Understanding the Conversion Funnel
Strikes Me As it's rather easy to fall into the trap of thinking about a conversion funnel as a sort of smooth waterslide. You pop in visitors at the top, and they gracefully glide down to checkout, all on their own. Trouble is, it doesn't play out like this - not for anyone, and certainly not for independent e-commerce brands who can't rely on name recognition alone.
In reality, a conversion funnel looks more like a climbing wall. And it's one you've got to coach your prospects through because - here's the thing - they're all too ready to jump off. From ads and emails, people come into the store but not always with a high intent to purchase.
In many cases, they're window shopping or looking for inspiration or shopping around for the best deals. The further up you can get them up that wall, the more likely it is that they'll end up buying from you. So this means you've got to be more involved in helping customers along their journey. This means giving them reasons and removing roadblocks, every step of the way.
Sort of. Of course, this is easier said than done. Conversion rates are affected by what happens before and after coming into the store as much as what happens inside it.
It's complicated enough that you may not always know whether it's you or them. But it helps to remember that customers have near-identical journeys regardless of product and price range. Most will enter at the homepage or on a product page depending on how they found you. Some will add things to their cart to bookmark them for later but abandon them for a range of reasons, from price to lack of clarity on features.
Some will even go as far as entering their shipping address before dropping off with sticker shock at shipping rates. A small portion of these people will buy immediately but most need time - time to think it over, check out alternatives, consult loved ones, ensure their future selves aren't going to regret the purchase. If your conversion rates aren't where you'd like them to be, let's talk through some practical ways you could address that.
Optimizing Product Pages for Better Engagement
There’s this notion that throwing a handful of features and a price tag onto a page is what sells. Truth is, it’s more like asking someone on a first date with your LinkedIn profile. If the product page isn’t sticky, memorable, or even a little seductive, it doesn’t matter if the product itself is god’s gift to consumers - they will leave. Your product pages need to be like magazine covers and feature spreads rolled into one.
The thing is, you’ve got roughly eight seconds to make your case before the customer moves on. The way I see it, the most critical real estate on your product page is the section above the fold. If you can show off its unique features, take high quality shots of the product in use, and showcase testimonials from humans who have already bought it all before scrolling, you’re in the running for a sale. But it’s more than that - you need to be able to tell a story.
Even if you’re selling something as simple as soap, if people can imagine themselves using it thanks to your detailed descriptions and images, they’ll be more likely to click ‘Add To Cart’. But there’s a caveat here - there’s nothing simple about creating impactful product pages. It needs to be a balance of white space, CTAs, value stacks, reviews, FAQs, authenticity, and more. It needs to flow - take customers on a journey from start to finish and address every single objection or query in between.
And then there’s the subjectivity of it all. What works for one website might tank conversions on another. What I think works for most eCommerce businesses is starting with designing hero sections above the fold that feature everything people need to know immediately, then expanding on all those features below.
You’ll find that you start attracting customers who actually want what you’re selling. Add some sticky CTAs and value-laden copywriting into the mix and you have a fair shot at getting those conversion rates up.
Enhancing User Experience Through Website Design
What most people get wrong with website design is focusing on appearance rather than usability. What looks good, and what feels good to use are two very different things and having one does not guarantee the other. In fact, depending on the aesthetic you’re going for, it could even be at the cost of a customer-friendly user experience. If a website was like a person, the equivalent of this would be someone who looked beautiful, but had absolutely nothing of substance to say and was too lazy to get up off the couch to greet you.
Not very fun to spend time with or look at. Even more so if you have a specific agenda in mind and are on a clock. But sometimes, and I’ve noticed this as well - websites that have the information easily available at your fingertips might look a bit outdated.
And while old-fashioned designs can comparatively remind people of trustworthiness and reliability - they can also seem completely divorced from modern trends and technology. When brands prioritise ease of use over a visually-appealing website, they miss out on another extremely important metric.
A happy medium lies in designing websites that are user-centric instead of being brand-focused or simply designed for traffic. Make your target audience your focal point and build around them. This will allow you to find unique design choices that stand out and make your website memorable, while also ensuring that it’s appealing and navigable enough for them to spend time there and take their time looking through your offerings.
I think it’s alright if everyone doesn’t love your website because chances are they’re not all interested in what you have to sell anyway. And being authentic is almost always better than trying to appease everyone.
Implementing Effective Call-to-Actions
It’s sort of surprising how many businesses think slapping a red “Buy Now. ” button on their page will magically make conversions soar. The trouble is, customers have grown tired of being shouted at.
I Suppose the biggest blunder people make with calls-to-action is assuming that louder, bolder, and more persistent always equals better. It’s easy to forget the world isn’t waiting for your product with bated breath.
What appears to work rather well is kind of showing some restraint. Calls-to-action are, yes, meant to prompt a customer to take the next step - but this doesn’t mean shoving them off the ledge. I’ve found that people respond far better when the CTA feels like an invitation - not an ultimatum.
It should feel helpful, timely, and logical. A button that says “Learn More” placed at the end of a short summary about how your product helps solve a common problem is far more likely to be clicked than an aggressive “Buy Now. ” at every turn.
The tricky bit is that there isn’t a universal CTA style that works for every business. Sometimes people respond to direct CTAs and sometimes they want something softer like “See More. ” For instance, someone browsing for new clothes might not appreciate being pushed towards checkout on their first visit.
They’d probably want to see options first and maybe even save their favourites or wishlist them for later. Testing what works can feel like running in circles sometimes but if you stick with it long enough you’ll begin to see patterns emerge in your data. And yes, it does mean playing around with colours and styles - but it also means trying out different tones of voice and placements on the site (hero banners do tend to perform best). At the end of the day though, CTAs are all about building trust by offering helpful information at exactly the right moment so customers can make decisions on their own terms.
Leveraging Social Proof and Customer Reviews
People think social proof is all about reviews and testimonials, but there’s a lot more to it. Customers tend to trust what other people have to say about a product, service, or even a social movement, rather than what marketers are paid to say about it. Many brands have succeeded with social proof strategies and continue to do so with their content marketing and branding efforts - but for many others, there seems to be a roadblock. This can be because of a lot of reasons - lack of engaging content, no reviews at all, only negative reviews, or even irrelevant testimonials that aren’t aligned with the brand values at all.
Despite all this - as business owners, there is slightly only so much we can control when it comes to customer opinions about our brand online. That’s why most business owners shy away from putting customer reviews on their website - worried about what people might say. There’s a kind of push and pull between encouraging honest feedback and curating only the positive ones. The thing about people who look at your customer reviews before buying from you is that they’re looking for some good reasons to trust you.
More or less. Bad reviews don’t necessarily dissuade customers from buying products if there are equally good ones to balance them out. So having them on your website with an empathetic reply can actually work in your favour. If you’re still worried about bad press, you could simply show your best reviews on your website and encourage every customer to leave a review after making their purchase via email.
Social proof builds over time and isn’t something you can get instantly if you’re just starting out, so it’s important that you invest in nurturing long-term relationships with the people who already believe in you and help them help you by helping others believe in your brand too.
Analyzing and Adjusting Your Marketing Strategies
It takes more than a few posts and a single ad campaign to get an audience engaged these days, and I do think that’s where most businesses go off the rails with their marketing. There’s often very little patience with marketing efforts, but it does take time for them to work and gain you some traction. Often, it starts off great, peters out, and then businesses completely abandon their campaign before starting anew with yet another idea.
Not the smartest move. Honestly, we have to give our strategies some time to work before deciding they’re not working at all. It could also be just one element of the strategy that isn’t working - maybe you’ve picked the wrong products to promote or the wrong audience segment to show ads to.
Marketing strategies require a lot of monitoring and fine tuning, especially if you don’t know what works for your business yet. You need some trial-and-error, but you also need to understand when you’ve gathered enough information and data to see where it’s falling short. It does seem like things are simple when it comes to identifying what works - if people are buying, it’s working, if they’re not, it isn’t.
But there are so many nuances to digital marketing that you’d be mistaken to make your decision based on conversions alone. I realise that this isn’t the easiest thing in the world - not everyone understands algorithms or can decipher Google Analytics accurately (I’m still figuring it out). But ultimately if you’re struggling with your conversion rates after running a marketing campaign for a bit, you need data.
You need to know who is visiting your pages - age groups, locations, times of day; you need information about what people are responding well to; you need insights into things like traffic sources; and then a whole lot more knowledge that takes time (and immense effort) to understand and monitor regularly.