Is your eCommerce conversion rate dropping? Don’t worry; you’re not the only one! As per the most recent survey and studies in 2020, the average conversion rate of eCommerce websites is 2.86%. However, you should worry about the impact if your conversion rate falls below 2%.
There are many possible reasons why your eCommerce conversion rate might be slumping. Ask yourself these questions:
Are you using the correct conversion tools? How about your eCommerce website’s speed? Did you try to combine SEO and CRO? Do visitors easily find what they are looking for when they land on your website? Is the checkout process simple?
These aspects and factors must be considered while enhancing your e-commerce conversion strategy. To help you understand better, let’s get into the details one by one.
Top 5 eCommerce conversion rate optimization tactics you can implement to improve conversions
- Use the proper conversion tools
- Maintain a website loading speed of fewer than 4 seconds
- Combine SEO and CRO
- Simplify navigation
- Make the checkout process hassle-free
Use the proper conversion tools
Thanks to technology, there are a plethora of tools out there that you can use to improve conversions and increase sales. One of the most crucial tools is the conversion analysis tool. You want to know your present conversion issues before knowing what you should test.
Heat-mapping tools such as HotJar can help you understand how your users interact with your site. The analysis tool can capture between 1,000 and 10,000 page views and give you an aggregate analysis. It can also offer session recordings to analyze customer behavior in real-time.
Google Analytics is another excellent tool for combined sessions, goals, and event tracking. You will be able to discover behaviors, including how visitors found your website, session visits, demographics, and whether the visitors are returning or new.
These findings can help you choke out an enhanced conversion strategy for your e-commerce platform.
Maintain a website loading speed of fewer than 4 seconds
Yes, website speed matters. If you look at the stats, one in four visitors will leave your site if it takes more than four seconds to load. And one-second delay can reduce customer satisfaction by 16%.
Image Source: Website Builder Expert
To optimize your page speed, try switching to a better hosting provider or consider upgrading. Remember, the cheapest option is not the best option. If your e-commerce store develops, your traffic will grow. You need hosting suited to the type and size of your store.
We provide high quality virtual servers in the USA (vps USA). Choose between different data center locations. Want to start a company in the States? Need to increase your American customer base? We got your back with our VPS hosting plans which are located all over the United States.
Shared hosting (Hostgator's a good example) is only suitable for small startups with fewer products. If you have lots of products in your store, opt for VPS hosting that offers some dedicated shares of the server resources though you will still be sharing one hosting with numerous sites.
Or else, do what many medium to large businesses do and get you a dedicated server. Though expensive, you will have complete control over your hosting, and it will significantly improve your site speed.
Implementing a CDN is another way to optimize your site for speed. CDN networks are composed of servers located in different parts of the world. Your files are copied and stored on these servers.
So whenever users from other continents or countries visit your eCommerce store, the data is available to them from the closest server. The result? Your website speed improves!
You can also try limiting your website page size to speed up your site.
Here are some essential tips to limit webpage size and boost the page load speed:
- Remove all unwanted scripts, fonts, and plugins.
- Use images in moderation or compress them. You can change them to WebP and swap existing images with those in SVG.
- Merge and minify JS and CSS files to decrease the number of server requests and speed up the page load time.
Combine SEO and CRO
If you have optimized your content using keywords, you know it does much more than bring traffic.
And if you combine SEO (search engine optimization) and CRO (conversion rate optimization), it will enhance both traffic and conversions.
While SEO optimizes content for search engines and makes you rank better, CRO will optimize content for users and customers and drive them to take action.
However, while you are at it, don’t neglect user experience. Keyword-stuffed content will drive customers away, and search engines will penalize you too.
You need to work on content quality, keywords, on-page SEO, and user and usage data to make it work. They are going to affect Google’s ranking algorithm.
You can implement keyword research tools such as Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush to boost your SEO and increase traffic.
And to see that your on-page copy is optimized for conversion, use tools such as Crazy Egg and Google Analytics.
Remember, good copy is linked to conversions. Besides, if you use a WooCommerce SEO-friendly platform, you must use some good SEO plugins. There are some plugins exclusively made for WooCommerce sites.
Simplify navigation
Your potential customers will leave your site if you make it hard for them to find the products or information they are looking for.
Make navigation simple to ensure that your e-commerce site is a convenient tool for them.
Here are some valuable tips to follow when designing a navigation structure for your site:
- Make parent categories noticeable.
When visitors land on your site for the first time, they should see the main navigation bar with the parent categories adjacent to the top page.
Adding standard searchable terms to choose your categories will help land your site within the top searches on Google.
Here is an example of Keap’s navigation bar.
Image Source: Keap
As you can see, they separated it into four concise categories and added dropdown menu options. The dropdown menu makes it look clean while indicating more to see.
- Add subcategories and expanded menus.
You can also add subcategories with filtered options. It will let you be more specific while saving your homepage space. That’s not all. When you add subcategories, your visitors spend more time on your site while enhancing click-throughs. It is excellent for metrics and conversions.
If you look at Chewy’s navigation bar below, “shop by pet” is the label of one of its parent categories. It leads to a dropdown menu according to the pet type that the users own.
Image Source: Keap
They have also added an expanded menu. When users hover their mouse over the subcategory to the left, the expanded menu describes the products that their pet needs.
It saves much space on the landing page while still adding the required products in an organized and easy-to-navigate style.
- Add a category for new arrivals.
This idea works well when you have repeat customers who have become familiar with your brand and like using your products. By adding a “New Arrivals” category in your navigation bar, you signal that you refresh your inventory regularly.
In the example below, the navigation bar of H&M has a “New Arrivals” section. It makes it easy for visitors to browse the products.
Image Source: Keap
Make the checkout process hassle-free
As per 2020 shopping cart abandonment stats, 34% of customers said they abandoned their carts because the site wanted them to create an account.
In this case, the best thing to do is offer a guest checkout option. Though getting customers registered on your site is alluring, with more customers using smartphones to buy products, it sometimes becomes impossible to register. You won’t want to register to buy just a tee shirt, do you?
Here, the Threadless website offers a guest checkout option, making the checkout process simple for customers. But users need to create an account for faster checkouts.
Wrap Up
You can try plenty of things if your conversion rates are decreasing. The five strategies mentioned in this article are some of the crucial ones. Start implementing them today and see your conversions increase. A simple first step is to add a form to your website using the POWR Form Builder app.
First, see that you are using the proper analysis tool to speed up your site, combine SEO and CRO, simplify navigation, and make the checkout process hassle-free.
Author Bio
Lucy Manole is a creative content writer and strategist at Marketing Digest. She specializes in writing about digital marketing, technology, entrepreneurship, and education. She spends time reading books, cooking and traveling, not writing or editing.
