Looking for answers to these questions? Keep reading as RCI
member, Theresa Packard with CommerceV3, offers answers and actionable
strategies to start implementing in your business immediately.
HOW DO I BEST OPTIMIZE MY WEBSITE?
Optimizing your site should be done based on site metrics and
usability, as well as site speed. I'll address how to analyze your site metrics
and usability with regards to conversion, but for now, let's cover the bases of
site speed.
If your site is not operating at an optimum speed, it may appear
to be missing a few pieces to the puzzle. Measuring the site speed on your
homepage and top category pages will allow to see if there are images or other
code that could be significantly slowing your site.
Many site speed tools such as Google Page Speed Insights,
WebPageTest and Pingdom, are free. A site is considered slow if it takes longer than three
seconds to load. After running the site speed tools, you may find the top
culprits that can affect website speed are often large images that need
optimized, script that can be loaded at the bottom of the page versus the top
of the page, and additional redirects on the page.
INCREASING CONVERSION RATES
This is the million-dollar question— how to convert browsers
into purchasers? When consulting clients, I have found the best place to start
is to ask a series of questions. The following questions can help you identify
any barriers that may be affecting your conversion rate.
What do your
analytics tell you?
The first thing I tell all retailers is to take a look at their
analytics (we use Google analytics) to see if there are parts of your site that
show the best conversion and parts that show the worst. How do you get more out
of the things that show high conversion and high dollars? What’s wrong with the
worst parts? Is there something on that landing page acting as a barrier?
Are your customers
getting lost?
Are there places on your site
where customers may be getting lost? Do they have to think about their journey
through your site or is it intuitive? If you have a customer service agent,
this may be a good person to ask, since they’re likely the one fielding
questions about how to navigate your site. If not, try asking a loyal customer
about their experience on your site.
Can customers easily
find the products they want through search and navigation?
When a customer reaches the product page, how easy is it for
them to see the pricing, count or size and, then, add their products to the
cart? A shortage of important details like these is a common pitfall, that can
quickly turn potential customers away.
Are there product reviews on
your site?
Many online shoppers make purchasing decisions based on other
customers’ reviews. Be sure your website has a user-friendly reviews program.
Have you tried to
checkout on your own site?
When moving through the shopping cart to checkout, how easy is
it for a customer to proceed through each step? We suggest making clear,
well-defined steps through checkout. Make sure customers can easily enter
shipping and billing information and also have certain already-known fields
pre-entered (such as their email address and shipping information when logged
in). To help with ease of checkout, offer alternative payment methods like
PayPal, Amazon, Apple Wallet, Visa Checkout and etc.— these are especially
useful for individuals shopping on mobile devices.
There's a lot you can do to
optimize your website and improve your conversion rates, sometimes the best way
to identify hang ups is by test driving your site on a regular basis.
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