15 Best Elements For Any eCommerce Website That Wants To Drive Conversions

The Problem

I was hired to redesign this project when my Client and I noticed tremendous increase in abandoned Shopping Cart and Checkout pages.

Yes, we had problems with shipping, our rates were too high, but we also had one very messy page that didn’t convert well at all.

Not sure why this was designed that way, but in my opinion, the page was a total disaster.

Not only did it look very chaotic, but the fact that the purpose of this page was to ONLY calculate a shipping rate and not give ENOUGH options, to me, was just wrong.

The sales were dropping, the Client was in a state of panic and I knew we had to do something.

When I looked at the report and added up amounts for abandoned Shopping Cart and Checkout page, the numbers were alarming to say the least.

At this point, I knew that the site had to be redesigned on a platform that allows greater customization, massive testing options and optimization.

 

Furthermore, I felt that the current platform which was Dashbee didn’t offer potential to grow.

Adding  standard plugins like LeadPages, LeadBoxes, Chat Box, Facebook Messenger, MailChimp, and WordPress would require additional programming instead of simple module integration.

 

Solutions That Drive Conversions

1. Layout

Since I needed to redesign and develop the site from scratch, I chose to go with Magento platform.

The current site has decent traffic, we had to take this under consideration, keep all the links and URLs.

I didn’t want to do a total new redesign because in my opinion this can confuse customers and ultimately result in decreased conversions.

My main goal was to clean up functionality, make it more user-friendly, and at the same time ready to receive traffic from social media, paid advertising, search engines and other sources.

To maximize the site potential, increase sales and conversion and ultimately the overall ROI.

Most importantly, I wanted to create a site where we could minimize customer friction that can prevent them from shopping and subsequently buying.

In order to accomplish this, I had to create a customer journey path with breakpoints for future improvement based on various testing, Google Analytics reports and customer surveys.

I also had to incorporate the following layout changes:

• Took out the rotating Banner, instead placed one slide with main “Call To Action”
• On the Homepage, created a larger selection of Best Selling Items to highlight them and create the easiest and fastest access to the most popular products
• Eliminated the 5-step checkout process and changed it into a 2-step process
• Introduced One-Step Checkout page
• Introduced Live Chat
• Introduced Push Crew to broadcast instant customer messaging with coupons and discounts

To help with Organic Search Engine Optimization, we decided to go through all the products and change the product description from paragraph text to bulleted text.

Bullet points help the robots go through the text and understand its content.

Additionally, we’ve enriched each product description with more text and more valuable keywords.

I made sure we have H1 and H2 on each page with assigned product keywords that also correspond with the Page Titles, Page Descriptions and URLs.

We’ve made Customer Reviews more accessible and added a Return Policy box to each Product page in order to eliminate any friction points that would keep the customer from making purchase.

By placing these two elements on all individual Product pages, we’ve allowed the customers an easy access to the main pain points: assurance about unsatisfied purchase and social proof.

To help with navigation and with Search Engine Optimization in mind, we also incorporated breadcrumbs into the website architecture.

 

2. Related Items

Adding related items not only increases product visibility, it also creates additional links in between the pages.

The more cross-links in between the pages, the more we are increasing the chances of all the pages being indexed individually with the search engines and achieving higher individual rankings.

It is important to set up correct internal structure in between pages in order for all the other pages to appear individually in selected searches.

Additional steps will include adding Up-sale and Cross-sale items.

 

3. Shopping Cart Page

In order to eliminate friction caused by the previous Shopping and Checkout page and create a more seamless user experience, we’ve eliminated the Shopping Cart page that was mainly used to calculate shipping.

Shipping is already a very difficult subject and was a probable reason for many abandoned Checkout pages.

Setting up a separate page just to calculate shipping and giving the customer only one visible option and price to choose from seemed to me like a major mistake.

By eliminating this and placing shipping charges on a Checkout Page together with other information like tax and gift wrap option, seems to be a much more reasonable solution.

 

 

 

4. Shipping Method

Similarly, we’ve chosen to use One-Page Checkout which allows the customer to finalize the transaction on one page instead of going through 3 additional steps.

By changing the Shopping Cart page and Checkout page, we went from 5-step checkout to 2-step checkout, making the transition from Product page to Confirmation page a much faster and smoother experience.

Additionally, by connecting FedEx and USPS through API and being able to get live quotes for both shipping providers at once we are giving the customer several options that are clearly visible and easy to choose from.

By providing easily visible options the Customer is able to chose the most cost efficient way of delivery.

 

5. Payment Options

It is important to set up as many payment options as possible. Don’t limit your payment options only to credit cards.

Whenever possible, set up Paypal and PayPal Express as easy pay and all other payment options currently available.

50% of transactions are done on Mobile these days.

By enabling PayPal Express, customers can zoom through the checkout process without looking for their wallets and entering credit card numbers on their smart phones.

We already noticed that over 50% of transactions are done through PayPal Express.

 

6. Live Chat Integration

By integrating Live Chat, we wanted to eliminate any friction between the customer and the purchasing process by allowing access to a live customer service representative anytime during the shopping experience.

At the same time, we are gaining some valuable information about the current visitor. We can see how many times they visited the website, how long they stayed on the site and see which pages they viewed.

We also can learn where they came from and how many times they’ve visited the site.

When customer requests assistance it is easy to walk them through the store as their path appears in the backend chat box.

 

7. WordPress Blog Integration

WordPress is the best blogging platform available.

Since blogging is essential in building organic traffic I integrated WordPress into Magento store.

With Yoast SEO we will be able to optimize each blog with with ease, quickly create new content with additional offers and articles.

 

8. MailChimp Integration and eCommerce 360

The site has currently over 15,000 email subscriptions that are not being used to its fullest potential.

We’ve incorporated MailChimp extension into Magento which will allow us to add the opt-ins into the appropriate list category in MailChimp automatically.

At the same time, we’ve also set up autoresponder to welcome newly registered visitors and offer them a coupon as a lead magnet to entice them to make the initial purchase.

Once the emails are transferred to MailChimp, we set up a campaign with autoresponders to trigger follow-up campaigns and retargeting campaigns.

By optimizing our email campaigns, we are increasing chances for a higher sales conversion.

Additionally we are working on a set up for eCommerce 360 which is a part of a free MailChimp integration.

This integration will allow us a deeper insight into each customer purchase which will ultimately allow us to create a deeper segmentation towards future email marketing.

 

9. ShipStation Integration

Another external module that we’ve incorporated into the website was a ShipStation.

This allows printing of shipping labels and speed off the package processing.

By connecting ShipStation to Magento, once the shipping labels are printed, the orders are automatically processed and closed in Magento which eliminates the step of manual processing.

 

10. Runit & Modern Retail Integration

When you are combining online store with Brick and Mortar, there is a need for a third party module that allows inventory control.

Modern Retail module integration allows hourly sweep of purchase information and transmission to Runit which controls both stores.

• Pull product catalog updates from Runit POS system and send it to the website.
• Send completed order and customer information to POS system.
• Provide up-to-date pricing and inventory information with no intervention.
• Allow editing of information coming from POS system so you can merchandise products in a way that sells online.

 

11. Page Title and Page Descriptions

When you move a large side that has so many pages, it is very important to copy all the links and transfer all the URLs.

In many cases, that may not be possible, so in order not to lose your positioning with the search engines, make sure you set up 301 URL forwarding to avoid any 404 errors.

With this project, we not only had to make sure we duplicated all the URLs correctly, but also I wanted to create the highest quality page titles and page descriptions with the most relevant long-tail-keywords.

We checked in Google Search Console for duplicate page tags.

Once we established all the duplicates, we created a spreadsheet with all the page names from the navigation, created long-tail-keywords per page and incorporated those into each page title and page description.

At the same time making sure that all the URLs match and have the same long-tail-keywords as well.

This will ensure continuing current placement of the pages with the search engines, and at the same time, the pages will start increasing their rankings for targeted keywords.

Additionally, by optimizing the Page Titles and Page Descriptions, we are increasing our chances of getting a higher-ranking positioning for each page with the search engines in the future.

Changing these to have more long-tail-keywords and better, more grabbing page description

 

12. Conversion Codes Integration with Google Analytics

The next step for this particular eCommerce integration is setting up all the conversion codes on the website.

By setting the code for the Thank You page as well as email signup boxes and any type of call to action boxes set up on the website, we are able to track where the traffic is coming from and also the customer’s journey to the website.

By enabling eCommerce in Google Analytics, it is easier for us to see which channel drives most of the sales, our daily sales and the average order value.

The correct codes in Google Analytics are allowing us to optimize the website for additional conversions by learning all kinds of statistic information.

It allows us to see where the traffic is coming from and which traffic brings the most conversions.

Furthermore it allows us to see which pages have the biggest bounce off, correct the mistakes and optimize pages for maximum conversion.

 

13. Google Search Console

It is important to set up Google Search Console for many reasons.

At this point, we will be monitoring any broken links that may happen during the transition from the old site to the new site.

Consequently, we are able to track all the queries people are entering into the Google search engine to look for products that we carry.

As we keep developing the project forward, we will incorporate queries that we find into our blogs and product descriptions which will eventually help us with higher search engine rankings as well.

Google Search Console, when integrated into Google Analytics, collects visitor demographic information that can be used to create a very specific targeted audience for further advertising.

 

14. Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager is a free tool that makes it easy for marketers to add and update website tags — including conversion tracking, site analytics, remarketing, and more—with just a few clicks, and without needing to edit your website code.

15. Facebook Pixel

Facebook Pixel is imperative if you want to drive traffic from Social Media Channels which could be a very successful way to generate lots of sales.

Facebook Pixel will recognized visitors coming to the website and allow targeting your ads for various specific actions like: retargeting, special audience creation, recognizing which customers made purchase and which once did not.

The events we’ve installed are: View Content, Search, AddToCart, AddToWishlist, InitiateCheckout, AddPaymentInfo, Purchase.

By accumulating all that data, you are increasing your customer reach and targeting options.

Your Facebook Strategies can get much more complex which ultimately results in lower ad spend and greater conversion.

Of course there is much more that attributes to a successful eCommerce business.  This post is intended for small business owners who struggle with traffic and conversions.  If you are one of those I guarantee that once you implement even half of these suggestions you’ll be seeing results in less then a month.  All the best to all of you.

At Kinga Dow Productions, we help businesses with an online presence use digital strategies to grow revenue. We do that by focusing on generating real results. That is, increasing the number of online visitors and improving the conversion of those visitors into paying customers.

We listen to you, understand your audience, and put our digital marketing expertise & sophisticated technology skill-sets to work for you in order to meet or exceed your business goals.  Contact us today if you would like to talk about your Website Optimization Strategy.