Having a strong conversion rate for your website is absolutely essential in today’s climate, where users have so much choice when it comes to shopping online. It’s hard work to get traffic to your website, so you want to make sure that when you’ve done that, they stay and shop or enquire. So, let’s get into it and find out how you can improve your website’s conversion rate!
Make Your Website Faster
The first thing you need to do to improve your website’s conversion rate is to make your website faster. If a user is trying to navigate your website and it is taking ages to load, they simply won’t put up with it, as there are so many other websites out there that will provide them with a quicker experience. So, investing in a web developer to help them speed up your website is non-negotiable. Things like compressing your images, choosing a performance optimised hosting solution, caching web pages, enabling browser caching and minifying CSS, JavaScript and HTML. You can run your website through so many tools that will highlight exactly what you need to focus on.
Offer A Variety of Payment Options
This one only applies to ecommerce websites, however another thing that you need to do to improve your conversion rate is to offer a variety of payment options. Very often, if your website doesn’t offer a user’s preferred payment option, they will simply not make a purchase. This might be them not wanting to have to use a physical card and instead wanting to use Apple Pay, or perhaps they want an option like Klarna or Clearpay when payments can be delayed or spread out over a longer period. This is especially important for mid-high range price points, like more luxury streetwear, vintage engagement rings or sports equipment that people won’t always just buy on a whim.
So, make sure that when users get to checkout, they can pay in whichever way is best for them, by offering a wide range of payment options. You should also make sure you are highlighting the payment methods in a banner across the website and then also on product pages to really reinforce that the checkout process is going to be easy for them.
Keep Clicks To A Minimum
Many people talk about the “3 click rule” when it comes to conversion rates, stating that any desired products or information should be found within 3 clicks of someone landing on a website. Whilst this isn’t always applicable, it does help to highlight the importance of streamlining the user journey to make sure that finding products or services is simple and accessible.
For example, say someone lands on the homepage of your vintage jewellery website wanting to find a vintage diamond engagement ring. You should have a large mega menu with an engagement rings section, which may then have a diamond sub category that they can access in just one click. You should then also have the main categories highlighted on the homepage, as well as a functioning search feature, to give the user multiple options. Think about how people may navigate the website and also look at what competitors are doing, to make your website as efficient for the user as possible.
Add Reviews/Testimonials
Last but not least, you should add reviews or testimonials to your website. This often pushes users to make a commitment to a purchase, particularly if you are a smaller brand or a new brand. Not only is there the trustworthy element, but it can also help with your SEO, as brands that Google sees as trusted will be rewarded with rankings. You could pull reviews from any review platforms you use onto the website, such as Trust Pilot, which will help to reinforce the trust even further as this is a renowned review platform.
Final Thoughts
If your website isn’t up to scratch, then users will simply go somewhere else to shop, so you need to create a fantastic website that encourages users to want to browse and shop or make an inquiry on your website. So, put some time into your conversion rate and you will reap the benefits!