Eight ways to get more sales from your website

When you get more sales from your website it can feel like you are growing your business on autopilot! It feels easy when it’s working well.

We often spend far less time and effort on a website than we do on an office fit out, or a physical store – and then we wonder why it’s not giving us the work we expected? While you can definitely create a website at a reasonable cost, often people want that cost to be zero, and the upkeep to be “zilch”

If you see your website as an essential sales generator, it might be time to give it some more love and attention. 

I know all too well how tiring keeping up with technology and the digital space can be. It does feel easier to just go back to what you know, and hope whatever you popped up online is enough.

But you could be losing customers. 

Last week we were trying to find a menu for a local restaurant. They had an “online ordering” system from last year, but no up to date menu and no way to book a table. Instead of persevering, we just looked for another place that did.

The problem is, with more people online, the competition for attention has also gone up. Just like a physical storefront needs street appeal, and to look inviting, so does your website. You want people to trust you enough to pass over their email, or even pull out their credit card. 

But even that is not enough. You need to make the website easy to use, create ways to “capture” people who aren’t quite ready to buy today and help people feel good about becoming your customer. 

This is particularly true for ECommerce websites. 

If I could log all the common questions people ask in facebook groups about their business the question “How do I get more people to buy from my ecommerce business” would be right up there at the top. 

It’s a rude shock to many small business owners just how much work is involved not only in getting people to your site, but then getting them to buy. It’s normal to have a conversion rate of anywhere from one to three percent of your visitors. So if you get one hundred new people a day to your site, you’d expect to get one to three sales a day. (If you have a lot of repeat visitors it can be higher.)

We’ve got a special love for retail and ecommerce at Identify. We really enjoy helping independent retailers, and online stores get more sales. And this starts by looking at your website. 

Here’s our top tips to get more sales from your website: 

 

Make your ecommerce website more personal

On nearly every website we work with (including our own) , the about us page is one of the most common pages visited. I personally won’t work with a company that doesn’t show who is behind the business.  This is especially true of ecommerce businesses.

I want to buy from artisans. I want to buy from small businesses. I want that real human touch. So I want to hear your story, see your face and know why this business is important to you. 

Product descriptions make us buy

Your products might feel, look, smell incredible. They may be beautifully crafted. But we’re not able to physically pick them up, and let our senses do the selling to us.

We need images, and we need words

It is not enough to add a product and say “Royal blue duck figurine. 20cm”

We need you to sell it to us. Add in descriptions that evoke emotion, describe 

Along with that, make sure the photos are really clear. Often the supplied images are less than perfect from suppliers. Some of our ecommerce businesses invest in product photography to make sure they own the look and feel of each product on their page. It’s also amazing what you can create using a little bit of magic from the graphic design platform canva.com

Add chat to help in conversions

Adding chat to your website allows people another way to connect. I personally resisted us adding it to our website as I was worried it would mean we had to be online all the time. However people often use it a little like email, and are quite happy to wait for a response if you aren’t online.

People using the chat feature are often highly engaged. They might be looking for clarification before hitting buy now, so you can get them over the line. 

We’re ZOHO partners, so use the ZOHO chat, but you can use the Facebook chat on most websites and it’s easy to set up and use. 

Find out how people are using your ecommerce site

HOT JAR is a cool tool that helps you find out how people are using your website. (We use a ZOHO tool called pagesense but it works the same way). HOT JAR is free to most businesses. You just need to add a little code to your pages, and then it screen records the actions all your visitors take on your website. (You do need to add mention of this in your privacy policy)

We’ve used it to discover broken links, and when testing the best place to put forms and call to actions on our website.

It can be a little addictive to watch when you first start, but once you’ve settled in, it’s a good thing to check about once a month to see what improvements you can make

Just by changing the position of one form on our website we doubled our conversion rate overnight.

Pop ups on ECommerce sites still work

Popup forms are highly effective on websites. The best types use some sort of incentive to help extract an email from the visitor. This could be a discount on first purchase, a free download, or being able to join a club (a far better way to describe a mailing list)

The weird thing about popups is while they work, pretty much everyone will say how much they don’t like them! It’s definitely a good idea to give them a go. Tracey has increased her mailing list by two thousand in the last year, and eighty percent of that growth came from a popup. 

 

Can I subscribe to your mailing list?

For those who bat that popup away, Tracey advises you place sign up forms in your footer on every page. (Not just the home page). It’s a simple call to action that’s got less attached to it than buy now. 

 

Make it easily for me to buy from you online

One of the best parts/ most dangerous for my wallet features of shopify, is they make purchasing a product from you so easy. Everything is designed to make it simple to buy, including quick checkouts if you’ve bought from another shopify site before. 

Selling online is all about removing the friction of effort. 

We recommend getting someone to sit down in front of you, and ask them to walk through buying a product. How easy is it? Is anything confusing?

 

Offer buy now/pay later options for higher conversions

I’m old enough to remember old-fashioned layby (where you went in and gave over your five dollars every week until you’d paid it off, and got the item.

Adding Laybuy, Afterpay or any other type of payment plan options is a simple way to make it easier for people to buy. 

I often talk to retailers who don’t want to offer these as they personally don’t use them, or like people using them. Remember: “It’s not my job to decide how people want to pay. It’s just my job to make sure I’ve made it easy for people to use the methods they use to pay”

Selling products (or services) online is powerful. It can be a source of revenue to your business that can grow alongside your bricks and mortar business. However it’s not a ‘set and forget” part of your business. Treat it like a new store, and pour a little love and attention into it. Start now, and get more sales from your website.