Driving Conversion: Is Your Store Running on All Cylinders?

Part 1

Nuts and Bolts: Site Functionality

Navigation – If customers can’t peruse your site easily and efficiently, your chances of conversion drop. Anything that slows customers down or confuses them will encourage them to leave, so make sure your navigation is clear and customer-focused. Be sure that every page includes easy-to-find links to important info: contact, customer service, about, search and links/photos/buttons for cross-selling. Lead your customers where you want them to go in as few clicks as possible. Try showing subcategory links on the home page, rather than on an individual product page. Rather than just showing “Hammers,” in your home page categories list, break this out into Titanium, Roofing, Drywall, Ball Pein, Sledge... you get the idea.

On-site search - As we mentioned in November, research shows that roughly 80% of online shoppers use a store’s search box to quickly find what they want – so this is a no-brainer. Your MonsterCommerce store includes comprehensive search functionality and allows you to set your search parameters, but you should still test your search box to make sure it delivers relevant results. The results page is also a place you’ll want to merchandise – feature related products and specials for cross-selling to encourage higher sales.

Load Time – Faster loading sites convert better, so make sure your site isn’t one of “those” sites that loads… r-e-a-l-l-y… s-l-o-o-o-w. With the need to offer multiple product images of varying sizes and angles, it is important to keep the amount of other graphics on your site to a minimum, and to optimize your images. MonsterCommerce offers image optimization services to dramatically reduce your file size without degrading the quality of your images.

Errors – Don’t let the curse of the broken link, or worse – rampant typos – doom your store! These seemingly “no big deal” problems are, in fact, BIG deals when it comes to the shopping public’s impression of your site. Research from Hostway indicates that 70% of shoppers are likely not to buy from or even return to a site after clicking upon a basic error. Dead links, broken images, spelling errors, links that don’t go where they’re supposed to – these are problems no e-commerce site can afford. So go through your site with a microscope and make sure it’s trouble free.

Curb Cart Abandonment

Some simple alterations to your cart and checkout process can decrease your odds of abandonment and work to move the process forward.

The Fold – Your “Add to Cart” “Buy” and “Submit Order” buttons should be located above the fold (the bottom edge of the visible area of your site within the web browser). Coremetrics reports a 10% decrease in abandoned carts when the “Submit order” button is located above the fold during the last step of checkout. In fact, the entire checkout process should remain above the fold. Why make people scroll down if you can present everything you need them to do above the fold?

“Add to Cart” vs. “Buy” – Go with “Add to Cart.” It lessens the commitment factor for shoppers who may not be ready to actually “Buy” a product. Add to Cart is also a more accurate description of what shoppers are doing – they’re simply setting a product aside, in their cart, to either save and come back for later (which your MonsterCommerce cart allows), or to hold onto while they continue to shop. “Buy” signifies that a visitor is done shopping and ready to checkout, which may or may not be the case. Why encourage checkout when “Add to Cart” encourages additional shopping?

Make Checkout Quick and Clear – Studies have shown that checkouts with fewer steps achieve consistently higher conversions, so it’s important to make yours as efficient as possible. To make shoppers more comfortable, include your contact information on all pages of checkout – and display shipping information clearly, including any specials or discounts that may apply. Having your own, dedicated SSL security certificate increases conversions as well. MonsterCommerce studied over 40,000 client stores and found that those with a dedicated SSL achieved 4.5% higher orders. MonsterCommerce offers dedicated SSL through our partnership with GeoTrust.