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.
(article continued below ...)
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.
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.
