Methods to Increase Conversion Rate on Shopify
Sept 11, 2021 | 12 min read
- 1. QuickRead
- 2. Homepage
- Simplify the Experience
- Coupon Codes, Real-Time Purchases, and More
- Add Testimonials to Build Trust
- 3. Product Discovery
- Use Intelligent Search
- Organize Your Categories Effectively
- Take Advantage of Your 404 Pages
- Add a Shoppable Instagram Feed
- 4. Product Pages
- Use High-Quality Product Images
- Be Upfront About Price, Delivery Time, and Out of Stock Products
- Showcase Your Product Reviews
- Add a Curated Instagram Feed
- 5. Checkout Experience
- Prefill Your Customer’s Information
- Send Abandoned Cart Emails
- Optimize Your Thank You Emails
- 6. Shipping and Returns
- Offer Free Shipping
- Have a Clear Refund Policy
- 7. Additional Information
- Tell a Story with Your About Page
- Create a Comprehensive Contact Page
- 8. Website Speed and Performance
- Make Sure Your Site is Responsive
- Optimize Your Website’s Loading Times
- 9. A/B Testing
- 10. Is conversion rate optimization for you?
Out-of-the-box Shopify Google Analytics integration calculates your abandonment rates for you.
Take a look at the example image of a store. They’ve utilized a big hero picture that takes up much of the area above the fold for their site. The content is straightforward and to the point, with a clear call to action that directs visitors to a collection.
If you are unsure about what to showcase as your primary hero, it is typically preferable to go with either your top-selling or most lucrative goods, or collections such as new arrivals or current specials. This is especially true given that 86 percent of website visitors expect to see product information on a website’s homepage.
Coupon Codes, Real-Time Purchases, and More
As soon as your consumers are on your site, you have the chance to start generating excitement and directing them toward your products. If you want to increase the number of visitors to your products, there are a number of fantastic applications for Shopify store owners that may assist increase demand and incentivize purchasing:
Welcome Bars: Apps like Welcome Header Bar and Quick Announcement Bar allow you to communicate deals, coupon codes, promotions, and other information with your consumers as soon as they arrive on your website. These applications add a non-intrusive floating bar to the top of your webpage, grabbing your clients’ attention and directing them to where you need them to be. Promo codes can be effective tools: Build.com used a custom promo code to improve conversions by 6% for their affiliate traffic.
Popups and popunders: Popups and popunders are great for growing your email list. To add a fast popup to your home page, use an app like Privy or POWr Popup to give a promo code in exchange for a newsletter subscription. According to a 2014 research, 80% of consumers who signed up for emails from a company over a six-month period ended up making purchases based on what they had received.
Real-Time Purchases: Apps like Yo, Recent Sales Notification, and Notify display real-time purchases made by other customers in the bottom corner of your business. These applications create a feeling of urgency in buyers while also providing social evidence that others are buying your products right now. According to behavioral psychology experts at the University of Kentucky, pressing events drive people to act impulsively and rapidly
Take a peek at Atelier New Regime, for example. On their homepage, they’ve utilized the Free Shipping Bar app to display their free shipping threshold.
Out-of-the-box Shopify Google Analytics integration calculates your abandonment rates for you.
Visitors to their online store are also shown this lovely popunder after a few seconds, urging them to join the Atelier New Regime mailing list for access to special discounts and news.
Out-of-the-box Shopify Google Analytics integration calculates your abandonment rates for you.
Add Testimonials to Build Trust
Have you appeared in any well-known publications? Are there any high-profile influencers who utilize your products? To create trust and project credibility, include testimonials, reviews, and badges beneath your primary material on your webpage. After all, 88 percent of customers believe internet evaluations as much as recommendations from friends and family.
Take a look at the guide on hacking the press for more ideas on how to acquire more testimonials for your products, or try reaching out to bloggers directly for features.
3. Product Discovery
Customers should be able to locate the items they are searching for as well as discover other things that they may be interested in once they arrive at your homepage.
Your consumers must be able to navigate your website using a well-designed search feature, intelligent category design, and interesting ways to discover products.
Use Intelligent Search
If your consumers are seeking a product on your website, they may not know where to look.
Topshop, a UK clothing store, discovered that customers were having trouble locating and utilizing its internal search box through its own CRO analyses and that customers who were able to utilize the search box converted 10x higher than others. Topshop was able to enhance the design of their search box after intensive testing, resulting in a 5.8% increase in conversions.
If your store has a lot of items, you might want to consider putting your search bar prominently on the homepage so that visitors can go straight to what they’re looking for instead of searching through categories.
You can power up your search bar with predictive results that help your consumers discover what they’re looking for using applications like Findify and Instant Search Plus. As users type, intelligent search bars propose results and goods, taking into account factors like spelling mistakes and alternative product names.
Sigler Music uses the Instant Search + app to assist consumers in locating exactly what they’re looking for. The search box begins to propose categories, items, and related results even when only a few letters are entered.
Out-of-the-box Shopify Google Analytics integration calculates your abandonment rates for you.
Organize Your Categories Effectively
Customers should be able to navigate your website with ease, simplicity, and, most importantly, clarity. Avoid categorizing your items into too many distinct groups. Instead, choose 4 to 6 broad categories with a dropdown menu of more specialized subcategories.
In your navigation bar, order your categories by popularity, with the most popular category at the top.
Take Advantage of Your 404 Pages
Are your 404 pages leading nowhere? Rather than leaving consumers hanging when they see a 404 error, consider directing them to other sections of your website that may be more beneficial. Customize your 404 pages to include links to your most popular collections, items, and specials.
If you need assistance updating your 404 pages, watch this video guide or contact a Shopify Expert.
Add a Shoppable Instagram Feed
Instagram is a fantastic tool for finding new products. Adding a shoppable Instagram feed to your website is a wonderful way to inspire your customers with beautiful images and show off your items in real-life situations.
Shoppable Instagram feeds are ideal for showcasing user-generated content, which is increasingly playing a part in Millennials’ purchase decisions. According to research, 84 percent of Millennials say user-generated content on websites influences their purchasing decisions.
Out-of-the-box Shopify Google Analytics integration calculates your abandonment rates for you.
If you have a Shopify store, you can use applications like Foursixty, Like2Have.it, Springbot, SocialPhotos, and Showcase to incorporate your Instagram feed into your online store, much as MVMT did above. You may use these embeddable Instagram feeds to advertise your top items and link straight to their product pages, providing your audience with a visually appealing method to discover new products.
4. Product Pages
Each of your product pages should be designed to effectively communicate the value of your items to your buyers. You must create immersive experiences that encompass all aspects of your products while eliminating any chance of confusion or dissatisfaction.
Use High-Quality Product Images
The most crucial component of a good product page is high-quality product photography. More than a third of buyers believe that high-quality product images are more essential than product specifications or reviews in the purchase process. Include photos that display your products from all angles and correctly describe their appearance and feel.
Include a video that demonstrates your product in action as a bonus. If you’re selling t-shirts, for example, include a video on your product page showing a model walking about in one of your shirts to give buyers a better sense of how the shirts appear in action. Customers are 85% more likely to purchase a product after seeing a product video.
Out-of-the-box Shopify Google Analytics integration calculates your abandonment rates for you.
Bando provides a number of excellent examples of well-designed product pages. This page has a 17-month schedule with a lot of high-resolution pictures and a fun, quirky video that truly shows off the product.
Be Upfront About Price, Delivery Time, and Out of Stock Products
The worst thing you can do is mislead your consumers—if they are charged with unexpected shipping fees, 28% of customers will quit their basket. Don’t be afraid to tell customers all they need to know about cost, delivery time, and inventory. Customers won’t mind paying a bit more for shipping or waiting a little longer if you do a good job of marketing your items and conveying their worth.
If you have a Shopify business, you can also utilize applications like Restocked Alerts to notify your consumers when goods are added to your site that is out of stock.
Showcase Your Product Reviews
Product evaluations are an excellent method to soothe the fears of hesitant shoppers and provide your customers with the social proof they require to click “Add to Cart.” In fact, 90 percent of buyers believe that reading online product evaluations influences their purchase decisions in some manner
Positive product reviews may go a long way toward convincing customers that a product works and is worth buying, as well as assisting them in making better-educated selections about sizing, color, and other factors.
Product Feedback and Yotpo are two applications that Shopify store owners may use to insert customer reviews right onto their product pages.
Out-of-the-box Shopify Google Analytics integration calculates your abandonment rates for you.
Add a Curated Instagram Feed
Curated Instagram feeds, like product reviews, may provide a layer of social evidence to your product pages. When it comes to product information, 51 percent of US customers prefer user-generated material such as Instagram photographs to anything else.
The pages dedicated to the product Instagram feeds are particularly beneficial to beauty and clothing businesses because they can teach clients how to style their items and give them a better understanding of how they look and feel in real life.
Apps like Foursixty and Like2Have.it can let you incorporate Instagram feeds on your product pages.
5. Checkout Experience
Because the checkout procedure is one of the last phases in any customer’s purchase process, it must be as seamless and painless as possible to avoid unhappy consumers abandoning their carts at the last minute.
At this stage in their journey, your consumers have made it apparent that they want to buy anything. You need to make the transaction quickly and conveniently, without any stress or confusion.
Prefill Your Customer’s Information
By prefilling their shipping and payment information with customer accounts, you can make it even easier for your current customers to make repeat purchases. It’s preferable if consumers don’t have to submit as much information as possible. According to one research from last year, when firms allow users to autofill information on social media, conversions rise by 200 percent.
Out-of-the-box Shopify Google Analytics integration calculates your abandonment rates for you.
In your Shopify admin, head to ‘Settings’ and then ‘Checkout’.
Out-of-the-box Shopify Google Analytics integration calculates your abandonment rates for you.
Select ‘Accounts are optional’ under ‘Customer Accounts.’ Customers can still check out as guests with optional accounts, but they will be able to preserve their information for future use after filling out their personal information.
You may utilize the Bulk Account Invite Sender app to invite your current clients to create accounts.
Send Abandoned Cart Emails
Unfortunately, shoppers may occasionally fill their carts with items and then leave your business with no plans to return. You may use abandoned cart emails to remind consumers of the goods they’ve already shown interest in and give them a little nudge to return to your site and finish the transaction.
Out-of-the-box Shopify Google Analytics integration calculates your abandonment rates for you.
Abandoned cart emails may be configured in your Shopify admin’s ‘Settings’ section. Navigate to ‘Checkout,’ then scroll down to the ‘Order Processing’ section. You have the option of sending abandoned cart emails 6 or 24 hours after a consumer abandons a cart.
Out-of-the-box Shopify Google Analytics integration calculates your abandonment rates for you.
You may also personalize your abandoned cart emails in your Shopify admin to match the appearance and tone of your business. Navigate to ‘Settings’ and then ‘Notifications.’ There is a template for ‘Abandoned checkout’ under the ‘Template’ column.
Optimize Your Thank You Emails
You can also edit your Order Confirmation emails in the same ‘Notifications’ section of your Shopify admin.
After a client has completed a purchase, there is still time to re-engage them by optimizing your Order Confirmation email to urge them to join up for your newsletter, connect them to content on your blog, or offer them unique discounts and promotions for future orders as a token of appreciation.
6. Shipping and Returns
Even after a client has completed the checkout process, keep in mind that the transaction is not complete until the goods are in their hands. Consider how you manage shipping and returns as an additional chance to please your consumers and convert all of those one-time buyers into lifelong clients.
Waiting for a shipment is a stressful experience. Receiving a product with which you are disappointed is much worse. You must do everything possible to make shipping and returns pleasurable for your target audience.
Offer Free Shipping
Expensive shipping costs may be a major source of frustration for customers, potentially discouraging them from making purchases. To encourage your consumers to place an order, try giving free shipping regardless of how far it has to go. Free shipping may have a significant influence on conversions: according to one SitePoint case study, giving free shipping raised conversions by 50%.
Have a Clear Refund Policy
It’s no surprise that some customers are apprehensive to make online transactions. When it comes to ordering clothing, it may be difficult to predict how a garment will fit in person. To ease your customers’ concerns, make sure your company has a clear refund policy in place so that they know precisely what they can do if they are dissatisfied with a purchase.
Create a refund policy for your store using Shopify’s Refund Policy Generator.
7. Additional Information
Although optimizing elements such as your homepage, product discovery tools, and product pages is critical for driving visitors through the conversion funnel, you must also ensure that your website has additional information such as contact information and an about section.
Tell a Story with Your About Page
Your About Page is much more than a quick description of your business. It should give your consumers a story about your products and the goal of your company. Your About Page should aim to create a lifestyle around your goods that your target audience will want to be a part of.
Create a tale that revolves around your products as well as your consumers’ interactions with them. Inquire yourself, “Where did your idea come from?” What distinguishes them? What does a typical day in the life of your ideal consumer look like?
Endy offers a detailed About page that sells mattresses from a variety of perspectives. A terrific hero image, a concise summary of their products and what sets them unique, and a link to some customer reviews are all found at the top.
Create a Comprehensive Contact Page
If your consumers wish to contact you, they should be able to do so quickly. In fact, 44 percent of website visitors will quit if contact information or a phone number is not provided.
Customers find it incredibly annoying not to be able to express their ideas and feelings, whether favorable or negative. Your contact page should offer means for your consumers to contact you if something goes wrong, as well as ways for them to interact with your business in engaging and exciting ways.
Here’s a brief rundown of what your contact page should include:
- A contact email address or a contact form
- Your exact location, as well as a map and directions
- Your retail store’s operating hours
- Links to your social media accounts
- Contact information for support, such as a phone number or email address
8. Website Speed and Performance
The success of your business is inextricably linked to the effectiveness of your website. In fact, if a website takes more than 3 seconds to load, 40% of visitors will abandon it. That’s a lot of traffic you might be ignoring without even realizing it.
Assume you were waiting outside a business for the owner to come to the door and let you in. Sure, you could wait a couple of seconds for them to come to the door. But what about fifteen? Thirty? Counting those seconds out loud can quickly reveal what you might be putting your clients through.
Make Sure Your Site is Responsive
Being mobile responsive should be a top concern for your business. In fact, 40% of individuals will select a different result if the one they arrive at is not mobile-friendly. Fortunately, if you run a Shopify store, every Shopify theme is automatically designed to look good on any device.
Simply enter your URL into Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool to see if your website is responsive.
Optimize Your Website’s Loading Times
The quickest approach to determine how long it takes your online store to load is to use Google’s Pagespeed Insights tool. Pagespeed Insights will provide you with a thorough analysis of how quickly your website loads, as well as any issues that you can fix to optimize your load times. You may also utilize load time measurement tools such as WebPageTest and Pingdom.
While improving your store’s load times might be a difficult task, there are a few factors to keep in mind at all times. The size of your pictures can have a major influence on the speed with which your website loads. Using a program like ImageOptim, try to compress and optimize each image. ImageOptim removes all superfluous data from each picture file, resulting in considerably lower file size with no discernible aesthetic change.
Additionally, Shopify store owners should attempt removing any applications that are no longer in use, as these programs can still add extra burden to your website even if they are disabled.
9. A/B Testing
A/B testing, often known as split testing, is a type of experimentation that is fundamental to CRO.
A/B testing compares two versions of the same webpage to discover which gives the best results. A/B testing involves displaying two distinct versions of a website to two comparable groups of users at the same time. Eventually, the version that performs better and generates the most conversions is proclaimed the winner.
Before doing an A/B test, you’ll need to determine whether your website receives enough traffic to provide statistically meaningful results. You won’t be able to learn anything from your results if your sample size is too tiny since they won’t correctly reflect how a wider audience uses your site.
To determine how large of a sample size you’ll need for an A/B test, enter your current conversion rate for the web page you’d want to test into this calculator. If the web page receives less traffic than the sample size necessary for the test, prioritize attracting more visitors to your website above optimizing for conversions.
10. Is conversion Rate Optimization for you?.
Your store should be created with the customer in mind.
While increasing your traffic might result in more sales, it is equally vital to focus on converting your present audience into paying clients.
There are new chances for you to make your consumers’ purchase trips shorter, easier, and more pleasurable at every step along the way. You can fine-tune your website to move users closer to completing a purchase through thorough trial and analysis. Conversion Rate Optimization, or CRO, is the name given to this procedure.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is a strategy for improving the percentage of your website visitors that converts into a purchase, often known as a conversion.
Conversions are quite important. They are the exciting moments when a random visitor to your business ultimately purchases one of your items.
On a far lesser scale, conversions are taking place all the time building up to that moment.
For example, conversion on your homepage might be a visitor clicking through to a product. A client clicking ‘Add to Cart’ on a product page is an example of a conversion. Conversions might be totally reliant on the function of a certain section of your website.
To optimise your online business for both large and small conversions, you must continually evaluate every part of your website.