A Low conversion rate on your eCommerce site can and should be worrying.
If your site visitors aren’t converting or there’s a sudden fall in conversion rates, you will suffer for it.
But wait:
Wait if there is something you can do to get back those lost sales and leads.
In this article, we will take a look at the reasons for low conversion rates and how to correct them and boost your revenue and sales.
First Bad Impressions
If people don’t like what they see when they come to your site, or can’t locate the material they need, they will hit that back button. This means that you will get a high bounce rate on your site or on a page that should keep people on your site.
If this is the case, then you need to take care of your website’s design issues.
You should also look at usability so people can easily find the information they need and complete their desired actions.
Use your analytics tools to check user flow, bounce rate, conversion rate metrics and conversion funnel to see where the problem is.
Some of the reasons for low conversion rates are:
- Poor website navigation where popular items are hard to find
- Poor sorting and filtering that overwhelms the visitors with too many options
- Poor search where visitors can’t find what they want
To keep the visitors focused, you need to change the left-hand navigation elements. You should also change your homepage to keep visitors’ attention.
Not Knowing Who You’re Selling To
Marketing to the wrong people ultimately leads to poor conversion rates and poor sales.
Use your web analytics tools to see what your website users are sharing and how they are behaving on your site.
Pay close attention to online customer reviews, interactions through messaging apps and customer desk. You can also gather important customer data through customer surveys.
This will help you to avoid using a one-size-fits-all approach and deliver to a targeted audience.
Your Website Isn’t Optimized
SEO is all about optimizing content and web pages to appear in the search engine results pages by using keywords related to your products.
Google shows the most relevant or helpful content when people use their search engine and if you’re not popping up on the results, your traffic from Google will be low.
When traffic is low, you don’t even have a chance to turn visitors into buyers because you are not in the results pages.
How do you turn this around?
By carrying out keyword research for your niche to make sure that your pages are meeting the needs of searchers.
Yoast Plugin on WordPress is perfect for SEO.
Ignoring Mobile Users
The number of sales on mobile devices increased by 65% between 2015 and 2016 and this is expected to rise considering there will be 11 billion mobile gadgets by 2019.
This is enough reason to optimize your site for mobile if you haven’t done it already.
Your marketing strategy should also cater to mobile devices.
Users Aren’t Understanding Your Products
Your product pages should demonstrate the product to sway the potential buyer to make the desired action.
Your demonstrations should clearly show the potential buyer how your product will solve the problem, what the main features are and how it will benefit them.
Poor Product Images
Your eCommerce website should have high-quality images as they increase engagement and make people stick around longer; making them more likely to convert.
Non Persuasive Copy
The text on your website should be well-written, persuasive, emotional, error-free and informative.
Your copy should appeal to your target audience and should include power words and action words to trigger action and emotions.
Your text should also be free of errors. Error-filled copies hurt your reputation and conversions.
A Distracting Page
Landing pages or cart pages should not have any distraction such as navigation and other unnecessary elements.
Check Google Analytics to show what’s stopping people from converting. Go to Audience-Users Flow to see where people are abandoning the buying process. Enable the eCommerce feature on Google Analytics to get more insights on buyer behavior.
An Unclear Call to Action
Your CTA should be clearly visible and well-written.
The message should be clear for visitors to know where to go next.
The color and design of your Call To Action should also be appealing to make it easier for them to take the desired action.
Buyers Don’t Trust You
The reason for your low sales could be that buyers don’t trust you. You can get rid of this by:
- Avoiding using spam marketing.
- Using real customer reviews on your site and using social proof.
- Showing users that you are real by putting your contact details, address and team photos on your site.
- Adding trust seals to your site so buyers know that their credit card information is safe.
People Paying for Shipping
61% of buyers abandon their shopping carts due to high costs such as shipping costs.
Stop charging for shipping and if it’s already free, put it up on relevant pages to let the users know.
Having a Difficult Checkout
People will abandon the buying process if the checkout process is difficult. You can fix this by:
- Cleaning up the checkout pages.
- Make a clear checkout process for users to know where they are every step of the way.
- Remind people what they’re buying with clear product images on the checkout page.
- Add trust seals and shipping information for the buyers to know what they are paying.
You should also have a guest checkout option where people can buy without signing up. Remember to save their information for future.
Failure to Use the Exit Intent
Make the right offer when users are about to leave your site, this can be a limited time discount. Your limited time offer should be related to the page the user was browsing.
No Retargeting and Remarketing
Remarketing is excellent for getting the attention of people who come to your website without completing a buy. This is helpful because most people aren’t ready to buy on their very first time on your site.
Use email retargeting to:
- Personalize pop-ups to grow sales
- Make offers to people who’ve been on your site before
- Show relevant upsells to your site users
Your conversion rate will increase when you continue to put the right offer in front of the right users.
Your Tracking Code Isn’t Working
A drop in conversion rate means that the code is not installed correctly or needs updating to replicate changes. Your tracking code should be set up to track micro-conversions.
Having the Wrong Pricing Strategy
Poor pricing strategy leads to a low conversion rate. Use psychological pricing techniques like:
- Using small fonts
- Product bundling
- Putting the number 9 at the end instead of a rounded-off price.
- Few syllables on the price.
Failure to Send Abandonment Emails
Send abandonment emails 30 minutes after people leave your site to move them to buy. Use the following sequence:
- Send the first email within the hour, this will help any technical issues that could have affected completing the purchase.
- Send the second one within 24-hours to remind the potential buyer that their cart will expire.
- A third sent within 48 hours to offer an incentive for the user to complete the purchase.
You will recover lost conversions if you combine this with checkout optimization.
Not Testing Enough
Test your entire website and the user flow to note where you can make improvements and boost your conversions.
To get long-term gains, perform deep optimization instead of split testing.
External Factors
You might have the right actions but an external cause can still affect your conversion rate. For example, your competitor releases a product that takes customers’ attention away from you.
Monitor your competitors to see where adjustments are needed in your marketing strategy.
Do this by:
Setting up Google Alerts for your competitors
Keep close attention to their keywords with Moz or SEMRush
Use SimilarWeb to see their site visitors
Check content effectiveness with Buzzsumo
Pay close attention to social media analytics
No Live Chat Option
You should have live chat on your site to help out your visitors when they experience difficulty while purchasing. This increases the conversions by 45%.
There you have it, use these tips to improve the conversion rate of your eCommerce website.