Approx 40% of online marketers are not happy with their site's conversion rates. That means that 60% of online marketers are either happy with their current conversion rate or they don't understand what this means. What is a conversion rate you ask? Your conversion rate is the rate at which you convert visitors into customers. This may include things like buying a product, filling out a request form, calling for more info or subscribing to your newsletter.

According to Shop.org, the foremost community for ecommerce retailers, most ecommerce websites have an average conversion rate of just 2.2% while top performing ecommerce websites have reported conversion rates as high as 12%. How can 60% of online marketers be happy watching 97.8% of their traffic leave their site without making a purchase? This is where conversion optimization comes into play. Conversion optimization can:

In part 2 of this email newsletter we will elaborate on creating descriptive product pages. In part 3 we will discuss in greater detail how to create a user-friendly shopping cart.

1) Not providing enough product info to allow your shoppers to make a buying decision. This usually involves lack of descriptive product names, detailed product images and purchasing info like availability and price. You should have detailed product info that buyers find important including:

2) Not having a user-friendly shopping cart that facilitates the sale. This may seem obvious but the amount of ecommerce websites that lack these features is mind-boggling. Always remember to:

You can make your checkout process easy-to-use by conducting usability testing to find shortfalls in your checkout process with services like UserTesting.com where you can watch for any problems users may have adding a chosen product to the cart and paying for that item. Think Tank Designs can help you identify and correct these problems.

The best ways to increase your conversion rate are to make sure your product pages offer your customers enough info to make their buying decision and streamline your checkout. To do this you need to understand what factors your customers consider when shopping for the type of products you sell. Good ecommerce product pages incorporate an effective mix of descriptive text and images. By testing different variables you will discover which info sells your product and where your visitors become confused.

If you use these guidelines and suggestions you will increase your conversion rates and reduce cart abandonment that cause lost sales and send your customers running to your competitors.

We're here to help you. The web experts at Think Tank Designs can perform a detailed website evaluation and make recommendations on how to make your site function better. Call (909) 393-6363 or fill out our quote request form.

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