Conversion Rate Optimization: 5 Important Things Every Merchant Needs To Know

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are so close. Every store is doing its best to prepare for marketing campaigns, to drive more traffic, and to get more sales.

However, how can we really take advantage of all the traffic that we tried so hard to get?

I have been wandering around a lot on Shopify forums for the last few months. There is one problem that I saw over and over and over again, from fashion to house decor to health supply stores - ‘I get a lot of traffics but no sales!’ many merchants said.

As a UX designer, I have helped a lot of Shopify merchants review their stores and gave them advice for improving conversion rate to d get more sales. So I decided to write this blog post. It's a few simple things that can help you optimize your store's conversion. Let's get started!

1. One clear goal for each page

According to the AIDA funnel, every customer goes through four main cognitive phases: Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. Understanding where visitors are in the funnel is important, and understanding how to appeal at those different stages is extremely important.

With an e-commerce site, visitors going through pages also means that they are going through stages in the funnel. Grab visitors’ Attention, build their Interest, create the Desire and then persuade them to take Action - that’s how visitors convert to customers.

Focus on only one primary action on each page, this affects how your visitors make decisions.

2. Effective Call to Action

You may have heard about this like a million times, but it's just too important not to repeat. The CTA must always be clear. Everythings should be self-evident or self-explanatory. Clarity and simplicity can bring out the best result by all means.

The CTA’s copy should support not only its goal but also page headline or section headline. This story-based type of flow will make the button more attractive and persuasive. For example, you can use ‘I want to..…’ instead of just ‘Submit’ or ‘Sign up’.

PageFly landing page did a great job on customizing all the CTA even when they all have the same goal. To learn more about PageFly app click here.

3. Trust and credibility

Trust is one important factor that affects the purchase decision of customers. It is created with professionalism and refined aesthetics. Neatness, organization, high level of polish, typography, whitespace, and imagery all create a sense of professionalism.

Besides that, social proof is another factor that helps create trust. We are all human, and human tends to do things that others are doing. That’s why testimonials/product reviews have such a high impact. Also, don’t forget that the review/testimonial works best when it comes from someone similar to your target audience. And fake testimonials (or a real one that feels fake) can create a negative effect and turn visitors away.

Moreover, visitors also feel safe when they see trust badges, information about guarantees and policies, refund policy, return shipping, etc.

JoomlaShine shows testimonials and 30 Days Money back guarantee badges to create trust

4. Readability

In the book ‘Don’t Make Me Think’, Steve Krug dedicated a whole chapter for ‘Omit needless words’. It is about the ability of not writing.

Why did he do that? Because people don’t like to read much on the internet, they scan. That’s why we should always format text for scanning and skimming. Here is his method: “Get rid of half of the words on each page, then get rid of the half of what’s left”

Omit needless words example - 'Don't Make Me Think' (pg. 52)

Always provide ‘just enough’ information that your visitor needs:

• Use visual cues to organize thematically related text elements
• Use bullet points and highlight key terms
• Hide longer paragraphs in tabs
• Avoid jargon. Be factual and objective.

Yes, I know it sounds simple. But believe me, it’s not. It’s actually really hard to do, especially when you have a lot of information to show. It’s all about practicing.

"Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away" - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

5. Scarcity

A lot of psychology research points out that human place higher value on objects that are rare or hard to obtain. People would rather make a quick decision than risk missing out on a deal.

You can let the power of scarcity help you get more sales by creating a sense of urgency. Using quantity countdown, limited editions, timer countdown, etc. are good ways to boost sales.

H&M applies scarcity with flash sale

Don’t forget to be specific and believable. Psychology is very powerful, that’s why you need to use it carefully.

Conversion is important but it’s not the only thing that you need to care about. There is so much more for you to learn and to do in order to get more sales from driving quality traffic to optimize your store. I would encourage you to dig more into these aspects to find the best solutions that suit your store.