Many users will exit a website before they even go through the checkout funnel. This is usually something that can be rectified with a few small tweaks and has a lot to do with the way your site is optimized, designed and tracked. With this in mind, you should set up a new e-commerce site with conversions in mind from the very beginning.

With the continued growth of the industry, following e-commerce, best practices to increase conversions of your new e-commerce site is important. In fact, according to SmallBusinessNewz.com, you have only a few seconds to impress your visitors enough to get them even close to the checkout process. After 3 seconds, if you haven’t gotten their attention, up to 40% of site visitors will leave your site.  Knowing this, what can you do when setting up your e-commerce site to ensure conversions?

Prioritize Usability
Although the aesthetic appeal of your site is something you should definitely focus on, prioritizing usability over a pretty or trendy design is important. Think about it, you wouldn’t say that Amazon is a very attractive site. However, it is managing to bring in around $5 million each hour. Usability and navigation are vital. If your users are not able to navigate your site properly, they probably won’t even make it to the checkout process. While designing your e-commerce site, you should aim to compel your visitors into making a purchase. Add in clear calls to action every step of the way to nudge your visitors to enter their credit card information.

Revenue Tracking

One of many e-commerce, best practices is to track the revenue your site brings in and see how it is generated. Track where the majority of your customers are coming from. Determine the number of users that are making purchases through your site. How well are your campaigns doing and what return are they getting? In order to understand the behavior of your visitors, you need to be able to track transaction data and analyze your site’s performance.

E-commerce tracking helps to provide insight on different conversions from email marketing, Adwords campaigns, display banners and social platforms. When you can track all metrics simultaneously, you can measure each source’s performance and base this data on important business decisions.

Internal Site Search
The internal search in your site is an important factor in conversions. Statistics from eConsultancy show that as much as 30% of visitors on e-commerce sites will use the internal site search feature. The conversion rate for site search visitors versus non-site search visitors is a almost 6 times higher.

With this information, you can assume the majority of revenue generated to the e-commerce site is from the search feature. Therefore, it would only make sense to help your visitors locate the search bar. This can be done a number of ways including moving it to the center of your page, increasing the pixel size and adding more color to the search box. Even changing the CTA to a different word can help such as ‘Go’ to ‘Find’ instead.

Keep in mind, the revenue you generate from your e-commerce site can be significantly impacted with IT issues. You should ensure your site is running at optimal speed. Also, keeping your contact information and the content of your site up-to-date is important too.

For more information on e-commerce best practices, please contact us here at 82º West Marketing.