Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is something that businesses of all sizes need to start taking more seriously. As your digital marketing and SEO efforts become more sophisticated you will attract more visitors to your site – but there’s no use getting lots of potential customers onto a page if they aren’t going to result into a sale. Here are six website upgrades you can use to improve your conversion rates.
- Invest in exceptional product photography
It cannot be overstated how important images are to your conversion rates. Having low quality images of your products is a real mistake but it is a trap that far too many websites fall into. It is still common to see re-used low quality images of products that have been provided by the manufacturer.
It is a much better idea to actually invest in professional product photography to capture amazing, unique images for your product pages. If you use poor quality images it can lead to customers leaving your site to a competitor in search of a better look at what they are buying.
- Automatic pricing changes
One of the major issues that can drive down conversion rates is when a customer sees a charge or change in price that they were not expecting. This typically happens when they change the quantity of a product or make changes to their order, and assume that the price that they see is still relevant to their new selection when it was in fact the price before the changes were made.
The customer then clicks through to the checkout page to find that the price has complete changed. Unexpected charges are well known as a reason for cart abandonment, and this is the same issue. It is a much better idea to have a system where your pricing automatically updates – see below for a great example of how prices should update instantaneously as the order changes.
Source: YouLovePrint
- Revolutionise your written content
Just as low-quality images can be a major burden for your conversion rates, so too can weak or (worse) plagiarised written content. It has been known for a long time that Google, and other search engines, would much rather see fresh, unique content on a page. If Google’s crawlers come across a page that has identical content from a site it has crawled previously, it will simply remove this page from its listings. And that’s the last thing you want.
Instead it is vital that you should work with professional writers to have great quality content written up for your product pages. Not only can this content match your brand message far better than generic product copy from a supplier or competitor, it can be a boost to your SEO too.
- Put a CTA on every page
One underrated way to increase your conversion rate is to make better use of calls to action (CTAs). You should make sure that you have some sort of CTA on every page, as it is important that customers always know the next step that they can take if they are interested in enquiring more about your products or services, or actually taking the next step and making a purchase.
- Add customer reviews – if possible, third party
One of the most vital aspects of increasing CRO is in ensuring customers trust your business. Trust plays a vital role in a customer feeling secure to make a purchase. And one of the best ways of increasing trust is in your site is through customer reviews. It has been suggested that 88% of customers trust online reviews as much as they do personal recommendations.
You should look for a facility to put customer reviews on your site. In an ideal scenario you could use a third-party review provider as these carry an even better rate of trust.
- Add videos to your key pages
It is a great idea to add video content to key pages on your video. Videos are another fantastic way to increase conversion rates, and they are something that pages across your site can benefit from. The types of video you use can vary depending on the needs of your business, but this is something you need to look into if you are looking for ways to up your conversion rates.
This article was contributed by Chester Avey. Chester has over a decade of experience in Business Growth Management and Digital Marketing. He enjoys sharing his knowledge with other like-minded professionals through his writing.