Reasons Why Visitors Might not be Converting to Buyers | Varn

Insights

5 December 2012

Google: 10 Reasons Why Your Visitors Might not be Converting to Buyers

Google recommend you follow these 10 tips to improve your conversion rates

 The tips below were given to us in order of importance:

  1. Price: Are your prices clear and accessible? If potential customers have to search for your prices, they’ll soon be put off. Are your prices competitive? It’s always a good idea to check out the costs your competitors are charging – you ideally want to offer attractive prices, but still make a profit. Lowering your prices slightly might seem daunting, but you’re more likely to sell more of the product in question.
  2. Product Descriptions: Descriptions accompanying your products or services need to be easy to understand. You need to tell the customer as much as you can and avoid being misleading. It’s also a good idea to have feedback on each of the products to encourage sales.
  3. Stock: Product availability and letting your website users know what stock levels are is very important for e-commerce websites. This is important for the popular items within your website, especially if you’re going the extra mile to promote these products. However, it is just as important to maintain stock levels for the not-so-important items. If you can’t avoid having a product out of stock, then make sure you list information on when it will next be available.
  4. Site Functionality: How your site functions is a major part of converting visitors into paying customers. If your website functions poorly, then many of those potential customers will give up and look elsewhere for their purchases. With ever growing competition in e-commerce websites, you need to make sure that your website functions as well as it possibly can.
  5. Shipping: It helps to have all of your shipping information within your website, on a page which is easy to locate. Hidden shipping or P&P charges will put many customers off. You need to make your prices clear, and offer as many different shipping options as you can. In fact Google suggested that free P&P is the best option for e-commerce websites.
  6. Discounts / Special Offers: Offering discounts or special offers can be a great way to expand your customer base. Promotional offers on new products, seasonal discounts and other money saving techniques can help encourage visitors to make their purchase with you, and can even prompt them to spread the word about your website to their friends.
  7. Images: The images within your website need to be clear and easy to understand. Product images should be clean and crisp. You should offer as many different images as you can for each product, each of which can be enlarged so that they are easy to view for those with sight difficulties.
  8. Navigation: People need to have the ability to navigate your website easily. If they are able to find what they are looking for with ease, they are more likely to make the final purchase. The more steps they have to take to get to the final checkout point, the more likely they are to give up and look elsewhere for the product they want.
  9. Product Videos: Product videos are a great way to show as much information as you can about your products. They offer much more detail than flat images and show potential customers exactly what they are buying. This can also provide you with a professional and informative edge on your competition.
  10. Loading Time: The time which your site takes to load can have a great effect of the number of people buying from you. The longer people spend on your website waiting for images or text to load, the more likely they are to lose patience and leave your website.

For more information on all of the above, and for further tips on building consumer friendly websites, please do not hesitate to contact the professionals at Varn.

Article by: Aimee, Head of Innovation More articles by Aimee

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