Today we are pleased to introduce our Guest Blogger Megan Webb-Morgan from the Resource Nation blog to explain 3 Things your eCommerce site is missing. Without further delay, here’s the post:
3 Things Your eCommerce Site is Missing
Are you having trouble making sales on your eCommerce site? Don’t waste money on yet another email marketing blast or discount promotion. Instead, look at your site itself and determine whether you’re missing these three critical elements that affect your conversion rate.
Advanced Search Functionality
The average time customers spend on a website is less than 3 minutes – they fulfill their goal and then leave – resulting in the highest average conversion rate. However, for customers who spend more than 7 minutes on site, shopper conversion rates drop dramatically.
Why should more time on-site result in fewer completed purchases? Because these customers are too lost and confused to buy anything. According to a study from Google, 61% of mobile shoppers reported that if they could not find what they were looking for right away on a mobile site, they would quickly give up and leave.
If your conversion rate is low, the problem may be your lack of advanced search functions. You need to make it easy for your customers to navigate your site, view your products, and make purchases on their mobile device.
- Have your web designer create a search bar and place it prominently on your site.
- Effectively categorize your products down to the granular level. Having a search option on your site is pointless if it doesn’t bring up the items that your customer is looking for – they don’t want to navigate through a maze of pages in order to find what they want. If it’s not fast and easy, they’re going to give up in frustration.
Content for SEO
You can’t just build an eCommerce site and then sit back while the sales come pouring in. And thanks to new updates to the Google algorithm, utilizing optimized keywords on your product pages isn’t enough to positively influence your page rankings. In fact, relying on keywords alone can actually hurt your rankings.
Diverse content is the new priority for SEO – even for eCommerce websites containing hundreds or thousands of product pages. If those pages are the same as other pages found on your site or on other sites across the web, you’re going to be penalized for it.
- Fill each product page with unique, fresh content. Remove the manufacturer’s product description and write your own version that’s unique for every individual product.
- Add social links and user-generated content like customer reviews.
- Update your product pages regularly. If this is too big a task, start with your most popular product pages and work from there.
Clear Call to Action
Believe it or not, your conversion rate can fluctuate drastically depending on the typeface, color, and word choice you use in your call to action – the “buy now” button that asks your customers to make that purchase. Obviously, if your CTA is buried under lengthy text, hidden amongst numerous distracting page elements, or unclear in its wording or intent, you could be missing out on many potential conversions. But even a well-designed CTA may not bring your conversion rate up to the highest possible level.
- Test your CTA’s effectiveness with split (or A/B) testing. Use this testing to determine what results in a higher conversion rate: “Buy Now” versus “Add to Cart.” You should test every possible variation to determine which one is most effective. Should the button be blue or orange? Large or small? Bold or subtle font?
Your eCommerce site can be well-designed, well-marketed, and feature high-quality products but still fail to generate conversions. Make sure that your site is easy to search, that your product pages are optimized for content-based SEO, and that your call-to-action is as effective as possible. With just a few tweaks, you can drastically increase your site’s profits.
Bio: Megan Webb-Morgan is a business blogger for Resource Nation. She writes on business topics like online marketing, SEO optimization, and web design, with an emphasis on issues affecting small businesses and startups. You can follow Resource Nation on Twitter and Facebook!
