Increasing Conversion Rates

[gibby]

We are doing OK at the moment but would like to increase the number of visitors to more orders.

Can anyone point us in the right direction for good guides etc?

Ta

G

[SillyJokes]

Get yourself a usability study done - you can do it yourself, it really helps. read ,"Don't make me think," by Steve Krug

[Nickdavis87]

One thing to look at is the visitors coming to your site, work on improving the targeted traffic.

Another thing i would seriously look at is your menu system, the usability of the pop out ones is always an issue, i found it tricky to access all levels of the menu (seems to be about 4)

[fisicx]

Wrong approach. Rather than increase the number of visitors it's much more profitable to increase the number of conversions from the existing visitors.

Which is why usability survey or website assessment is a good idea. It will identify the bits of the site that aren't working as well as they could. A bit of tweaking and conversions go up.

[peterjhale]

If you're talking about your alternative stores site then have a check on the website reviews in the private section because many of the things that you are not yet doing are mentioned for other peoples' websites, eg:

- no mention of shipping costs before checkout (in fact it says n/a ??)
- add to basket/ checkout to be above the fold and easy to find
- when add to basket page just refreshes - did it add or what happened?
- no mention of telephone number or address anywhere on regular pages

etc

Remembering I am a first time user and have never been to your site before...

Usual stuff really.

[peterjhale]

I found your number... it says

Customer Services Email : cservices @ alternativestores.com
We respond to emails as quickly as humanly possible & aim to reply within 2 working days.

really, that's unacceptable.

bold added by me....

[quikshop]

Wrong approach. Rather than increase the number of visitors it's much more profitable to increase the number of conversions from the existing visitors.

I agree completely with that statement.

We've recently rebranded a martial arts website and as is usual with a redesign, some of its pages dropped a bit on Google but the resultant improvement in all user metrics more than compensated for a slight drop in visitor numbers.

Bounce rate down from 65% to 40%, conversion rate up from less than 1% to 3.5%, next step is to get that traffic number back up to pre-redesign levels.

Reasons for the improved metrics? Higher visibility easy to understand navigation, product-centric pages throughout, simple checkout process (built in to the Ecommerce software), confidence building measures such as clear payment options, testimonials and so on.

[SillyJokes]

Completely off topic but I was intrigued by your 'eco balloons'. From my knowledge of balloons and latex production for Qualatex ones the eco balloons are no different.

Gotta say they are very cheap though. Hope the quality os decent. 25 balloons for £1.80? You'n normally get about 10 for that. What diameter are they?

[SteveGibson]

We are doing OK at the moment but would like to increase the number of visitors to more orders.

Can anyone point us in the right direction for good guides etc?

Split-test, split-test split-test.

Google have some videos about Website Optimizer on Youtube. It's worth starting there.

Steve

PS I notice that, when someone adds something to their basket, they don't get taken to a new page.

Has anyone ever tested whether that's more effective or less effective than going to a new page?

[gibby]

Completely off topic but I was intrigued by your 'eco balloons'. From my knowledge of balloons and latex production for Qualatex ones the eco balloons are no different.

Gotta say they are very cheap though. Hope the quality os decent. 25 balloons for £1.80? You'n normally get about 10 for that. What diameter are they?

they seem to be the just slightly smaller than the cheapo non eco balloons and the quality is really good - we sell lots of em.

Basically they are fair trade/fair deal trading, come from FSC approved forests & the break down much quicker than others

G

[Multivariate]

I would also suggest multivariate testing - trying out several versions of the site and going with the one which produces more conversions.

You can find out more about this from my blog dedicated specifically to this topic:

globalmultivariate.co.uk/

[wood1e2]

Without going through the whole website I would look at moving some of the menu to across the top (below the logo) there making the menu on the left either slightly smaller or only used by big screen users.

From this page (http://www.alternativestores.com/ethical-shop/index.php?_a=viewCat&catId=112) you could add a 'add to basket' save visitors having to click again, especially repeat visitors.

I would also look at changing the dssplaying of your products on the homepage. The wway the latest products are displayed if a preferable display but below the fold so no one sees them. But add the price to them, and 'add to basket'.

There are a few other things I would look at as well
Hope this is of some help :)

[gibby]

Get yourself a usability study done - you can do it yourself, it really helps. read ,"Don't make me think," by Steve Krug

Many thanks for the tip on the book, its got some great points and gets you thinking about the whole thing

ta

G