First impressions can make or break your business, especially
when it comes to e-commerce the layout of your website, the
colors you use, and what you decide to share about yourself
as a business are all elements that impact a first impression.
So with that said, it's important to tap into
what makes a brain tick.
What are the elements on a website that entice shoppers
to make a purchase or take a desired action on your website?
So that's why in today's video, we're going to be talking
about conversions and how to increase them on your website.
The key focus areas I will be going through today are going to
be number one, nailing that first impression with your homepage.
Secondly, providing customers with important information on your
product pages, and we're going to make sure that all transactions
are transparent and easy.
And finally, we're going to be helping shoppers feel reassured
that this is a legitimate business by optimizing your
about us and your contact page.
So let's get started.
A good homepage should always be accommodating.
When visitors are looking for a specific outcome.
If someone is looking for a sale or a specific product, you want
to make it really easy for them to get to where they're going.
But for those who aren't looking for a specific outcome,
you want to make sure that your site is intuitive.
When browsing I've actually found shoppers are more
critical of a store's design and layout on their first visit.
There is this psychological process called decision avoidance.
Decision avoidance is the tendency of the brain not to
want to make a decision when the decision takes too long to make.
And on average, visitors will only spend 10 to 20
seconds on your homepage.
What this means is that you're going to have to make your
navigational flow super clear so that visitors can quickly
choose the best path for themselves and for your business.
So let's talk about this in the context of a homepage
layout, take a look at what content you have above the fold.
Above the fold is a term web designers use to describe the
space that you see of the website without having to do any scrolling.
So when you're thinking about what lives above the fold,
focus on the actions you'd want the visitor to take.
When they first land on your site, what information do they need?
How can you use this space to help facilitate their
decisions, and make sure to keep it really simple here.
For example, let's take a look at Makeup for
Melanin Girls' home page.
Their goal is to direct potential customers to purchase their makeup.
They have clear product photography.
And a call to action button that entices people to
browse their products.
And on the homepage, there are basically two decisions
that a user can make.
They can either click the button to browse their products, or
they can scroll down for more information below the fold.
The design is really good example of a homepage that drives
customers to make a purchase.
Next up is navigation.
Let's take a look at how you can make your website's navigation
easy to use on your homepage.
Header navigation should be as straightforward as possible.
You want to prioritize the paths that matter the
most to your visitors.
Common examples of important categories are the "About
Us", "Shop" and "Contact".
Sites with too many navigation options can feel
cluttered and overwhelming.
And this increases the chance that a visitor will drop
off or take the wrong path.
And a good practice is to prioritize navigation links
from left to right with the most important pages
being on the left hand side.
If you have a lot of products and collections focus on your main, top
level collections in your homepage navigation and use a drop down
menu to create a sub-navigation.
Let's use Kinto Coffee as an example.
Sub navigation is a really good way to organize your products
and pages for easy exploration without overwhelming customers with
too many options from the jump.
Some websites also have links to their, "About Us" page, "Contact",
page, "FAQ" page, or other pages in their header or navigation because
they support the primary goals.
But if you find that visitors to these pages, aren't really
converting according to your goals, it's likely that these
links are just taking them off the path to conversion.
If this is the case, just add these to the footer instead,
finally, for a truly effective homepage, that drives conversions,
you need to ensure that the content that you feature on
your homepage is consistent, and polished and has high quality
photography with error free copy.
Take the time to really check what you display on your homepage.
Does it align with your brand?
Is the message clear?
Does it look good on mobile?
All of these things are going to play an important role in
how your homepage is received.
When a shopper first visits your store, the normal flow of
a new shopper is that they're going to land on the homepage,
and then they're going to navigate to your product page.
The product page is where a shopper attaches value to the product.
And a product page will show a shopper what the product looks
like, what it feels like and how it performs a really effective
product page makes a shopper, wants to own the product.
Here's some important details to consider when you're
trying to build trust, regardless of your industry.
First, you're going to need a variety of product photos
for each product page.
Shoppers are less likely to trust your product if you only
have a single shot, and multiple photos make it so that shoppers
can get a complete picture of your product without actually
having it physically with them.
Also side note, if you need some tips on how to take great
photos with just your phone in natural light, check out our
video here on how to do that.
Now let's take a look at Manitobah Mukluks and how they
showcase their product photos for each of their products.
They include at least four shots.
Look at all these different views, you've got the closeup.
You can see the texture, you can get a good feel
for the color and shape.
Considering I'm not there, physically, these photos are giving
me almost as much information as if I were there and that's
going to help drive a sale.
Your product descriptions should be organized into digestible
sections for readability.
Let's take a look at Manitobah Mukluks again and see how they
organize their product description.
Notice how everything is really clearly laid out and organized
into sections for the shopper, the most important information like the
price, color options and reviews are highlighted in the first tab.
And more information is listed below in the dropdown menus.
This will allow the shopper to openly see the most important
information first with the option to explore products further.
I want to now highlight the size chart here.
Notice how well the business has outlined the sizing.
We have a true-to-size message and a size chart, and then there's also
a link out to their size and guide.
So any information about sizing is all here on this page and you
don't have to open a new tab to navigate away from the website.
Wherever appropriate, always include a size chart with
conversions on your product page, and this is going to make a
shopper feel confident that they can make an informed decision.
Confidence generally leads to a sale.
Manitobah Mukluks does a really great job of using product
reviews and shoppers really do value the reassurance they
get through impartial reviews.
We all do it.
As a shopper we pay really close attention to what
previous customers have to say.
And therefore personalized reviews add credibility to
your products, which can lead to higher conversions.
Transparent pricing is important on a product page.
Shoppers want to know the total price that they're going
to pay, including discounts and fees as early on in the
purchase as possible, so add context around price to
reduce unnecessary surprises.
And this is a valuable way to build trust.
So to do this, you always want to do a couple of things.
You want to ensure that you have a return policy that's
clear and easy to understand.
And secondly, when you're offering shipping internationally, have a
shipping policy that clearly states who's going to pay the duties
and who's going to pay the taxes.
So here are a couple of hot tips to help you increase
trust as well as conversions.
So you're going to want to include specific shipping costs.
You're going to want to provide shoppers with the
ability to apply a discount code directly in the cart.
And you're going to want to make it really easy for a shopper
to edit the cart's content.
And don't forget to leave contact information in case a shopper needs
to get in touch about their order.
Final area that I want to discuss is making the
shopper feel reassured that your business is legit.
So let's take a look at Jomami Jewelry.
They do a really good job of displaying their brand values.
In addition to sharing the brand story and why their
business was started, they have an about a section with their
sustainability and their mission.
A lot of shoppers want to navigate to an about us
page to learn more about the brand behind the products.
A shopper will typically navigate to the "About Us" page if
they have one of two question.
One, is the store real and authentic.
And two, what does the brand stand for?
So let's take a look at KOTN for example.
As a shopper, you get the impression that they're
established and that they have a strong brand ethos.
Customers want to know if a brand shares their values.
So like think sustainability.
Think ethics.
They will turn to an "About Us" page to learn more about
who they are as a brand and who they're buying from.
And for more socially conscious customers, they're going to want
to know how the business is run.
So to round it all up, a website that's easy to use and also builds
trust is a huge contributing factor to generating sales.
So like we talked about, really focused on your homepage, your
product pages, your transparency surrounding prices, and pay
attention to the "About Us" page and the contact information.
The most important thing I want you to take away from this video
is that if you focus on building these areas of your online
business, what you're actually doing is you're building trust.
Trust and confidence with your customers is so important
to the success of any brand.
We're all learning from each other here, so let us know in
the comments below, what have you noticed that's helped increase
your Shopify's conversion rate.
And if you aren't already make sure that you're subscribed, we
release new videos just like this every week, that's going to help
you build your online business.