Top Tips for Maximising/Increasing Conversion Rate

Increasing your conversion rate is one of the most important factors in capitalising on website traffic, driving sales, and achieving sustainable growth.

With the average conversion rate sitting between 1-3%, there is real value in working to achieve beyond this figure and making sure that your site stands out from your competitors’.

There are several ways in which you can increase conversion rates and in turn, ensure that visitors turn into customers. We explore the best ways to do this below.

Create a Sense of Urgency

Working to create urgency, also known as scarcity marketing, is a tried and tested technique when it comes to maximising conversion rate.

Scarcity marketing is based on the psychological principle that people want something that is rare, or difficult to acquire. It essentially capitalises on a customer’s innate fear of missing out on something.

There are multiple ways to apply this on your site, such as:

  • Purchase countdowns
  • Sale price countdowns
  • Next day delivery countdowns
  • Seasonal offers
  • Low stock notices
  • Limited edition items
  • Spotlighting customer behaviour
  • Using numbers that indicate popularity/demand.
    For example, customers can be persuaded to convert with a simple message on a site such as ‘Only 4 items left!’.

Showing the number of products you have left in stock can provoke competition and emphasise the product’s popularity, thus encouraging customers to buy before it runs out, and in turn increase your conversion rate.

Provide Free Delivery

The importance of offering free delivery can’t be understated when it comes to conversion rate. Research shows that 90% of shoppers cite free delivery as their main incentive for shopping online.

By offering free delivery on your items, you encourage customers to purchase from you over your competitors.

For instance, how many times have you been to a site, added an item to your basket, gone to checkout and seen an unexpected shipping fee? You likely abandon your basket, and ultimately leave the site without making a purchase.

If a site offers free delivery, and lets the customer know this, that customer will certainly be more incentivised to purchase from that site over a competitor with hidden delivery charges.

Some retailers believe that the only way to encourage purchases is to discount, but free shipping is the perfect alternative; the customer goes away happy with their deal and you don’t lose any valuable margin.

Instill Social Proofing

Another thing worth considering is social proofing.

One of the key features of social proofing is promoting customer reviews on your site.

It has been found that displaying just five reviews of a product can boost your conversions by 270%.

This is largely down to the fact that shoppers want to see genuine opinions and ratings from previous customers, which can help them to form an opinion based on these past experiences.

Reviews can also be triggered at any point in the customer journey, from the product page to the checkout page, so you can optimise your site to suit your customer’s needs by showing your reviews where they’re most effective.

Feedback from your customers is vital for social proofing and encouraging new visitors to your site to take that next step and convert.

Offer Multiple Payment Options

Offering multiple payment options is another way in which you can drive conversions on your site.

Shoppers naturally expect a variety of payment options when they reach your checkout – including debit card, credit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay and systems like Klarna, which offer options like pay in three instalments or pay in thirty days.

By offering a range of payment options, you are naturally catering for a larger audience and not putting off potential customers by only offering payments via debit cards, for example.

Removing the instant pressure for customers to pay on the spot, and instead offering BNPL (buy now, pay later) schemes on your site, encourages more purchases, as people may feel financially more comfortable paying an item off over a longer period of time, rather than paying the full price upfront.

Being genuine and honest with your customers is a sure-fire way for them to convert and thus increase your conversion rate.

Be Transparent

Transparency is fundamental, not only for generating customer loyalty, but for helping to increase your conversion rate.

It’s so important in fact, that 98% of customers have been discouraged from completing a purchase due to incomplete or incorrect product descriptions.

Being open and honest with your customers is not rocket science – all it takes are a few simple additions to your site, such as:

  • Clearly displaying payment options;
  • Crafting well-worded product descriptions;
  • Listing any additional shipping costs in an obvious place where customers can see them.

Conclusions

Increasing your conversion rate is something everyone working on an eCommerce site should strive to do.

With the world of eCommerce continuing to grow, and competition constantly increasing, taking steps to ensure that you’re improving your conversion rate is vital in order to convert more of your site visitors into valuable customers who want to return for more.

If you found this article useful and would like any more information, please email enquiries@salesfire.com or book a free demo with one of our conversion rate specialists to see how we can help you.