5 Ecommerce Optimization Techniques To Drive Up Sales In 2022
So, you have an online store. That’s awesome. It has probably been performing quite well for you during the pandemic and has shown you a potential source of income that is probably very important right now. But what if there were ways to improve that income generation? You already have the tools if you use an eCommerce platform. All you have to do is implement a few optimization tricks and your online store will do better. Sounds interesting, right? In this article, we will share with you five key eCommerce optimization techniques that you can apply today that will improve the performance of your site.
Let’s Talk About Conversions
The goal of any eCommerce site is to convert a casual visitor into a paying customer. The term to describe this action is conversion. When written as a percentage, the conversion rate refers to the number of website visitors who take action on your site (make a purchase) as compared to the number of people who visit your eCommerce site. But what does that figure look like? Monetate researched this to determine what the average eCommerce conversion rate is. The number they came up with is 2.77% globally. That may not sound very high, but once you consider how many eCommerce sites exist on the internet and the number of visits each one receives, 2.77% is an impressive stat. But what is the conversion rate of your site? The easy answer can be found in your Google Analytics.
Technique #1 - Optimize The Price You Ask For Your Products
Pricing is generally the main factor that will either push someone to make a purchase at your site or drive them away. You can’t charge too much, and you can’t charge so little that you make no profit. There are ways to make your pricing seem more than fair. The best method to do this is through something called Comparison Pricing. Essentially, you are posting two similar items side-by-side with one costing less than the other. It typically drives up the sales of the lesser-priced item, which amounts to increased sales.
Technique #2 - Clean Up Your Product Pages
Considering your product pages are the first point of contact with your website visitors, you should have them looking their best. There are several ways to turn your product pages into something that will convince shoppers to buy. They include:
Technique #3 - Mobilize Your Ecommerce Site
You should already know the value of optimizing a website for mobile access so it should make sense to do the same with your eCommerce site. When you consider that more people shop online with handheld devices than they do with a desktop computer, mobilizing your eCommerce site gives you access to a huge audience of potential customers. There are several ways to do this and they include:
Technique #4 - Employ The Upsell Tactic
Upselling will increase eCommerce revenue. It is a proven tactic that you see everywhere. Essentially, upselling is when you promote a slightly more expensive version of a product that a potential customer has already expressed interest in. You can add the upsell of that product in three different locations to see results. You can place it on the product page, during the checkout process, or after the checkout has been completed. Upselling also works when you do it to your existing customers. This can be an effective tactic that you use to engage your loyal customer base via email or personalized offers delivered in whatever means you use to reach customers.
Technique #5 - Gather Customer Feedback
Probably the best tool at your disposal is your customers. They can tell you a lot about what you are doing right and what things you need to change with your eCommerce site. Feedback tells you a lot about the needs of your customers and gives you hints on things that can improve the user experience. Plus, by actively seeking customer feedback, you increase trust, loyalty, and integrity just by showing your interest in helping customers to have a better experience in your online store. You can do this in many ways including:
Final Thoughts
Ecommerce has shifted from a trend to a new way of shopping that is not going to go away anytime soon. This is why it is vital to have your online store functioning as best it can to provide you with a viable source of income. As good as most eCommerce platforms are, some techniques can be employed that will increase your business and the exposure of your eCommerce site. The top five of these techniques have been outlined above. Use them, and your online store will start to increase conversions.
Let’s Talk About Conversions
The goal of any eCommerce site is to convert a casual visitor into a paying customer. The term to describe this action is conversion. When written as a percentage, the conversion rate refers to the number of website visitors who take action on your site (make a purchase) as compared to the number of people who visit your eCommerce site. But what does that figure look like? Monetate researched this to determine what the average eCommerce conversion rate is. The number they came up with is 2.77% globally. That may not sound very high, but once you consider how many eCommerce sites exist on the internet and the number of visits each one receives, 2.77% is an impressive stat. But what is the conversion rate of your site? The easy answer can be found in your Google Analytics.
Technique #1 - Optimize The Price You Ask For Your Products
Pricing is generally the main factor that will either push someone to make a purchase at your site or drive them away. You can’t charge too much, and you can’t charge so little that you make no profit. There are ways to make your pricing seem more than fair. The best method to do this is through something called Comparison Pricing. Essentially, you are posting two similar items side-by-side with one costing less than the other. It typically drives up the sales of the lesser-priced item, which amounts to increased sales.
Technique #2 - Clean Up Your Product Pages
Considering your product pages are the first point of contact with your website visitors, you should have them looking their best. There are several ways to turn your product pages into something that will convince shoppers to buy. They include:
- Improve the navigation. When you do this, you make it easier for shoppers to move in, out, and around your site. While they are doing this, they should also discover new and interesting products.
- Use SEO-friendly product titles. Remember, your eCommerce site also gets crawled and indexed by Google which means SEO-friendly product titles will help with page rankings. Improved page rankings result in more visitors. See a pattern here?
- Pay attention to product images. When using product images, it is important to utilize ones that show various aspects of the product. For multi-use products, have images that demonstrate the many uses. Remember, shoppers can’t hold the products you feature online so you have to provide images that address this and provide a lot of information about what the product can do.
Technique #3 - Mobilize Your Ecommerce Site
You should already know the value of optimizing a website for mobile access so it should make sense to do the same with your eCommerce site. When you consider that more people shop online with handheld devices than they do with a desktop computer, mobilizing your eCommerce site gives you access to a huge audience of potential customers. There are several ways to do this and they include:
- The use of a responsive theme. This will respond quickly to whatever size screen a visitor to your site is using.
- Improve the speed that your pages load. You can check how fast that is with Google’s checker and make the necessary changes to improve loading.
- Add a caching plugin. This will allow you to load content into your pages faster.
Technique #4 - Employ The Upsell Tactic
Upselling will increase eCommerce revenue. It is a proven tactic that you see everywhere. Essentially, upselling is when you promote a slightly more expensive version of a product that a potential customer has already expressed interest in. You can add the upsell of that product in three different locations to see results. You can place it on the product page, during the checkout process, or after the checkout has been completed. Upselling also works when you do it to your existing customers. This can be an effective tactic that you use to engage your loyal customer base via email or personalized offers delivered in whatever means you use to reach customers.
Technique #5 - Gather Customer Feedback
Probably the best tool at your disposal is your customers. They can tell you a lot about what you are doing right and what things you need to change with your eCommerce site. Feedback tells you a lot about the needs of your customers and gives you hints on things that can improve the user experience. Plus, by actively seeking customer feedback, you increase trust, loyalty, and integrity just by showing your interest in helping customers to have a better experience in your online store. You can do this in many ways including:
- Live chat. A live chat feature will encourage immediate feedback when a customer wants to reach out.
- Offer incentives. Sometimes you have to give something to get something. A coupon in exchange for feedback is a common tool used in this way.
- Feedback button. Having a button on your site that goes to a feedback form that can be filled out is another great way to get fast responses from customers.
Final Thoughts
Ecommerce has shifted from a trend to a new way of shopping that is not going to go away anytime soon. This is why it is vital to have your online store functioning as best it can to provide you with a viable source of income. As good as most eCommerce platforms are, some techniques can be employed that will increase your business and the exposure of your eCommerce site. The top five of these techniques have been outlined above. Use them, and your online store will start to increase conversions.
About the author
Marina Turea works as content manager at Digital Authority Partners, a Magento Web Development agency
