4 tips to help convert your website visitors into customers this holiday shopping season
This year’s rollercoaster of global events has made it more difficult for traditional retailers to operate. Ongoing events and their correlating unpredictable and ever-shifting social circumstances make attracting new customers a drastically different and substantially more complicated process. With the Holiday Season upon us, the inability to know if, how, or when retailers can let customers back in only exasperates how unprepared and vulnerable many retailers continue to feel.
But here is the thing – consumers faced with the same problems have solved it by turning to online, mobile, and digital shopping without so much as a second thought!
… and this means online marketing strategies for retail businesses need a renovation. The more traditional and well-known marketing tactics (i.e., working around social media and online advertising) are sometimes good enough to get people to click a product or visit an eCommerce website. Still, they are not enough to substantively help convert online strangers into repeat customers.
During this year’s holiday shopping season, conversion rate optimization could mean the difference between ending a crazy year on a high note or locking the doors for good.
I. Have your mobile website ready
A significant portion of customers now shop via mobile devices. According to the Salsify 2020 Consumer Report, 77% of eCommerce shoppers begin their online shopping search from a mobile device. Additionally, a recent 2020 Covid-19 U.S. Consumer Behavior Report from Worldpay by FIS revealed that 58% of consumers felt that they are spending more on eCommerce during the ongoing pandemic. With more shopping being via eCommerce, and much of that shopping originating on mobile devices, retailers should be optimizing for that type of user experience. Ignoring the impact of mobile shopping on your eCommerce website can lead to customer alienation and spell disaster in the long run. If your visitors are inconvenienced in their customer journey, they are likely to go to a more accommodating competitor. It then becomes more expensive and burdensome to rebuild that customer relationship – so avoid losing your customers altogether, especially on something so simple.
During the holiday shopping season – a time when customers are increasingly more engaged with retailers, including eCommerce – it is imperative to capitalize on the surging web traffic. To start, it’s best to pay attention to your analytics, which give insight into how your existing customers are browsing and what devices they ultimately use at checkout. A high bounce rate or a low conversion rate on your mobile devices will be the first signs that something isn’t right with the mobile version of your online store. You can then go from there to experiment and building a more agile and user-friendly mobile version of your website.
II. Optimize your landing pages for customer experience
The holiday shopping season can be overwhelming for both the retailers and the customers alike. It’s the end of the year, things are moving fast, budgets are tight, and nerves are high. But, that is no excuse to drop the ball on fine-tuning the landing page details. It makes your eCommerce website look neater, the user experiences better, and the shopping process more sensical. Customers do not want clutter, a complicated checkout process, unclear information, or a website that doesn’t “feel” right – and that’s where optimization comes in. Without it, you may have lots of website visitors, but a low conversion rate lowers your overall revenue and makes it difficult to build customer loyalty. Optimization, the tool to rapidly build trust, establish value, and allow customers to checkout without undue frustration, helps combat the problems mentioned above.
This process doesn’t need to be complicated!
Here are the basics to get you started:
- Increase your white space. It reduces the appearance of clutter and helps customers quickly find essential information without getting overwhelmed.
- Improve your calls-to-action (“CTAs”). Using single or low-count verbs like “subscribe,” “submit,” and “start shopping” comes off as emotionless and fail to resonate with website visitors. Instead, elaborate on the core value propositions and get creative. For example, if selling protein powder, instead of describing it as “a great source of protein” and adding a “buy now” button, try “Get the body of your dreams!” with a “Stop Procrastinating!” button. These little tweaks will make you stand out from the hoards.
- Organize your navigation. Don’t let users get lost or confused trying to navigate your site. Ensure the navigation makes sense – in fact, ask a friend who has never seen your website before trying it. Was it easy for them to find information and products? If it takes more than 3 clicks to find a product or a solution, reorganize.
- Make sure your links are not too close together on mobile. Like I said earlier, most shoppers are mobile now. Nothing will frustrate a visitor more than trying to click on one thing, only to end up clicking its neighbor.
- Give your search bar the spotlight. It should be visible at the top of every page. Unlike physical retail stores, there isn’t much value in browsing. The first thing online shoppers like to do is find a search bar and fill it out. If your search is hard to find or hard to use, shoppers won’t stick around.
