Conversion rate optimization is an essential part of business for anyone who is looking to increase their conversion rate and improve the number of sales on their website. CRO takes a lot of time and effort, so you need to implement some strategies before you actually see your conversion rates increase.
If you aren’t ready to put in too much work, you can always find websites for sale that already have great conversion rates, and start making money right away. However, if you are willing to put in the effort and do everything from scratch, keep in mind that some tactics that used to work in the past aren’t as effective as before.
For example, AI has given rise to chatbots and user experience is now more important than ever before. But what else do you need to do to increase your website conversions? Take a look below to learn some effective CRO tips that work in 2020.
Optimize product pages
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Your product pages have a function that’s much greater than just showing pictures of your products and their basic information. These pages need to inform, attract, and reassure your website visitors at the same time if you want them to convert into paying customers.
The information you provide about your products needs to be complete and should never be misleading. When talking about your products, make sure to include all of their features and high-quality images to make sure your website visitors have all the necessary information.
What you could also do is include 3D images of your products as well as VR features, as these are among the main UI trends for 2020.
While describing your products, don’t forget to mention all of their benefits and what the customer will gain from the product. This copy needs to attract people and in a way seduce them into making a purchase.
Some other things you can do to optimize your product pages include:
- Placing the primary information over the waterline.
- Making your product sheets SEO-friendly and using technical SEO to increase conversion.
- Including a customer notification module.
- Up-selling and cross-selling whenever possible.
Use sense of urgency and fear of missing out
When it comes to marketing trends, one of the most interesting ones is based on a psychological principle which is very well-known – the fear of missing out. This fear, also known as FOMO, is used to create anticipation and excitement for a product so the customer will make their buying decision faster..
When people shop online, they believe they have all the time in the world to make this decision, so it’s good to rush them along by using FOMO and a sense of urgency. You can use FOMO for conversions accompanied by social proof to show people who have already bought the product.
Both of these strategies work on a similar principle and have been used by marketers long before the internet even existed. Online marketing just made them easier to implement.
When a potential customer sees certain phrases on your website, their FOMO starts acting up. Phrases such as “For a limited time only” and “Get it while it’s still in stock” are among the oldest CRO strategies, but they are still very effective. You can also add a timer that counts down until the end of a sale or a special offer to add on to that sense of urgency.
These and similar tricks are as old as the human race, but don’t be fooled by this. They still work in 2020, maybe even better than in the past.
Make your checkout funnel shorter
A website visitor takes a long trip through the sales funnel before they reach the final stage – the checkout funnel. As this is the final stage that stands between you and profit, it’s wise to make it as short as possible.
The shorter this funnel is, the chances of a visitor converting are much higher. This only seems to be more and more true each year, as customers are only getting more time-constrained. Just think about this – human attention span was 15 seconds in 2000, and only 11.8 in 2015. And this trend only seems to continue, which means that you need to work with your customers to overcome this obstacle if you want them to buy from you.
Unfortunately, a lot of eCommerce websites have an overly complicated checkout process which usually has these steps:
- Requiring a user to create an account on the website.
- Asking or requiring them to sign up for a newsletter.
- Having them read all the website/company policies.
- Reviewing the items in their cart.
- Having them go through a complicated payment method.
This type of process is usually infuriating to customers and one of the main reasons for cart abandonment. That is why a lot of successful eCommerce stores make their checkout process as simple as possible and don’t ask for too much info from their customers.
Don’t forget that one of the main reasons why people love online shopping so much is because it’s convenient. Don’t take that convenience away from them by making the process of paying for the item they want too long and complicated.
Use email automation
Email is a powerful marketing tool that has many uses, and increasing your conversions is certainly one of them. And even though it is one of the oldest forms of online communication, it remains more than effective in 2020. After all, the ROI for email marketing is $42 for every dollar spent.
However, you don’t have to sit around all day and type emails because there is a much simpler way to apply this marketing strategy. All you have to do is use email automation.
Email automation saves you a lot of time and effort while also making sure you’re sending the right emails to the right people. When you send a mail merge, for example, you send an email to multiple recipients in a shorter amount of time, while still triggering all the sequences you’ve planned so you can achieve conversion.
The basic concept of using email automation is knowing that a potential buyer is reading the content you’re sending, so it needs to be attention-drawing and engaging. These emails can vary from person to person and depend on the occasion, but there are some examples that you should send to everyone.
Here are some emails you should send to everyone who signs up for your mailing list:
- Welcome emails. As soon as a new website visitor signs up, lure them to convert into a paying customer with an incentive such as a new buyer discount or a special gift. These emails are also great for giving your subscribers advice and ideas on how to shop at your store.
- Birthday emails. People love to feel appreciated and they also love to receive personalized emails, as they receive 10 times more conversions, according to 2020 statistics. For instance, birthday emails are the perfect combination of the two. Show your subscribers that you’re thinking of them with a special email and a birthday discount.
- Abandoned cart emails. Just because a website visitor abandoned their cart, it doesn’t mean you won’t be able to get them back and convert them into a customer. Send an abandoned cart email to remind them what they forgot and try to entice them to complete their purchase.
Nail your CTAs
You get most of your conversions thanks to CTA buttons that are strategically placed all over your website. This call-to-action needs to be prominent to the visitors, catch their eye, and intrigue them enough to click on it, even more so because of the shortened attention span we have already mentioned. And while it sounds like a simple task, nailing your CTAs is not that easy.
Here are some aspects of your CTAs you need to think about:
- Placement on the website. You need to have CTAs on multiple pages of your website. Avoid putting generic CTAs on your homepage or footer, as the customer hasn’t interacted enough with your company to click on a CTA that early. Instead, place them at the top of your fold on prominent pages.
- Color and shape. Since the CTA needs to attract the website visitor’s attention, its color and shape need to be much bolder and eye-catching than the website design. Choose a shape and color that contrasts the rest of the page so the website visitors can spot it easily.
- Get the copyright. Most CTAs fail because of bad copy that doesn’t intrigue the visitors. Instead of giving them a command with a CTA such as “Download now”, make the copy more benefit-oriented. Phrases such as “Show me more” and “Stay connected” have a much higher chance of being successful.
- Add anchor text CTAs. According to the latest stats, the view-to-lead conversion rate can increase by as much as 121% when you add anchor text CTAs.
There is a lot of trial and error when you’re creating a CTA. That’s why A/B tests for CTA buttons are a necessity when you’re trying to increase conversions. Occasionally change these three elements and see which option your website visitors respond to best.
Implement live chat and chatbots
Providing your website visitors with great customer support is one of the keys to increasing conversion rates because most of the time, a happy visitor is a converted customer. With that in mind, a lot of eCommerce stores have chatbots and live chat on their website.
Some websites implement one or the other, but there are benefits to both, so it wouldn’t hurt to have them both on your website.
When it comes to chatbots, they’re useful because they are AI that provides your customers with answers when a human agent isn’t available. Train the chatbots to understand the basic aspects of your customer experience and you will have a useful tool that is able to communicate with your website visitors 24/7.
However, even though chatbots are very useful, they can’t provide as much information and help as a live agent can. In 2020, live chat is the preferred method of communicating for 79% of customers because they get instant responses. You can place live chat on high-intent pages and landing pages to help potential buyers with their inquiries and increase conversions.
While an agent is chatting with the customer, they can also upsell and recommend other products the customer may need or want, which will increase your profit and the customer’s satisfaction.
Some other benefits you will gain if you implement live chat include:
- Providing your customers with a personalized experience by using proactive messages.
- Minimizing customer dissatisfaction and the number of returns by addressing concerns right away and offering promo or discount codes to unsatisfied customers.
- Collecting useful information from your customers about your website and company that can help you improve your business and increase conversions.
If a lot of people visit your website but only a few of them convert into a customer, there is a high chance that you spent most of your budget on advertising. While it is important to get people to visit your website, it’s just as important to get them to stay there.
Most website visitors come to your eCommerce store with the intention to purchase something from it, but how easy did you make that purchase for them? Even if a visitor knows exactly what they want, if your website has complicated navigation, they won’t be able to find the product and thus won’t convert.
As time goes by, user experience is only becoming more important, and 2020 is definitely a good proof of that. After all, the latest UX stats show that poor website navigation is one of the top reasons (37%) for customers’ dissatisfaction with a website.
In short, simple and user-friendly navigation is your best friend because a website visitor needs to find what they’re looking for in just a few clicks. Below are listed some tips that will help you optimize your website’s navigation.
- Make sure parent categories are prominent. Even if the visitor doesn’t know exactly what they want, they probably have a vague idea. If you put parent categories in the main navigation bar, it will be much easier for people to navigate through their desired category.
- Have subcategories. Under every parent category, include subcategories that allow the website visitor to be more specific with what they want to find.
- Include filters. Filters are a necessity for easy website navigation, but just remember that they need to have a very balanced design. The filters you use need to make sense with the products you’re selling.
- Include a search bar. No eCommerce website can succeed without the search bar, and neither can yours, especially if you offer a wide range of products.
Retarget and remarket
Retargeting and remarketing ads have two different names, but they are basically the same thing – advertisements that target website visitors based on their internet use. This is a very popular CRO strategy as it can increase conversion rates by 150%.
The principle of these ads is very simple. They target bounced-off website traffic and re-engage those people via online ads. That way, they persuade them to re-visit your website and convert.
A great thing about these ads is that they have a worldwide reach, so you can be sure that no matter where the customer is, they will see the ad.
However, you will need help from a remarketing platform, the two most popular of which are Google Dynamic Remarketing and Facebook Dynamic Product Ads.
Optimize checkout process
The checkout process is the final step that a website visitor needs to take before they convert, but there are still things that can happen to prevent that, even at the last stage. Did you know that, according to recent statistics, as much as 21% of U.S. consumers abandon an order because the checkout process is too long or complicated?
Therefore, to ensure a large number of conversions in 2020, you need to optimize your checkout process.
Here is how you can do that:
- Organize the flow of your forms. A lot of eCommerce stores start their checkout process with the billing information, which can seem greedy and invasive. Instead of doing that, make a flow of forms that starts with basic information such as name and address first and leave the billing details for the end.
- Limit the number of form fields. Nobody wants to spend a lot of time filling out 10-12 form fields just to place one order. Limit the number of these fields as much as possible and show the remainder of fields just 2-3 at the time so as to not overwhelm the customer.
- Automate the form field information. If repeating information appears anywhere in the form, make sure to automate it so the duplicate information will fill in automatically.
- Allow guest checkout. If a customer is forced to become a subscriber just to complete their order, most of the time they will just abandon their cart. Avoid this and allow guest checkout. Don’t force anyone to subscribe if they don’t want to.
Wrap-up
Conversion rate optimization is something a lot of eCommerce owners strive to achieve. While some focus solely on attracting as many people to their website as they can, others use outdated CRO strategies.
However, those who follow the latest trends will eventually become industry leaders. That is why you need to realize to always monitor your customers’ behavior.
With just a few well-implemented 2020 CRO strategies, you can get your website to have more conversions than ever before. As long as you don’t give up on your goals and apply all of the strategies you just learned about, you won’t need to look for success because success will find you.