How To Sell More on the Web

30 Tips To Increase Conversion Rates For An Ecommerce Site

Increase your online sales
If you are selling on the Web, you need to be able to to attract more visitors and then turn them into customers. Learn tips how you can increase your conversion rate and increase sales from your ecommerce store.
By Nach Maravilla
PowerHomeBiz Publisher/CEO


Getting visitors to your website is one thing; turning them into customers is a whole different ballgame. If you are selling on the Web, you need to be able to do both well. You need to be able to attract more visitors and then turn them into customers.

We have seen many small online retailers focusing on how to increase their traffic, dedicating big chunks of their budgets into getting visitors. Unfortunately, once the visitor lands on their website, they do not know what to do to convert them into buyers.

Turning visitors into buyers, however, is not simple. There are several factors that you need to consider and improve on to entice visitors to spend their hard-earned cash on your website. Here are some of the important factors:

* Simplicity or ease of use
* Attitude and accessibility
* Responsiveness or the quality, speed and helpfulness of your email replies
* Transparency of your policies including privacy and return policies
* Selection and presentation of products

Conversion rate is the measure how many browsers become buyers. According to Internet Retailer Magazine, “conversion rates generally average in the 2.5% range, but rates that reach 8% are not uncommon and some sites report conversion rates of 18% and higher.” We think every Internet retailer, big or small businesses alike, should want to be in the high end of that conversion rate range. Imagine the increase in sales your site could generate if your conversion rate increased by a couple of percentage points, more so if it means seeing conversion rates jump from 2% to 18%!

If you want to increase your website’s conversion rate, we provide tips in this series to help you convert more browsers into buyers. These tips are written with the small business Internet entrepreneurs in mind, and avoid strategies that may be working well for the big boys (e.g. in-store pick up of online orders has been a huge conversion driver for multi-channel marketers because it saves customers shipping fees).

This series is divided into four articles:

* Part 1: Get the Right Traffic
* Part 2: Build Customer Confidence
* Part 3: Improve Product Presentation
* Part 4: Maximize After-Sales Opportunities


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How To Sell More on the Web: Get the Right Traffic

If you are selling on the Web, you need to be able to to attract more visitors and then turn them into customers. Learn tips how you can increase your conversion rate and increase sales from your ecommerce store.

By Nach Maravilla
PowerHomeBiz Publisher/CEO


Introduction: How To Sell More on the Web: 30 Tips To Increase Conversion Rates For An Ecommerce Site
Part 1: Get the Right Traffic
Part 2: Build Customer Confidence
Part 3: Improve Product Presentation
Part 4: Maximize After-Sales Opportunities

Part 2

High conversion starts in getting the right traffic. Here are specific techniques to help you in targeting and reaching the visitors that are interested to buy from you:

 

1. The first step in getting the right traffic is to identify your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). Your USP states clearly what your web site offers and how you are different from your competitors. If you are the only online store offering large-sized red widgets, emphasize it in your website and in your marketing campaigns.

2. Higher conversion and sales starts with getting the right visitors to your website. Make sure you attract qualified traffic – visitors that are genuinely interested in your products. If you are advertising your website, your priority should be to use advertising copy specific to your offering. Using broad terms may drive more visitors to your website that have no intention to purchase, resulting in a decrease in conversion rate.

For example, if your website sells tour packages to Boracay Island in the Philippines, do not advertise or buy pay-per-click keywords for the keyword "Asian tour." You may get lots of visitors with this broad keyword, but they may not be interested in going to Philippines, much less Boracay.

3. Generate good visibility and reviews from shopping comparison web sites such as Shopping.com, Epinions.com, Bizrate.com, etc. While you may have reservations on using shopping comparison sites because of its emphasis on price, many Web users rely on shopping comparison sites to find the best-value products that are most suitable to their needs and requirements. Your business needs to be listed in these sites in order to give you targeted traffic and increased online exposure without the prohibitively expensive offline brand advertising.

4. Sharpen your landing pages. Visitors are not always arriving on your homepage. Many come to your site via your product or other interior pages, yet this fact is often one of the most neglected sales points. In fact, where you send your visitors can be key to increasing your conversion rate. Check your web statistics and find out your main landing pages – and work on them really hard.

If you are running marketing campaigns such as emails or pay per click advertising, your landing page should be designed to sell your products or services -- and nothing else. The page should only have one purpose: to sell. Give the visitor the page that they want complete with product description and picture (better yet, show the visitor a technical and price comparison with other products to demonstrate how your product compares with your competitor).

The landing page should always have a push to action – make sure it is a page where they can buy your product. Keep your “buy now” button prominent.

5. Get your web pages ready for the sale. Your goal should be to turn your visitors into buyers. Your homepage should load fairly quickly, with enough text for the search engines to nibble. Make it clear on the homepage what you are selling and what visitors can expect to find.

It is also important to keep your homepage fresh. An automated date script can show people that your site is updated daily. Also change the content every day, whether changing the featured product, rotating the products shown, putting in newest deals that your site offers, or even just changing the pictures used. Also update your copyright statements to the correct year.

Another way is to ensure that every product page contains the exact name; model number, brand, type, etc. in the <title>element. People who search with these keywords are ready to buy.

6. Analyze your web traffic. Your web metrics can give you clues as to how visitors are using your website, and what areas can be improved to help improve your sales conversion. Web analysis tools can help you analyze customer behavior and improve your site's business success.

Look at your conversion rates, or how many visitors actually buy relative to the visitors you attract, as well as your average order value in order to gauge success levels. Many web statistics software such as the free Google Analytics can provide revenue-based metrics with customer behavior. For example, companies can use techniques such as funnel-based analysis, in which they compare drop-off rates with lost revenue. Some software allows for path analysis, which allows you to check which Category level, Product Level, Product Detail Level pages are experiencing unacceptable exit ratios. Check the top exit pages and understand why people are leaving your website. Or why they are abandoning their shopping carts. Analyze your statistics at the product level.

 

7. Reduce load times. The faster your website, the higher the chances of engaging the visitor quickly. Replace your table-based website with cascading style sheets to make your pages load faster.

8. Examine what visitors are searching in your site. Your site search can provide you with important information that can improve your conversion rate. Check what visitors are searching for in your site. Do you have these products? If so, how prominently are they placed on your site? Why are the visitors not finding these products?

Also watch out for those searches that do not bring any results – it means that people are looking for products on your site that you do not carry. If a sizeable number of visitors are looking for the same products, maybe you need to consider carrying these products as well. If you are carrying those products and yet customer searches yield zero results, then your search dictionary may not cover the terms used by the visitors. This indicates that customers are using different terminologies for your products that you did not expect, and the word is not included in your search dictionary. The customer is ready to buy; unfortunately, your site search does not anticipate other ways a customer will look for the product.

Read Part 2: Build Customer Confidence

Part 2

Your website needs to convey trust and credibility in order to instill confidence in the shopper and make them buy.

 

9. Demonstrate that you are a real business. Online buyers have lesser trepidation when shopping in big-name websites such as Amazon.com, Overstock.com or Dell.com because these brands are familiar to them. They know that these businesses are legitimate, and they feel safe that the products they purchased will arrive in the quality that they expect.

Smaller websites have lesser marketing budgets and cannot undertake aggressive branding campaigns that the big boys have. You have to take extra steps to convince the buyer that you are real, and not just a fly-by-night operator. Here are some of these steps:

* Include an “About Us” section on your site. Many customers want to know who they are dealing with, and visit this section before making a purchase.
* Put your contact email information and a telephone number where customers can reach you.
* If possible, include your physical address in your Contact Us or About Us pages.
* You may also want to consider putting in photos of your staff (if any) or the head of the business. Putting a human face on a company can help build customers’ confidence in you.
* You can also create a section where all your press mentions are included – e.g. if Washington Post or your local TV station talks about you, then you must be a real business!

10. Consider creating a “first-time visitor” page. It is important to make a great first impression to your visits. If you lose first time visitors, chances are that it is hard to get them back. Having a first time visitor page accessible from your homepage allows you to tell people more about your site. More importantly, this is a mechanism to help you explain what sets you apart from your competitors.

11. Get a toll free 1-800 number. A nationwide toll free number for your business conveys a sense of size and importance. For many callers, it will mean that your company is legitimate given the fact that they know they can easily reach the company when they need to talk to a human. Plus, given that the call is free to the customers, they won’t hesitate to call you to inquire about your products and services – and those that do call you are highly interested customers.

Many small e-tailers are saying that adding a 1-800 number have increased their sales by as much as 30 percent, higher even if the products or services are high ticket items. To maximize your 1-800 number, make sure that the number is placed prominently and consistently at the top (above the fold) of your site. However, include a note on the working hours of your toll free number; you don’t want to frustrate customers by giving them a toll free number only to realize that it’s not working.

12. Provide evidence of your product's success. Success stories work. That’s why infomercials always use illustrations of the success of their products/services. Depending on what you are selling, always include photos or testimonials from previous customers so your website visitors know that the products you are selling actually works. Convince them that your products or services actually deliver what you promise. Make sure though that you use real customer testimonials with authentic customer photos; do not ever use stock photography

Selling a diet regimen? Include testimonials and pictures of those who have lost weight using your system. If you are selling an e-book on how to make money from Adsense, show a picture of a check you've received while using the techniques explained in your e-book. If you are selling gift baskets, include testimonials from your corporate clients on how your gift baskets brought a smile to the recipients. The key here is to create excitement for your products or services.

13. Give customers signals of protection and safety. One of the lingering fears of customers about online shopping is the safety and security of their personal information – and this fear increases hundredfold with small websites.

To counter the fear and give customers the assurance that their information is safe with your website, use secured socket layer (SSL) encryption. Use services such as Thawte or ScanAlert (Hacker Safe) to reassure users of the security of their information. If you use these technologies, make sure that the customers know about it by prominently displaying the logo of the services you use.

14. Clearly specify your return policies. One of the most common barriers to buying on the Web is the difficulty in returning items. Big companies such as Gap and Circuit City use their physical store networks to make it easy for their customers to return items that they purchased online. Small merchants do not have this advantage.

To increase your sell-through rates, it is important that your ecommerce store clearly state your return policies. Even on eBay, sellers with clear return policies have a higher selling percentage than those who do not have return policies. Buyers are more comfortable in making a purchase, especially if you are selling a high-end item, that they know they can return if the product is not what they need or expect.

Your return policies should include how the customer can return the item and what they need to know if they are returning the item. Specifically, you need to talk about:

* Whether you will be charging a restocking fee or not; and if you do, how much is it and whether it will be deducted from the purchase price paid by the customer
* Who will pay for return shipping and handling; and if the customer will be paying for shipping and handling fees involved
* What is the condition of the return item that would be acceptable to you; e.g. "unopened box" or "opened box with all original materials" or “merchandise in new condition with original packaging and accessories” or “clothes must have their original tags and unwashed”

15. State your privacy policy. One of the essential components of building trust online is treading carefully when it comes to privacy. More and more consumers are demanding that Web businesses specify clearly how their personal information might be used or shared.

If you are asking customers for their email addresses, be sure to indicate why you are asking for their email addresses and how you are planning to use their email addresses. Also reassure them that their privacy is important to you and specify whether you are planning to share or not to share their information with other marketers. Customers are more likely to give their information if they know how the information is going to be used.

Customers also want to know how online businesses will act in the event that their security systems have been compromised and customers’ personal information gets into the wrong hands.

 

16. Answer email questions from visitors quickly. Customers who email and ask about your products show a keen interest in your products, and are very likely to convert into sales if handled appropriately.

In your product pages, always have a link that says something like “Ask a question about this product” or “Do you have a question? We'd be happy to help”; or as simple as “Send us your question.” Users should then be led into an emailing screen or contact form (not a link that opens an email client) with the product number in the subject line.

Then respond to these emailed queries fast. Customers appreciate lightning fast turnaround time and personalized responses (as opposed to pro-forma bot responses) for their email queries. It shows to them that this business cares for them and values them as a customer.

17. Explore the possibility of using live person chat on your site. Live chat can give you the opportunity to engage a customer during the sales process, whether the customer has questions about your products or they need to be clarified with the ordering process. It is a tool that can allow customers to get to know your business and talk with a real live person in your business and feel that you are responsive to their needs. Customers are more likely to pull out their credit cards and spend on websites that they know they can easily talk to.

Live chat has become affordable even to small or home-based businesses starting as low as $40 per month. However, it is important that you have the resources to actually support live chat on your site, meaning that you actually have a real live person who can maintain your live chat system. There’s nothing more annoying to customers than to wait for what seems like forever for a customer service representative to answer their live chat request.

18. Do a spelling check on your site. Making sure that your site has no spelling errors is an important credibility indicator that can give your visitors confidence in your web site. Spelling and grammatical mistakes give the impression of the site as unpolished and unprofessional. Always review your copy for any mistakes, or hire a professional to improve and edit your copy.

Read Part 3: Improve Product Presentation

ntroduction: How To Sell More on the Web: 30 Tips To Increase Conversion Rates For An Ecommerce Site
Part 1: Get the Right Traffic
Part 2: Build Customer Confidence
Part 3: Improve Product Presentation
Part 4: Maximize After-Sales Opportunities

Part 3

Your goal for your ecommerce website should be to entice visitors to take action before leaving, preferably by exchanging their hard earned dollars for your valuable products or services. Every single element of your website can and should contribute to this main goal.

 

19. Lead the visitors to your sales funnel. In order to increase conversion it is first important to know what your clients are doing before you try to influence them into purchases. Sales funnel analysis is important in understanding how you are leading your visitors through your buying process ending in sales. You have to know what visitors do upon landing in your site, looking over your product categories, selecting the products that interest them, putting those products in the shopping cart and eventually completing the purchase by hitting the Place the Order Now button and paying. The goal is to keep the visitors in your site – and making sure these visitors do what you want them to do – to buy.

The idea of a funnel is due to the fact that you cannot expect 1,000 visitors that came to your homepage to result in 1,000 purchases on your site (though that would be fantastic). With 1,000 visitors, you may end up with 20 sales (or 2% conversion rate) or 100 sales (10% conversion rate). The goal of a sales funnel analysis is to determine what are the steps a visitor goes through to buy anything from your site – and where in that process do they leave your site. If you understand the bottlenecks of the sales process in your website, you can act on it and remove those bottlenecks.

Here’s a simplistic example of a sales funnel process when the entrance point is the homepage:

* Step 1 - Visitor arrives on your homepage
* Step 2 - Visitor clicks on your Product Category A
* Step 3 - Visitor looks at Product 1
* Step 4 - Visitor puts Product 1 in the shopping cart
* Step 5 - Visitor fills out the order form
* Step 6 - Visitor puts in credit card information
* Step 7 - Visitor submits the order
* Step 8 – Visitor does not return the product

Web analytics software such as the high-end HBX software and the free Google Analytics incorporate a sales funnel analysis to help ecommerce site owners to determine at what point do visitors abandon the sales process and where do they go. If you see that visitors put products in the shopping carts, but abandon their shopping carts, then you need to investigate why they did not complete the transaction – e.g. is your shopping cart system too burdensome; are you requiring too much information; does your shopping cart have bugs, etc.

Or you may find that while visitors are looking at your product categories, they are not putting anything in their shopping carts – is it because you don’t have the products they thought you would have or is it because your pictures are too small or too hazy to help convince visitors that you have great quality products.

20. Make it easy for visitors to use and buy from your site. One of the important rules to succeed on the Web is to develop a website that serves the needs of your visitors in a manner that is both user-friendly and easily understood. Make everything easy (and fast!) for them, and users will stick with you – and may even come back again.

In creating your site, use technologies that are commonly used on the Web. Stick with the basics such as Flash, JavaScript, DHTML and others programs that Web users are familiar with. Do not require users to install unconventional or proprietary plug-ins that your software team has developed just to make a purchase from your site. Users love familiarity, and with the problems of spy ware, viruses and malware, majority of your visitors would hit the back button and shop elsewhere if they are asked to download programs to use your site.

21. Let the visitors immediately know what you are selling. It is important that you make your offering immediately apparent to visitors. They need to be able to figure out what the site is all about upon arriving on your website, especially your homepage. Visitors are more likely to leave if they can’t understand what your site is all about and what you are selling.

The key is to have a clear and distinct focus. People should be able to immediately discern what your site is all about, even if you sell a thousand products! Your focus should be apparent in the pictures on your homepage, in your title, in your tagline, and in the text on your homepage particularly the headings.

Take for example LaneBryant.com – the site title tells you that this store is for “fashionable plus-sized women” and you immediately see a picture of a plus sized woman. The focus is reinforced by the tagline, which says “fashion leader in women’s plus-size clothing, sizes 14–28.” All the elements of the site tell you that LaneBryant.com is for plus-sized women.

22. Entice customers to buy. If you study the top ecommerce sites, there are several elements that they commonly use above the fold on their homepages – their best selling products, products for the season, special promotions or hot new products. All of these elements have one clear goal: to grab customers’ attention and make them interested enough to go into the site and buy these products.

The New Products of the week feature show that you keep your inventory fresh. It gives old customers a reason for coming back again and again to your site. Same with the discounts and promotions. People love a great sale, and the idea that they can buy items at a discount has always been a strong motivator to buy. If you are running any promotions, highlight it in your website preferably in your homepage above the fold and even in your internal pages.

23. Avoid intro, splash, or entry pages. A splash or intro page forces a visitor to see an ad or message before allowing them to access what they actually came for. For an e-commerce site, visitors need to know what you are selling immediately and splash pages are irrelevant in achieving this objective. You want your visitors to buy, and making them wait for a movie to load or to click on a link before entering simply delays the buying process.

24. Invest in great photography. Merchandise comes to life with great photography. Pictures sell, and there is no excuse for poor photography. Remember that selling on the Web means that visitors will not be able to physically see your product up close, nor be able to touch and smell it. Users have to rely on what they see on their computer screens.

The pictures of your products should be clear, clean, big and devoid of any distracting backgrounds. Your shots should be technically excellent, no blurred or out-of-focus shots, please. Always include a larger or zoom version of the item always making sure – and this is important – that your larger version has a Buy Now button as well (you don’t want to miss an opportunity to sell your product).

Avoid complicated backgrounds – if you are selling gold earrings, avoid putting them on yellow-patterned pillows as this makes it harder to see the earrings. The beauty and quality of a product often get lost on busy and dark backgrounds; and you want customers to focus on the product, not the background. Remember that you are selling the product, not the background!

25. Make your sales copy compelling. Your product pages must give a reason why visitors should buy your products. Highlight the benefits of your products, in addition to its features.

LL Bean does a great job in their copy. In one of their women’s jeans products, the text that jumps at you given its bold and bigger size is not the measurement of the jeans but rather this benefit statement -- “Proof You Can Find a Great Pair of Jeans at a Great Price” followed by bullets of supporting benefits

* "Comfort, durability and style at a great price"
* "Premium ring-spun cotton feels soft and broken in"
* "Classic jean styling"
* "Sit below waist"

Always give your customers a reason why they should buy the product. Then follow it with specifications of the product, giving as much information as to its fit (if clothes), size or other technical details.

Then spell check, spell check and spell check. There’s nothing more horrifying in a sales copy than spelling errors.

 

26. Make your call to buy signals consistent and prominent. Your “buy now” buttons should be prominently placed in your product pages. Many etailers say that bigger “buy buttons” in bold and in a color that stands out can help increase conversion rates. Buy buttons should be placed above the fold to keep it prominent and in view of the customer. Avoid making the user scroll to find your buy buttons. The key is to make the buying process as simple and as easy as possible – and ease of use on the Web always translates to dollar.

Sears.com uses a big red “Add to Cart” button positioned above the fold in their product pages. Target.com also uses the color red, and the Add to Cart button is the second most visible element on the page after the product image. In fact, Target’s buy now button jumps out at you because of its huge size even though it is at the bottom of top fold.

Also consider the strategy of Amazon.com, which places Add to Cart buttons in their category pages to users to make buying easy for those users who already know what they want to buy. Their Add to Cart buttons are in a more prominent deep yellow color to more emphasis to it compared to the lighter yellow Add to Wish List button beside it.

Consistency of the look of your primary action buttons is also important. If you allow users the ability to compare various products you offer, make the “compare” button similar to your “buy” buttons, albeit differences in color shading.

Make sure that the prices of the product stick out. Keep it above the fold and presented in bold or bigger font.

27. Use an Upsell Page. Upselling is a marketing method used to persuade your customers to spend more money than they had originally intended. It is usually a page added between your normal ordering page and your payment page. It is commonly shown after the customer enters their personal data, but before putting in their credit card information. Customers are shown additional products (maybe 3-5 at most) at a reduced price.

The key is to tempt the customer into buying more from your site; so for an upsell page to work, you need to show products that are attractive to them for them to accept the offer. It can be complementary products (check first if the upsell product is not in the shopping cart) or great deals if buying additional quantities of the product. Make the offer compelling by showing them how much they will save if they bundle the up sell products with their current purchase. Put on the page all the information about the product -- the price, the savings they will get if they purchase and an “Add to Cart” button (don’t make them click to a product information page or they may not come back in this very crucial buying stage). One thing though: make this offer a “take it or leave it” option so customers can opt to buy the original products they wanted or whether to want to add your up sell products to their purchase.

Read Part 4: Maximize After-Sales Opportunities


ntroduction: How To Sell More on the Web: 30 Tips To Increase Conversion Rates For An Ecommerce Site
Part 1: Get the Right Traffic
Part 2: Build Customer Confidence
Part 3: Improve Product Presentation
Part 4: Maximize After-Sales Opportunities

Part 3

Your goal for your ecommerce website should be to entice visitors to take action before leaving, preferably by exchanging their hard earned dollars for your valuable products or services. Every single element of your website can and should contribute to this main goal.

 

19. Lead the visitors to your sales funnel. In order to increase conversion it is first important to know what your clients are doing before you try to influence them into purchases. Sales funnel analysis is important in understanding how you are leading your visitors through your buying process ending in sales. You have to know what visitors do upon landing in your site, looking over your product categories, selecting the products that interest them, putting those products in the shopping cart and eventually completing the purchase by hitting the Place the Order Now button and paying. The goal is to keep the visitors in your site – and making sure these visitors do what you want them to do – to buy.

The idea of a funnel is due to the fact that you cannot expect 1,000 visitors that came to your homepage to result in 1,000 purchases on your site (though that would be fantastic). With 1,000 visitors, you may end up with 20 sales (or 2% conversion rate) or 100 sales (10% conversion rate). The goal of a sales funnel analysis is to determine what are the steps a visitor goes through to buy anything from your site – and where in that process do they leave your site. If you understand the bottlenecks of the sales process in your website, you can act on it and remove those bottlenecks.

Here’s a simplistic example of a sales funnel process when the entrance point is the homepage:

* Step 1 - Visitor arrives on your homepage
* Step 2 - Visitor clicks on your Product Category A
* Step 3 - Visitor looks at Product 1
* Step 4 - Visitor puts Product 1 in the shopping cart
* Step 5 - Visitor fills out the order form
* Step 6 - Visitor puts in credit card information
* Step 7 - Visitor submits the order
* Step 8 – Visitor does not return the product

Web analytics software such as the high-end HBX software and the free Google Analytics incorporate a sales funnel analysis to help ecommerce site owners to determine at what point do visitors abandon the sales process and where do they go. If you see that visitors put products in the shopping carts, but abandon their shopping carts, then you need to investigate why they did not complete the transaction – e.g. is your shopping cart system too burdensome; are you requiring too much information; does your shopping cart have bugs, etc.

Or you may find that while visitors are looking at your product categories, they are not putting anything in their shopping carts – is it because you don’t have the products they thought you would have or is it because your pictures are too small or too hazy to help convince visitors that you have great quality products.

20. Make it easy for visitors to use and buy from your site. One of the important rules to succeed on the Web is to develop a website that serves the needs of your visitors in a manner that is both user-friendly and easily understood. Make everything easy (and fast!) for them, and users will stick with you – and may even come back again.

In creating your site, use technologies that are commonly used on the Web. Stick with the basics such as Flash, JavaScript, DHTML and others programs that Web users are familiar with. Do not require users to install unconventional or proprietary plug-ins that your software team has developed just to make a purchase from your site. Users love familiarity, and with the problems of spy ware, viruses and malware, majority of your visitors would hit the back button and shop elsewhere if they are asked to download programs to use your site.

21. Let the visitors immediately know what you are selling. It is important that you make your offering immediately apparent to visitors. They need to be able to figure out what the site is all about upon arriving on your website, especially your homepage. Visitors are more likely to leave if they can’t understand what your site is all about and what you are selling.

The key is to have a clear and distinct focus. People should be able to immediately discern what your site is all about, even if you sell a thousand products! Your focus should be apparent in the pictures on your homepage, in your title, in your tagline, and in the text on your homepage particularly the headings.

Take for example LaneBryant.com – the site title tells you that this store is for “fashionable plus-sized women” and you immediately see a picture of a plus sized woman. The focus is reinforced by the tagline, which says “fashion leader in women’s plus-size clothing, sizes 14–28.” All the elements of the site tell you that LaneBryant.com is for plus-sized women.

22. Entice customers to buy. If you study the top ecommerce sites, there are several elements that they commonly use above the fold on their homepages – their best selling products, products for the season, special promotions or hot new products. All of these elements have one clear goal: to grab customers’ attention and make them interested enough to go into the site and buy these products.

The New Products of the week feature show that you keep your inventory fresh. It gives old customers a reason for coming back again and again to your site. Same with the discounts and promotions. People love a great sale, and the idea that they can buy items at a discount has always been a strong motivator to buy. If you are running any promotions, highlight it in your website preferably in your homepage above the fold and even in your internal pages.

23. Avoid intro, splash, or entry pages. A splash or intro page forces a visitor to see an ad or message before allowing them to access what they actually came for. For an e-commerce site, visitors need to know what you are selling immediately and splash pages are irrelevant in achieving this objective. You want your visitors to buy, and making them wait for a movie to load or to click on a link before entering simply delays the buying process.

24. Invest in great photography. Merchandise comes to life with great photography. Pictures sell, and there is no excuse for poor photography. Remember that selling on the Web means that visitors will not be able to physically see your product up close, nor be able to touch and smell it. Users have to rely on what they see on their computer screens.

The pictures of your products should be clear, clean, big and devoid of any distracting backgrounds. Your shots should be technically excellent, no blurred or out-of-focus shots, please. Always include a larger or zoom version of the item always making sure – and this is important – that your larger version has a Buy Now button as well (you don’t want to miss an opportunity to sell your product).

Avoid complicated backgrounds – if you are selling gold earrings, avoid putting them on yellow-patterned pillows as this makes it harder to see the earrings. The beauty and quality of a product often get lost on busy and dark backgrounds; and you want customers to focus on the product, not the background. Remember that you are selling the product, not the background!

25. Make your sales copy compelling. Your product pages must give a reason why visitors should buy your products. Highlight the benefits of your products, in addition to its features.

LL Bean does a great job in their copy. In one of their women’s jeans products, the text that jumps at you given its bold and bigger size is not the measurement of the jeans but rather this benefit statement -- “Proof You Can Find a Great Pair of Jeans at a Great Price” followed by bullets of supporting benefits

* "Comfort, durability and style at a great price"
* "Premium ring-spun cotton feels soft and broken in"
* "Classic jean styling"
* "Sit below waist"

Always give your customers a reason why they should buy the product. Then follow it with specifications of the product, giving as much information as to its fit (if clothes), size or other technical details.

Then spell check, spell check and spell check. There’s nothing more horrifying in a sales copy than spelling errors.

 

26. Make your call to buy signals consistent and prominent. Your “buy now” buttons should be prominently placed in your product pages. Many etailers say that bigger “buy buttons” in bold and in a color that stands out can help increase conversion rates. Buy buttons should be placed above the fold to keep it prominent and in view of the customer. Avoid making the user scroll to find your buy buttons. The key is to make the buying process as simple and as easy as possible – and ease of use on the Web always translates to dollar.

Sears.com uses a big red “Add to Cart” button positioned above the fold in their product pages. Target.com also uses the color red, and the Add to Cart button is the second most visible element on the page after the product image. In fact, Target’s buy now button jumps out at you because of its huge size even though it is at the bottom of top fold.

Also consider the strategy of Amazon.com, which places Add to Cart buttons in their category pages to users to make buying easy for those users who already know what they want to buy. Their Add to Cart buttons are in a more prominent deep yellow color to more emphasis to it compared to the lighter yellow Add to Wish List button beside it.

Consistency of the look of your primary action buttons is also important. If you allow users the ability to compare various products you offer, make the “compare” button similar to your “buy” buttons, albeit differences in color shading.

Make sure that the prices of the product stick out. Keep it above the fold and presented in bold or bigger font.

27. Use an Upsell Page. Upselling is a marketing method used to persuade your customers to spend more money than they had originally intended. It is usually a page added between your normal ordering page and your payment page. It is commonly shown after the customer enters their personal data, but before putting in their credit card information. Customers are shown additional products (maybe 3-5 at most) at a reduced price.

The key is to tempt the customer into buying more from your site; so for an upsell page to work, you need to show products that are attractive to them for them to accept the offer. It can be complementary products (check first if the upsell product is not in the shopping cart) or great deals if buying additional quantities of the product. Make the offer compelling by showing them how much they will save if they bundle the up sell products with their current purchase. Put on the page all the information about the product -- the price, the savings they will get if they purchase and an “Add to Cart” button (don’t make them click to a product information page or they may not come back in this very crucial buying stage). One thing though: make this offer a “take it or leave it” option so customers can opt to buy the original products they wanted or whether to want to add your up sell products to their purchase.

Read Part 4: Maximize After-Sales Opportunities


Part 3

Your goal for your ecommerce website should be to entice visitors to take action before leaving, preferably by exchanging their hard earned dollars for your valuable products or services. Every single element of your website can and should contribute to this main goal.

19. Lead the visitors to your sales funnel. In order to increase conversion it is first important to know what your clients are doing before you try to influence them into purchases. Sales funnel analysis is important in understanding how you are leading your visitors through your buying process ending in sales. You have to know what visitors do upon landing in your site, looking over your product categories, selecting the products that interest them, putting those products in the shopping cart and eventually completing the purchase by hitting the Place the Order Now button and paying. The goal is to keep the visitors in your site – and making sure these visitors do what you want them to do – to buy.

The idea of a funnel is due to the fact that you cannot expect 1,000 visitors that came to your homepage to result in 1,000 purchases on your site (though that would be fantastic). With 1,000 visitors, you may end up with 20 sales (or 2% conversion rate) or 100 sales (10% conversion rate). The goal of a sales funnel analysis is to determine what are the steps a visitor goes through to buy anything from your site – and where in that process do they leave your site. If you understand the bottlenecks of the sales process in your website, you can act on it and remove those bottlenecks.

Here’s a simplistic example of a sales funnel process when the entrance point is the homepage:

* Step 1 - Visitor arrives on your homepage
* Step 2 - Visitor clicks on your Product Category A
* Step 3 - Visitor looks at Product 1
* Step 4 - Visitor puts Product 1 in the shopping cart
* Step 5 - Visitor fills out the order form
* Step 6 - Visitor puts in credit card information
* Step 7 - Visitor submits the order
* Step 8 – Visitor does not return the product

Web analytics software such as the high-end HBX software and the free Google Analytics incorporate a sales funnel analysis to help ecommerce site owners to determine at what point do visitors abandon the sales process and where do they go. If you see that visitors put products in the shopping carts, but abandon their shopping carts, then you need to investigate why they did not complete the transaction – e.g. is your shopping cart system too burdensome; are you requiring too much information; does your shopping cart have bugs, etc.

Or you may find that while visitors are looking at your product categories, they are not putting anything in their shopping carts – is it because you don’t have the products they thought you would have or is it because your pictures are too small or too hazy to help convince visitors that you have great quality products.

20. Make it easy for visitors to use and buy from your site. One of the important rules to succeed on the Web is to develop a website that serves the needs of your visitors in a manner that is both user-friendly and easily understood. Make everything easy (and fast!) for them, and users will stick with you – and may even come back again.

In creating your site, use technologies that are commonly used on the Web. Stick with the basics such as Flash, JavaScript, DHTML and others programs that Web users are familiar with. Do not require users to install unconventional or proprietary plug-ins that your software team has developed just to make a purchase from your site. Users love familiarity, and with the problems of spy ware, viruses and malware, majority of your visitors would hit the back button and shop elsewhere if they are asked to download programs to use your site.

21. Let the visitors immediately know what you are selling. It is important that you make your offering immediately apparent to visitors. They need to be able to figure out what the site is all about upon arriving on your website, especially your homepage. Visitors are more likely to leave if they can’t understand what your site is all about and what you are selling.

The key is to have a clear and distinct focus. People should be able to immediately discern what your site is all about, even if you sell a thousand products! Your focus should be apparent in the pictures on your homepage, in your title, in your tagline, and in the text on your homepage particularly the headings.

Take for example LaneBryant.com – the site title tells you that this store is for “fashionable plus-sized women” and you immediately see a picture of a plus sized woman. The focus is reinforced by the tagline, which says “fashion leader in women’s plus-size clothing, sizes 14–28.” All the elements of the site tell you that LaneBryant.com is for plus-sized women.

22. Entice customers to buy. If you study the top ecommerce sites, there are several elements that they commonly use above the fold on their homepages – their best selling products, products for the season, special promotions or hot new products. All of these elements have one clear goal: to grab customers’ attention and make them interested enough to go into the site and buy these products.

The New Products of the week feature show that you keep your inventory fresh. It gives old customers a reason for coming back again and again to your site. Same with the discounts and promotions. People love a great sale, and the idea that they can buy items at a discount has always been a strong motivator to buy. If you are running any promotions, highlight it in your website preferably in your homepage above the fold and even in your internal pages.

23. Avoid intro, splash, or entry pages. A splash or intro page forces a visitor to see an ad or message before allowing them to access what they actually came for. For an e-commerce site, visitors need to know what you are selling immediately and splash pages are irrelevant in achieving this objective. You want your visitors to buy, and making them wait for a movie to load or to click on a link before entering simply delays the buying process.

24. Invest in great photography. Merchandise comes to life with great photography. Pictures sell, and there is no excuse for poor photography. Remember that selling on the Web means that visitors will not be able to physically see your product up close, nor be able to touch and smell it. Users have to rely on what they see on their computer screens.

The pictures of your products should be clear, clean, big and devoid of any distracting backgrounds. Your shots should be technically excellent, no blurred or out-of-focus shots, please. Always include a larger or zoom version of the item always making sure – and this is important – that your larger version has a Buy Now button as well (you don’t want to miss an opportunity to sell your product).

Avoid complicated backgrounds – if you are selling gold earrings, avoid putting them on yellow-patterned pillows as this makes it harder to see the earrings. The beauty and quality of a product often get lost on busy and dark backgrounds; and you want customers to focus on the product, not the background. Remember that you are selling the product, not the background!

25. Make your sales copy compelling. Your product pages must give a reason why visitors should buy your products. Highlight the benefits of your products, in addition to its features.

LL Bean does a great job in their copy. In one of their women’s jeans products, the text that jumps at you given its bold and bigger size is not the measurement of the jeans but rather this benefit statement -- “Proof You Can Find a Great Pair of Jeans at a Great Price” followed by bullets of supporting benefits

* "Comfort, durability and style at a great price"
* "Premium ring-spun cotton feels soft and broken in"
* "Classic jean styling"
* "Sit below waist"

Always give your customers a reason why they should buy the product. Then follow it with specifications of the product, giving as much information as to its fit (if clothes), size or other technical details.

Then spell check, spell check and spell check. There’s nothing more horrifying in a sales copy than spelling errors.

 

26. Make your call to buy signals consistent and prominent. Your “buy now” buttons should be prominently placed in your product pages. Many etailers say that bigger “buy buttons” in bold and in a color that stands out can help increase conversion rates. Buy buttons should be placed above the fold to keep it prominent and in view of the customer. Avoid making the user scroll to find your buy buttons. The key is to make the buying process as simple and as easy as possible – and ease of use on the Web always translates to dollar.

Sears.com uses a big red “Add to Cart” button positioned above the fold in their product pages. Target.com also uses the color red, and the Add to Cart button is the second most visible element on the page after the product image. In fact, Target’s buy now button jumps out at you because of its huge size even though it is at the bottom of top fold.

Also consider the strategy of Amazon.com, which places Add to Cart buttons in their category pages to users to make buying easy for those users who already know what they want to buy. Their Add to Cart buttons are in a more prominent deep yellow color to more emphasis to it compared to the lighter yellow Add to Wish List button beside it.

Consistency of the look of your primary action buttons is also important. If you allow users the ability to compare various products you offer, make the “compare” button similar to your “buy” buttons, albeit differences in color shading.

Make sure that the prices of the product stick out. Keep it above the fold and presented in bold or bigger font.

27. Use an Upsell Page. Upselling is a marketing method used to persuade your customers to spend more money than they had originally intended. It is usually a page added between your normal ordering page and your payment page. It is commonly shown after the customer enters their personal data, but before putting in their credit card information. Customers are shown additional products (maybe 3-5 at most) at a reduced price.

The key is to tempt the customer into buying more from your site; so for an upsell page to work, you need to show products that are attractive to them for them to accept the offer. It can be complementary products (check first if the upsell product is not in the shopping cart) or great deals if buying additional quantities of the product. Make the offer compelling by showing them how much they will save if they bundle the up sell products with their current purchase. Put on the page all the information about the product -- the price, the savings they will get if they purchase and an “Add to Cart” button (don’t make them click to a product information page or they may not come back in this very crucial buying stage). One thing though: make this offer a “take it or leave it” option so customers can opt to buy the original products they wanted or whether to want to add your up sell products to their purchase.

Read Part 4: Maximize After-Sales Opportunities

Part 4

If you sell on the Web, the best way to increase the likelihood of repeat purchases is to treat customers well after they place their initial order.

28. Maximize cross-sell opportunities. Cross selling is the strategy of pushing new products to current customers based on their past purchases. Cross selling is achieved by including in your confirmation email other items they may like, as well as mailers included when the product is sent.

The essence of any successful cross-selling strategy is recommending the right product at the right time. To do this, you must have information on the purchase history of the customer and product relationships. Cross-sell items in similar price points, or higher priced items.

29. Give customers incentive to buy again from you. Always include coupons with the package. Customers who have just brought from you are your best prospects to come back and buy again.

30. Consider return and money-back policies. Having a money back return policy shows customers that you stand by your product and increases their confidence in buying from you. It also shows that you care about the satisfaction of your customer. Specify clearly how the customers should handle the process of returning the item, and when and how they can actually expect to get their money back. However, use this feature only if you can back it up and you are indeed willing to return their money back.

Unless you are selling questionable product, few people will actually take you up on the offer.

About The Author:

Nach Maravilla is the President and CEO of PowerHomeBiz.com. For information on starting a home business visit PowerHomeBiz.com

September 2006

Genesis One And One Studios partners with Homeschool In Houston to offer discounts to Houston area homeschool businesses.