First impressions can make or break your business, especially when it comes to e-commerce. The layout of your website, the colors you use, and what you decide to share about yourself as a business are all elements that impact the first impression. So with that said, it’s important to tap into what makes a brain tick. What elements on a website entice shoppers to make a purchase or take a desired action on your website? So that’s why in today’s article, we’re going to be talking about conversions and how to increase them on your website.
The key focus areas will be
- Nailing that first impression with your homepage
- Providing customers with important information on your product pages
- Assuring transactions are transparent and easy Reassure Shoppers With ”About Us” and “Contact” pages.
Also, I will give examples from the most successful Shopify stores that have converting websites.
1. Create a Converting Home Page
A good homepage should always be accommodating. When visitors are looking for a specific outcome. If someone is looking for a sale or a specific product, you want to make it easy to get to where they’re going. But for those who aren’t looking for a specific outcome, you want to make sure that your site is intuitive.
When browsing, I’ve found shoppers are more critical of a store’s design and layout on their first visit. There is this psychological process called decision avoidance. Decision avoidance is the tendency of the brain not to want to make a decision when the decision takes too long to make. And on average, visitors will only spend 10 to 20 seconds on your homepage. This means that you’re going to have to make your navigational flow super clear so that visitors can quickly choose the best path for themselves and your business.
So let’s talk about this in the context of a homepage layout. Take a look at what content you have above the fold. Above the fold is a term web designers use to describe the space you see of the website without scrolling. So when you’re thinking about what lives above the fold, focus on the actions you’d want the visitor to take.
- When they first land on your site?
- What information do they need?
- How can you use this space to help facilitate their decisions and keep it simple here?
For example, let’s take a look at the Makeup for Melanin Girls‘ home page. Their goal is to direct potential customers to purchase their makeup. They have clear product photography and a call to action button that entices people to browse their products.
And on the homepage, there are two decisions that a user can make. They can either click the button to browse their products or scroll down for more information below the fold. The design is a perfect example of a homepage that drives customers to make a purchase.
2.Navigation
Let’s look at how you can make your website’s navigation easy to use on your homepage. Header navigation should be as straightforward as possible. You want to prioritize the paths that matter the most to your visitors. Common examples of important categories are the “About Us”, “Shop” and “Contact”. Sites with too many navigation options can feel cluttered and overwhelming. And this increases the chance that a visitor will drop off or take the wrong path.
A good practice is to prioritize navigation links from left to right, with the most important pages being on the left-hand side. If you have many products and collections, focus on your main, top-level collections in your homepage navigation and use a dropdown menu to create a sub-navigation.
Let’s look at Kinto Coffee as an example. Sub-navigation is an excellent way to organize your products and pages for easy exploration without overwhelming customers with too many options from the jump. Some websites also have links to their “About Us” page, “Contact”, page, “FAQ” page, or other pages in their header or navigation because they support the primary goals. But if you find that visitors to these pages aren’t converting according to your goals, these links are just taking them off the path to conversion. If this is the case, add these to the footer instead.
Finally, for a truly effective homepage that drives conversions, you need to ensure that the content that you feature on your homepage is
- Consistent
- Polished
- Has high-quality photography
Take the time to check what you display on your homepage. Does it align with your brand? Is the message clear? Does it look good on mobile? All of these things are going to play an important role in how your homepage is received when a shopper first visits your store.
3. Create a Converting Product Page Template
The normal flow of a new shopper is that they’re going to land on the homepage, and then they’re going to navigate to your product page. The product page is where a shopper attaches value to the product. And a product page will show a shopper what the product looks like, what it feels like, and how it performs a useful product page makes a shopper wants to own the product.
Here are some important details to consider when you’re trying to build trust, regardless of your industry.
First, you’re going to need a variety of product photos for each product page. Shoppers are less likely to trust your product if you only have a single shot, and multiple photos make it so that shoppers can get a complete picture of your product without actually having it physically with them.
Now let’s look at Manitobah Mukluks and how they showcase their product photos for each of their products.
They include at least four shots. Look at all these different views, you’ve got the closeup. You can see the texture, you can get a good feel for the color and shape. Considering I’m not there physically, these photos give me almost as much information as if I were there, and that will help drive a sale.
Your product descriptions should be organized into digestible sections for readability. Let’s retake a look at Manitobah Mukluks and see how they organize their product description. Notice how everything is laid out and organized into sections for the shopper, the most important information like the price, color options, and reviews are highlighted in the first tab. And more information is listed below in the dropdown menus. This will allow the shopper to openly see the most important information first with the option to explore products further.
I want to highlight the size chart now here. Notice how well the business has outlined the sizing. We have a true-to-size message and a size chart, and then there’s also a link out to their size and guide. So any sizing information is all here on this page, and you don’t have to open a new tab to navigate away from the website.
Wherever appropriate, always include a size chart with conversions on your product page, and this is going to make a shopper feel confident that they can make an informed decision. Confidence generally leads to a sale.
4. Product Reviews
Manitobah Mukluks does a great job of using product reviews, and shoppers value the reassurance they get through impartial reviews. We all do it. As a shopper, we pay close attention to what previous customers have to say. And therefore, personalized reviews add credibility to your products, which can lead to higher conversions.
Loox is an excellent Shopify app for product reviews. Shopify merchants use their easy setup reviews plugin to boost trust, drive word of mouth and referrals, and increase customer retention and sales. Loox verified reviews and photo reviews are your greatest assets for increasing brand awareness and improving conversion rates.
5. Transparent Pricing
Transparent pricing is important on a product page. Shoppers want to know the total price they’re going to pay, including discounts and fees as early on in the purchase as possible, so add context around price to reduce unnecessary surprises. And this is a valuable way to build trust.
So to do this, you always want to do a couple of things.
- You want to ensure that you have a return policy that’s clear and easy to understand.
- When you’re offering to ship internationally, have a shipping policy that clearly states who will pay the duties and who’s going to pay the taxes.
6. Check Out Tips
So you’re going to want to include specific shipping costs. You’re going to want to provide shoppers with the ability to apply a discount code directly in the cart. And you’re going to want to make it easy for a shopper to edit the cart’s content. And don’t forget to leave contact information if a shopper needs to get in touch about their order.
7. About and Contact Page
The final area that I want to discuss is making the shopper feel reassured that your business is legit. So let’s take a look at Jomami Jewelry. They do an excellent job of displaying their brand values. In addition to sharing the brand story and why their business was started, they have an about us section with their sustainability and mission.
Many shoppers want to navigate to an about us page to learn more about the brand behind the products. A shopper will typically navigate to the “About Us” page if they have one of two questions.
- Is the store real and authentic?
- What does the brand stand for?
As a shopper, you get the impression that they’re established and have a strong brand ethos. Customers want to know if a brand shares its values. So like think sustainability, think ethics. They will turn to an “About Us” page to learn more about who they are as a brand and who they’re buying from. And for more socially conscious customers, they’re going to want to know how the business is run.
So to round it all up, a website that’s easy to use and builds trust is a huge contributing factor to generating sales. So like we talked about, really focused on your homepage, your product pages, your transparency surrounding prices, and pay attention to the about us page and the contact information.
The most important thing I want you to take away from this article is that if you focus on building these areas of your online business, what you’re doing is you’re building trust. Trust and confidence with your customers are so important to the success of any brand.