did not. This, in turn, led to a 48% increase in revenue per chat hour and a 40% increase in conversion rate.

Mobile/tablet optimisation

What’s the point in having a great-looking website if you cant show it off to mobile or tablet device users? Implementing responsive design will ensure your site is equipped to deal with anyone and everyone who views it, by adjusting your site's content automatically — making it consistent across all devices. 

Implementing Google Analytics

Google Analytics will track every term that’s entered in your site’s search function, as well as the frequency of each term that is entered. This can help you discover new keywords to use for internal blog content, SEO, and AdWords. It can also enlighten you on what customers are having difficulty finding and help you to evaluate the success of a new site-search engine or the effectiveness of an update to your existing one. 

Faceted navigation

Faceted Navigation perfectly complements the rest of your site-search functionality. Facets are categories like brand, size, price etc – which your users can use to refine their search results and category listings. Enabling the customer to further narrow down their search by different departments and categories will ensure they find exactly what they are looking for and will help to drastically improve conversion rates.

Display testimonials from buyers

Displaying buyer reviews and testimonials can help build trust with your customers and helps verify your business as reliable, honest, and dependable. It’s certainly no surprise that 63% of customers are more likely to make a purchase from a site with user reviews and customer reviews can increase sales by 18%. 

Improving eCommerce user experiences with slick navigation and site search can drastically improve increase conversion rates. To find out more, download our mobile site search and navigation design guide..