Running an e-commerce store is a constant numbers game.
Between understanding analytics reports and calculating profit margins, it can start to feel like number crunching is all you do.
Knowing your numbers is certainly critical, but when it comes to increasing conversions, the most basic practices are universal. But before you apply these practices, it’s important to be clear on what conversion is.
Your conversion rate is the percentage of people who take the action you want them to take. It’s one of the most important metrics for you to track, as it’s the biggest indicator of successful efforts in your business.
Getting someone to “convert” doesn’t always mean making a sale.
Most conversions occur before the customer buys. A new customer subscription is a conversion. An opened email is a conversion. A click on a call-to-action button on your landing page is a conversion. All of these actions indicate that someone moved further toward your ultimate conversion – making the sale.
In this post, we’re giving you three strategies that will help boost your Shopify conversions. If you take the time to work these strategies into your site, your conversion rate might just become your favorite number.
1. Clear Call-to-Action
Presenting visitors with a clear, relevant call-to-action (CTA) when they land on your site is critical – arguably the most critical thing on your website.
A straightforward, well-placed CTA grabs the attention of visitors, making them much more likely to take the next action you want them to, and ultimately convert.
Be strategic about placing your CTA properly. A single slider containing the CTA at the top of your landing page makes it clear to visitors that they can still scroll down for more content if they choose. If they do scroll, however, they’re already aware of the intended action for the page.
Remember, a CTA doesn’t have to be about making a sale. It can be as simple as getting a visitor to click on another page. Every page on your site should have some form of a CTA.
It’s especially easy to miss the opportunity to input CTAs on your “About Us” and “Contact Us” pages. But if they’re left open-ended, the customer is given nothing but a dead end, no direction for their next action. For these pages, it’s helpful to use CTAs in the form of links to relevant pages within your site, like your product catalog or a specific form for customer questions.
A great example of how to use CTAs on a Contact Us page, from Quad-Lock:
2. Engaging Copy
When used effectively, words are a powerful tool that can change the way people think and feel. Choose the language you use carefully to influence your visitors in the right way and to help them convert.
In today’s competitive, ever-changing online world, businesses don’t often put enough work into developing engaging copy that could effectively convert. Website copy often seems thrown together carelessly, as if it won’t affect the impression customers have of their brand… but the opposite is true.
Whether or not they take note specifically, customers notice details. If the language doesn’t match up with the product and offer, it feels incongruent and off-putting. If there are spelling or grammatical errors, it feels low-quality and untrustworthy. Again, customers might not consciously think about these factors, but they get an impression that will influence whether or not they buy from you.
Taking the time to write fun, engaging, and a coherent copy is critical if you want to enhance your conversion rate. It needs to be tailored specifically to your audience, using the language they speak – not corporate, formal, or complex language.
Here’s a snippet of entertaining copy from Erstwilder:
Status Anxiety also knows how to speak to their specific market:
3. Clever Upsells
If you cringed at the word “upsell,” you’re not alone. For many of us, “upsell” brings to mind a sleazy salesperson pushing items we don’t want, or an infomercial insisting “But wait – call within the next 15 minutes and you can add the unicorn figurine to your purchase for only $19.99!”
E-commerce store owners are naturally hesitant about using upsells. They don’t want to seem pushy and they don’t want customers to feel “milked.” It’s right to avoid being pushy, as it will never win over your customers. But used properly, upselling can both improve your customer’s experience and generate additional revenue for you.
Simply put, upsells encourage the customer to buy something extra that improves their experience with the original purchase. This is usually an add-on, upgrade or complementary product. A well-designed upsell system presents a customer with a product or upgrades that are specific to their purchase. Unrelated offers will confuse and frustrate the customer, so make sure you only cross-promote products that are obviously relevant.
Your intention should be to deliver more value to the customer. This creates a positive association in the customer’s mind – that you know what they need, and make it easy for them to get it. The more often you can do this for your customer, the more satisfied and loyal they will be.
Shopify’s Product Upsell app is a helpful tool for choosing which products to offer as upsells on your main products.
Bonus Strategy: Email Marketing
Following up with customers after their purchase is a great way to make them feel nurtured and further invested in your brand. Having them on your email list means you can make them ongoing sales offers and sell to them over and over. Once someone converts once, they’re more likely to convert repeatedly, helping your business grow faster.
For those who engage with your brand but don’t convert, email marketing is a conversion opportunity in itself – a chance for them to opt-in to an email list. This allows you to continue marketing to them until they do buy.
Email marketing is a huge opportunity. In this guest post, email marketing expert John McIntyre shares his insight on this strategy and campaigns that successfully convert browsers into buyers. Make sure you check it out to ensure you are making as many conversions as possible, even if customers don’t buy from you the first time they come to your site.
Learning how to increase customer conversions is an invaluable skill for an e-commerce business. If you have further questions on putting these ideas into practice, don’t hesitate to comment below, and we’ll get back to you!
Thank you again for keeping up with our Shopify Insider Blog @ Blackbelt Commerce. Please make sure to check out our products. We also have some top blog recommendations for you to check out; More Shopify Design Strategies, The Benefits Of Multichannel Thinking what is the best strategy for a good e-commerce store, selling and social media: the facts, and Partnership Guidelines. As always, keep a lookout for new blog posts.
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