If you’ve put plenty of time and money into taking your company’s online business to the next level, but online sales conversions are falling short of the goal, now isn’t the time raise a white flag. You’ve come a long way, and most of the investments you’ve made — such as website development and search engine optimization (SEO) — are probably essential for creating an IT foundation that supports your goal.
But how do you build a secure online business on the foundation you’ve established? One way is by using proven strategies for increase eCommerce conversion rate. These are the strategies that directly increase online conversions.
Whether you’re optimizing your business’ mobile site, creating new content, or selecting considering a new online payment service provider, there are plenty of options at your disposal. However, there are five conversion strategies that benefit nearly every ecommerce site and help them build a strong online presence.
1. Simplify Site Navigation
Go to the homepage of your business website and pretend you’re a prospective customer. How easy is it to visit the page that has the product or service you’re interested in? Ideally, you should be able to access the page in three clicks or less.
For example, if you organize product pages by product type, you could use a menu at the top of the homepage that features drop-down lists by subject area. Click the appropriate subject heading on the menu, click the list option for the product type, then click the listing for the product.
The internet is a great business resource but its speedy provision of information makes us a little impatient when it takes longer than a few seconds to get where we’re going. The fewer clicks visitors make to arrive at their destination, the better. If your homepage has a high bounce rate, inefficient website navigation could be a contributing factor.
2. Accept More Payment Cards
If your company is in the business-to-consumer (B2C) market, most of your customers will probably pay using a debit or credit card. If so, how many brands of payment cards you accept could have a major impact on your ecommerce conversion rate. You probably accept cards from MasterCard or Visa, but these brands are the tip of the iceberg.
Online credit card processors can help you identify cards you should accept (based on target audience characteristics) and the most affordable way to accept them (based on service options from your online payment service provider). Providing multiple card options is especially important if you accept payments internationally in different currencies.
3. Accept More Types of Currency
If you sell internationally, your customer base presumably uses a local currency. If so, your website should have a payment gateway from an online payment service provider that facilitates transactions for as many types of currency as your audience could possibly use.
There are currently 164 official currencies circulating across 196 countries. If you invest business income in the financial system of a particular nation, the value of the nation’s currency compared to other currencies will naturally impact online purchases.
Shoppers whose currencies have the strongest value ratio to your own are likely to be the biggest buyers, but accepting all currencies is ideal, as it ensures that currency type is never an insurmountable obstacle to purchases. If your online payment service provider doesn’t accept all official international currencies, look for a provider that does.
4. Consult a Reputable Agency
If you have resources like website development and SEO in place, you may have consulted with a reputable agency. But how long has it been since the last consultation? Strategies for online sales can change quickly. For example, when Google updates its website indexing criteria — which is done about once a year — businesses need to shake up their search engine marketing (SEM) and SEO strategies to reflect the changes.
Consulting an agency again doesn’t mean you’re back to square one. A provider that uses the latest technology can use conversion rate optimization tools that help you optimize your web presence to achieve the desired target conversion rate. There are also plenty of independent conversion rate optimization tools you can use. When in doubt, though, don’t let the lure of free optimization apps keep you from consulting professionals.
5. Invest in Responsive Design
Resources from online payment service providers and conversion rate optimization tools should be used give consumers a high level of mobile access to merchant websites.
Enter responsive design — a web development discipline where web pages are coded to fit the screens of computers other than desktops, particularly smartphones and smart tablets.
From a 2016 report from OuterBox: “If you plan on running a successful e-commerce website… you absolutely must cater to mobile users. Not doing so is simply ignoring a majority of your potential customers… Not only are significantly more users accessing the web from a tablet or smartphone than a desktop, they are doing so with more eCommerce intent than ever before.”
To boost your ecommerce conversion rate, businesses can’t ill afford for their websites to be difficult to navigate using mobile devices. Meeting with a web marketing agency is a good time to discuss implementing responsive design.
Building online businesses that achieve great conversion rates is often a group effort between business owners, online marketing agencies, and online payment service providers. Following the tips above will help your business convert more visitors into customers.
