The conversion rate is important for any e-commerce . The goal is to have the best possible conversion rate. This is data that must be studied because it is a good indicator of transformation into customers. Most of the data for an e-commerce store must be studied to have a sustainable online site. We are going to see what a conversion rate is and how to improve it.
The conversion rate to e-commerce
What is a conversion rate?
The conversion rate is a KPI. What is a KPI? A KPI is “Key Performance Indicator”. A KPI is data that can be measured over time and can be compared. The number of clients per month is therefore a KPI. A conversion rate is expressed as a percentage. This is the number of customers compared to 100 visitors. In other words it is the number of conversions compared to 100 visitors. This data is very interesting to define if his online store converts correctly. You will understand that the higher the conversion rate, the better. It is therefore important to focus on this data in order to increase it to its maximum. For this there are different processes that we will see in the rest of this article.
II. What is a good conversion rate?
Of course there is still a reference in terms of conversion rate. In fact, the “basic” conversion rate is 1%. This translates to one purchase per 100 visits. You will tell me it is not enough. It’s true that it’s not much, but e-commerce is like that and that’s why it’s great. It is a challenge because it is not easy at all, it would otherwise be known. Of course, companies achieve 3% conversion which is pretty good. To reach this level, you will have to optimize your store by giving confidence.
There are also sectors that have better conversion rates than others. According to Google and Kantar Media in 2013 the best conversion rate was in the Drive sector. Which is rather normal since it is linked to a large supermarket like Aachen or Intermarché. If we speak of “pure player”, the sector with the best conversion rate is the High Tech sector. There are also online travel agencies with a 4.5% conversion rate. This data is interesting and it is always good to know the conversion rate of niches and online businesses such as travel agencies.
III. How to improve your conversion rate?
1. Social proof:
A visitor who is reassured is a visitor who can potentially be converted into a customer. And for that nothing like social proof. What do we mean by social proof? It’s simply customer reviews that alone can dramatically increase your conversion rate. In addition, it is possible to add a customer reviews page on your product page. The advantage is that you will have good customer reviews if your products are good and this will improve your internal networking for your SEO. Of course you have to declare it for Google otherwise it will have a rather negative effect on your SEO on search engines.
However, we should not be satisfied with customer reviews to have good social proof. You have to reassure the customer and show that there are customers who buy. You can set up modules that show the remaining stock and a small “Mary bought this product” pop-up. This will greatly reassure the customer and it can only increase your conversion rate. So anything that shows customers that this site is selling is good for your conversion rate. Be smart and work well. This is very important!
2. Recovery of abandoned baskets
The recovery of abandoned baskets is a process that should not be neglected. And yet a very large number of e-merchants do not! They are mistakenly retargeting at a very high conversion rate. If a visitor has added a product to the cart, it is potentially interested. There are various reasons for the prospect to leave their basket. He may need to watch the prices of the competition or he has simply been interrupted in his act of purchase. So it is very important to go and ask them to buy.
2.1 How to recover abandoned carts?
There are several ways to retarget abandoned carts. You can do this by email and on Facebook. The point is to remind them that you exist. For this there are different marketing strategies such as a reduction on their baskets. Be careful not to spam your customers by giving them an increasingly high promo code every hour for example. The customer will wait for the best promo code and this is not the right strategy. So take an interest in retargeting, train yourself and you will see that it will greatly increase your conversion rate.
3. Reinsurance
Your site must give confidence to the customer. It is normal you are not even going to buy on a site which is not beautiful and which does not give confidence. You need to be reassured. Your customers are the same as you and that seems normal. Your e-business should be professional. And for that it is important to add the trust bags. Trust badges are badges with different means of payment, this is essential for your online site. In addition, pages must be added concerning delivery and returns. It is very important that the customer is aware of your delivery times and your return conditions. Also put a “Who we are” page the customer needs to know who you are. You have to maximize customer reinsurance, that’s the key.
3.1 How to increase reinsurance?
Design is more than an important part of your online store. Your design should be simple and professional. The goal is not to have an artistic site but a site that converts. You can get inspiration for this. Be careful, getting inspired is not synonymous with copying! Look at the best e-commerce sites such as Amazon for example. We all agree that Amazon is not the most beautiful site on the web and yet I invite you to look at the turnover of this mastodon! It is a very good practice. Why is this a good practice? Because sites like Amazon spent a lot of money on testing and they kept the version that converts the best. So you don’t have a better example than these great e-commerce sites. To conclude, you have to really work on your design, you can spend thousands of euros on ads, if your site is not professional it will not convert.
4. The loading speed of your site
Please note that this part should not be neglected. On the contrary! How many have not yet optimized their online sales site for load time. We all agree that there are too many of them. If your online business takes too long to load the customer is going to get bored and go. This will sometimes create a rebound. What is a rebound? A bounce is when a customer arrives on a page and leaves without taking any action. So that creates a rebound. The bounce rate is also a KPI. To give you an idea a very good bounce rate is 33%. Why33%? Quite simply because it represents ⅓ visits. You will understand that the higher your bounce rate, the more work there is. The goal is to have the lowest possible bounce rate.
4.1. How to decrease the loading speed?
To decrease your upload rate you can reduce the weight of your images. Since you are in e-commerce, you necessarily have a lot of images in your store. You should know that the more there are, the more the site will take time to load. This is why it is important to optimize them. There are still multiple techniques such as modules that you don’t need. The goal is to make your site as light as possible.
5. The conversion funnel
For this last part we will talk about the conversion funnel. You know that to buy from an online store you have to go through several stages. Namely personal information, choice of delivery etc … The goal here is to make the conversion path as easy as possible. There is no need to integrate a lot of steps. The customer wants to buy and quickly. In addition, he does not want to bother, which is why we must facilitate the conversion funnel. It has to be quick and easy. Visitors are impatient and the same goes for everyone. If you visit a site and you have decided to buy and come to the time to pay it is too tedious. Your reaction is to go and see the competition. And this is completely normal! You have to make it simple and only put the essentials. To optimize your conversion funnel there are applications capable of viewing the customer journey. This will allow you to see if your store is optimized or not. To conclude on this, everything that can be optimized in terms of customer navigation must be optimized.
To conclude, the conversion rate is a KPI that can improve greatly. This is done over time but it is important to work on it. Optimize your conversion before trying to get a lot of traffic, this is very important.
Would you like to explore more about ecommerce SEO please read these articles bigcommerce SEO and Shopify SEO to explore more?
