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Guest post by Chris Wise. How can you increase your e-commerce website conversion rates? Increasing conversions on your site doesn't have to be difficult. Making money in ecommerce all revolves around two major principles: getting people to your storefront, and getting people to buy from your storefront.
While conversions in ecommerce don't necessarily have to be purchases (they could be email sign-ups, social media follows, registrations, contact forms, or anything else for that matter) the goal of every site is for every visitor to convert. Think of it like this – it's a lot easier to double your conversion rate than it is to double your traffic.
While I am not going to mention methods that are not quick and easy, or some of the more obvious things that could increase conversions, I will list some:
- Lower prices
- Make calls to action more prominent or more intriguing
- Change ad copy
- Testing promotions
- Crowd sourcing and surveying
- Improve site appearance
- Increase site speed
- Study successful sites & competition
- Research & follow suggestions by reputable studies
- Add more payment methods
- Examine historical site analytics
- Make navigation more user-friendly
- Reduce the number of clicks it takes to complete purchase
- Eye tracking and click mapping …or a number of other obvious factors, etc
This article has to deal more with 7 underutilized CRO tactics that are quick and easy…an not always obvious. So without further delay…the list!
Add a trust seal to the home page and cart page
There are a number of different "seals" or "badges" that you can add to your site to show visitors that your business is legit and secure to purchase from. The big four are definitely: BBB, TrustE, Verisign, and McAfee. While these options are expensive – tests have shown that they are a good investment for most medium to large online storefronts. An added bonus is that you will receive a backlink from these high authority sites upon registration, which could boost your site in the SERPs.
Use Google Website Optimizer for free testing
It still surprises me that some online storefronts are not aware of free CRO tools like Google's Website Optimizer. This is a no brainer. It's free. It's simple. And you can make more money by using it…why wouldn't you? While not as robust as most paid tools, it does allow for basic A/B and multivariate testing and offers enough options to keep most ecommerce site satisfied.
Add testimonials and endorsements to your site
Testimonials, while simple, can lead to a large increase in conversion rate…especially when the testimonials come from recognizable places. Positive press, endorsements from other reputable companies, or even celebrities who have enjoyed your product can be a huge sales increase. But even if your testimonials come from everyday people, it can still give your business a conversion rate boost.
Update FAQ and About Us pages
This one is overlooked quite often. Most visitors are too lazy to contact customer service to ask a question that isn't answered in the FAQ. By simply answering as much as possible online you could be keeping large numbers of potential sales from leaving your site in disappointment. About us can even help. Tell a story about your company that is compelling, honest, and relatable and you just might find that more customers feel comfortable purchasing from you.
Run PPC ads to test best marketing messages
This is a great way to find out which sales pitches work best. By testing different pay per click (PPC) ad copy you can quickly determine which types of messages attract the most customers. Measure your click thru rates as well as your conversion rates. It's simple, yet quick and effective.
Utilize internal site search to find out what visitors are looking for
Does your site have internal search functions? If so, there is a wealth of data that can be used to help increase your conversion rate. If there are large numbers of searches for items that you carry – maybe you should be making those items more prominent. If there are searches for items you don't carry – maybe you should consider offering those…and those are just two examples.
Start a remarketing campaign
While this is an off site factor, remarketing campaigns can lead to huge increases in conversion rate. This is even more relevant if your products tend to have a longer sales cycle. I'm not going to go too far into remarketing because that would lead to ten more pages of text, but you can check out the details here.
There are literally hundreds of methods, tactics, and tools you can utilize to help increase your ecommerce site conversion rate. Feel free to add your opinions on the most underutilized or unconventional CRO concepts.
Guest author Chris Wise is the head of SEM at Customer Rave – an online appreciation marketing program that consists of unique packages of personalized treats to help businesses retain their most important customers. Customers Rave is part of the Expressionables family. Learn more about guest blogging here.
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Original article: 7 Underused Tactics to Increase E-Commerce Website Conversion Rates posted on 27/09/2011
Copyright 2011. Quick Online Tips. All Rights Reserved.
Home » Social Media Tips
Delicious, the popular social bookmarking service is relaunched with new Delicious Stacks, also called web playlists, a new way to collect links, organize them and publish them online. Then other delicious users can share and follow stacks.
Delicious got new owners Chad Hurley and Steve Chen (the creators of YouTube), when they acquired the service from Yahoo! in April. Now they have revamped the old site from the ground up and relaunch today with a new homepage, interface and back-end architecture designed to make Delicious easier to use. Also catch this interview with the founders about the future of delicious.
New Delicious Stacks
So what’s new in Delicious? Its Stacks, which are collections of links that you can share and they like to call them playlists for the web! Select related links and create stacks. Then customize your stack by choosing images to feature, adding a title, description and comment for each link. Then publish the stack to share it with the world and follow related stacks. They have all the social features and modern web design tools now.
We have been following Delicious over the years. You remember delicious was initially located at domain del.icio.us, and then they decided to drop the dots. In fact delicious was so popular that front page links could drive huge traffic and top users could earn easy money by bookmarking sites (remember the first 10 Netscape navigators).
In fact, our absolutely delicious tools collection was one of the most popular links on delicious for a long time. It has been a frustrating trend that first users migrated from Yahoo! MyWeb to Delicious, then they moved from Delicious to Google Bookmarks, and now you decide if you want to come back again…
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Original article: New Delicious Gets Social Stacks, Web Playlists posted on 27/09/2011
Copyright 2011. Quick Online Tips. All Rights Reserved.
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