Site Improvement Tips to Increase Conversions

By Will Devlin

Are you doing everything you can to convert visitors into buyers on your e-commerce site? While there are dozens of ways to improve your user experience, below are a few suggestions that will have the greatest impact on your online business — from customer experience through to conversion:

1. Make it easy for visitors to find what they want. Since most visitors to your site are browsers, make sure your categories are clearly defined so that they guide people to what they need. Think about mapping your site's online experience to the physical experience in-store. If you can't visualize a similar online and physical experience, it might be time to take another look at your site taxonomy.

2. Reduce low-quality on-site searches with predictive search. Typically, 30 percent of visitors will use the search box on your website. Since most searchers likely know what they want, it's imperative to avoid misspellings and search mistakes by adding a predictive search feature to your site search.

3. Utilize product reviews (even the bad ones). Seventy percent of online shoppers look at product ratings and reviews before making a purchase decision. Fold reviews into your product pages, and showcase ratings in search/browse results. Consider providing incentives to customers as a means to increase the overall number of reviews on your site. After all, products with the highest number of reviews can increase conversion by 50 percent.

4. Provide detailed information about your products. A product page needs to provide in-depth information in a user-friendly format to facilitate a purchase. Consider using a tabbed structure for a cleaner look, and incorporate alternate images, zoom functionality and video to help users better visualize products.

Will Devlin is the senior marketing manager at ShopVisible, a provider of SaaS e-commerce software. Will can be reached at willd@shopvisible.com.