Zero conversions

[samz]

Hi

I have been struggling to get sales and traffic through my website so I am trying to work my way through the very helpful list of 101 things to help improve your Web presence.

I've also done a fair bit on researching better keywords, revised my ads and stepped up my adwords budget this week on one of my biggest campaigns. I'm getting reasonably good visiblity on Google sponsored links. In terms of my organic position, well this is pretty non existent at the moment.

The problem is that my CTR has averaged at about 1.5% with zero conversions. I can't get my head around it. My competition offer the same stuff as me but they do generally have a bigger portfolio of other brands. I am also competing directly with the brand's own uk website. I know that will affect me but i cannot understand why I am getting nothing at all through.

Thanks
Sam

www.senchi-apparel.com

[fisicx]

Just reading your post it's obvious that you are focussing on the wrong things.You are doing lots of marketing but nothing for the visitors to your site. If they aren't buying then doing keyword research isn't going to help. Use your analytics to find out where they land and what they do, add some tracking code to see where people click. Follow your visitors through the site and identify your exit pages.

Once you know where it's all going wrong you can invest some time and money changing the site so that it meets your visitor's needs.

Forget PPC, no point in spending any more money if no one is buying anything.

[david64]

Yeh drop PPC. I had a look at your site and its actually very good for what I would imagine is a small business.

The big thing that stood out for me is you have to register to buy from your shop. This is a big reason for "shopping cart abandonment". Other than that the usability is good.

Get Google Analytics and set up some conversion goals in it, this will tell you how successful your site is and where things are going wrong.

Also, I'd point out that selling clothes online is difficult. I would think more about building your name (which will take years) than SEO. Building an eCommerce shop is hard work - most never get ROI.

[fisicx]

Yup, drop the registration requirement.

At the same time get to work on your page titles, get rid of the light box (images aren't any bigger), add some contact details to the header, change the customer support to 'contact us' and put the T&C etc in the footer. On the product pages give the price including delivery and work on your copy as it's a bit weak.

I see that you have an 0845 number and a PO box for an address. This makes you very anonymous and reduces trust.

Delete the huge spammy list of keywords in you headers.

Stop press: just seen the womens / mens links on the right. These are out of vision for most visitors as this part of the screen is rarely looked at. Put them on the left in the main menu so people will see them.

[directmarketingadvice]

If they aren't buying then doing keyword research isn't going to help.

It depends on what keywords he's using.

If he's using very general keywords, rather than brand specific stuff, it might just be that the visitors are wrong.

I agree with the importance of analytics and tracking visitor behaviour to see how far down the sales process they go, but once that's in place, they're going to need something to drive targeted visitors into the site.

(so they can see what happens)

Steve

[fisicx]

If he's using very general keywords, rather than brand specific stuff, it might just be that the visitors are wrong.

Very true.

[Toni Anicic]

I had a grate article on how to improve your conversion rates. It really applies to this type of ecommerce sites, you should check it out:

http://inchoo.net/online-marketing/how-to-improve-your-web-shop-conversion-rates/

[samz]

Hi

Thanks all

I have been doing research into brand specific/targeted keywords to improve the visitor type. I would say that my keywords changes are working in terms of getting the right traffic into the site.

Registration. Take your point, however, most, if not all the online fashion retailers that i buy from have this process, you add to basket first, then register after such, as part of the process. My competitors also do the same.

Building my name etc - Yes take your point, it's really hard in clothing yes. I am working on this via more traditional marketing and PR methods to help increase my profile etc.

Analytics - Will set up some conversion goals. You mentioned tracking codes, sounds good, I will look into this as I don't know how to do this.


Sam

[fisicx]

It's much more basic than setting up some goals. All you need to do is see where everyone is leaving the site. Forget the PPC. Stop the campaings right now as all you are doing is losing money. Concentrate on analysing the problems with the site, if you aren't converting then you will need to change the site not your marketing.

Have you tested some very specfic adwords. Target a particular product and make this the landing page. Make sure the keywords describe the actual product so that everything is focussed: keywords > advert > landing page. This will help identify the problem because if a hightly targeted visitor isn't buying you may have to make some major changes to the site.

I'd still get those contact details on the site - it really adds trust and just because others have the registrastion process doesn't means that they are doing any better than you.

[david64]

Registration. Take your point, however, most, if not all the online fashion retailers that i buy from have this process, you add to basket first, then register after such, as part of the process. My competitors also do the same.

This is an area in which you can out-do your competitors then. You might want to look at this:

http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,45179,00.html

There is a good chance your eCommerce system allows you to remove it by changing something in the admin.

[quikshop]

Registration. Take your point, however, most, if not all the online fashion retailers that i buy from have this process, you add to basket first, then register after such, as part of the process. My competitors also do the same.

Its a big and well documented turn off having to register prior to ordering. You might be able to get away with it if you are a sufficiently big brand or have the latest must have products, but I'm betting that if you set a Goal within Analytics for visitors to go from your shopping basket and beyond the registration page, the number of completions will be very low.

The biggest issue I had with your shop is that its very slow. I was regularly waiting more than 5 seconds for a product page to load. If this is typical of your shops performance it doesn't matter how many visitors you attract, very few of them will sit and wait for your shop to respond.

[amv1981]

I think you really ought to take the advice of fisicx as they seem to have nailed the problems with your website perfectly.

Definitely either stop, or reduce your PPC, if you're not converting, then paying for more visitors is pointless.

[samz]

Its a big and well documented turn off having to register prior to ordering. You might be able to get away with it if you are a sufficiently big brand or have the latest must have products, but I'm betting that if you set a Goal within Analytics for visitors to go from your shopping basket and beyond the registration page, the number of completions will be very low.

The biggest issue I had with your shop is that its very slow. I was regularly waiting more than 5 seconds for a product page to load. If this is typical of your shops performance it doesn't matter how many visitors you attract, very few of them will sit and wait for your shop to respond.

The shop is not normally slow, i'll have to keep an eye on this. Would be interested to find out if anyone else had the same problem?

[directmarketingadvice]

I think you really ought to take the advice of fisicx as they seem to have nailed the problems with your website perfectly.

Definitely either stop, or reduce your PPC, if you're not converting, then paying for more visitors is pointless.

I agree that there's no point in continuing to drive paid traffic to the site unless something changes.

... because you'll probably get the same result.

However, once the site has been changed - assuming it's the site, not the traffic, that's causing the problem - the OP then needs to drive trafic to his site to test the changes.

So, turning off PPC long-term is pretty much the same as conceding defeat.

(unless he plans to do a ton of SEO and hopes that'll convert - which, ultimately, will cost a lot of time)

This is why it's so important to have proper tracking in place from the start. At least if you don't get conversions you get information that'll suggest where the problem is.

Steve

[david64]

If your site is slow it will be one of two reasons.

1 - your hosting is jam packed
2 - your site is built on bloated code, probably with brutish SQL queries.

To diagnose these, try running your site locally on your computer if possible and also use the YSlow Firefox plugin.

Another good one if you are on Linux is to use the Apache Benchmark script or have SSH access to your Apache server:

ab -n 100 -c 10 http://www.senchi-apparel.com


If you are not a technical person, this might not be something you can do yourself.[/font]

Slow sites are another reason for low conversions.

[fisicx]

So, turning off PPC long-term is pretty much the same as conceding defeat.

Yes, should have made that clearer, turn the PPC off while you do the analysis and make the changes then turn it back on gently while you test the new site. Once you are happy that the site is converting well then you can up your budget and introduce new campaigns.

[Nickdavis87]

Roughly how much traffic are you getting?

[samz]

Roughly how much traffic are you getting?

In May in had 775 visitors of which 65% is from google
June so far 415 visits of which 60% is from google

[webpromoterservice]

how are your prices compared to your competitors?

Pricing is one of the most important factor in any business,especially online shops.

[admagic]

I think you are missing the point.

When people come to your site, you need to grab their attention and give them compelling reasons to buy from you, guarantees, testimonials for credibility. An irresistible offer.

There is nothing!!
No personality either.....you dont TALK to your customers.
It is like a shop, when the salesman is out at lunch.....

Just a clinicial list of what you sell and a price.

People wont buy if you dont give them any reason to!

As regards adwords , it is very easy way for a non techy business to split test: have two different landing pages and see which converts better.

[admagic]

Also...Not convinced it displays properly in IE6

So checking with browsershots might be worthwhile

[samz]

I think you are missing the point.

When people come to your site, you need to grab their attention and give them compelling reasons to buy from you, guarantees, testimonials for credibility. An irresistible offer.

There is nothing!!
No personality either.....you dont TALK to your customers.
It is like a shop, when the salesman is out at lunch.....

Just a clinicial list of what you sell and a price.

People wont buy if you dont give them any reason to!

As regards adwords , it is very easy way for a non techy business to split test: have two different landing pages and see which converts better.

Hello

I would be interested to see what others think on this point.

I don't think it is fair to say that there is "nothing" at all. There is a blog on the site with a link on the homepage which is growing. In terms of testimonials, gaurantees etc, I have searched some of my competitors and other major online fashion stores and boutiques and am hard pressed to find such.

Special offers and promotions however, can be effective in terms of reasons to buy and social networking links/blogs can help in terms of communicating with buyers/customers.

Sam

[quikshop]

If you look at one of your competitors, Designer Pitstop (http://www.designerpitstop.co.uk/), just as a random example. Immediately a visitor see the following messages:

1. FREE UK DELIVERY

2. 10% OFF FIRST ORDER

3. CLEARANCE SALE NOW ON

In addition, their strap lines shout out NEW BRANDS.

Straight away there are 4 motivational factors to check out a couple more of that shops pages just out of curiosity. This gets the products in front of their visitors and immediately increases their chance of a sale. In comparison, your shop is very clinical and has no hooks which motivate a visitor to act further.

I'm not comparing your products to theirs or your level of service, what it apparent is that their website will encourage their visitors to look beyond the home page.

I do like your shops design but as admagic said quite correctly, there is nothing to grab your visitor by the scruffs and carry them around your shop.

Many studies over recent years have shown that Internet shoppers will give a typical web page around 5 seconds to engage them. If by that time they do not understand what is on offer, or there is no specific reason to hang around them they will look elsewhere.

[peterjhale]

I think you are missing the point.

When people come to your site, you need to grab their attention and give them compelling reasons to buy from you, guarantees, testimonials for credibility. An irresistible offer.

There is nothing!!
No personality either.....you dont TALK to your customers.
It is like a shop, when the salesman is out at lunch.....

Just a clinicial list of what you sell and a price.

People wont buy if you dont give them any reason to!

As regards adwords , it is very easy way for a non techy business to split test: have two different landing pages and see which converts better.


AM talks sense. I have replied to so many ecommerce shop owners who are experiencing the same things as you so go and have a look in the "private forum" web reviews.

But in summary for you:

- the site IS slow
- there is no *obvious* information about delivery (and when I find it I see it's £3.95 for a 3-5 day service) - not good enough
- your telephone # is 0845
- on checkout delivery says "na" ????
- vat says "na" ???
- and you have to register for an account (no one likes to do this)


But really @400 visitors in a month (can you clarify these are actual unique visitors and not hits or anything like that) really you would probably only convert 1-3% or so anyhow.

But sort out the obvious shopping cart triggers first and then go back and try a PPC campaign on a product or 2.

[domainguy]

Could the fact your using paypal be an issue? it makes me think twice about using a site. I personally think it shouts bedroom run business.

[fisicx]

Samz,

The site is very impersonal. The colours and style are very glizty chic but the products are displayed in an almost machine like fashion.

Where is the passion, the enthusiasm and love of the products. You should be gushing over the colours, fabrics. fit, comfort and sheer love of clothes.

The blog isn't important - in fact most of the post information needs to be on the site not in a blog. You post about a 50% summer reduction but I can't see this on your homepage.

You seem loathe to make any changes but since you aren't selling anything something needs to be done. If the site failing then you need to invest some money fixing it. A few cosmetic tweaks isn't going to make the slightest difference - you need a top to bottom assessment starting with your visitor analysis.

In a previous post I mentioned the womens/mens links on the right. This is an example of design over usability. Just because a site looks nice doesn't mean it is usable, accessible or effective.

[samz]

Thanks for the feedback, i am willing to change. Obviously i need to be clear about what to change before making any decisions.

fisicx (http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/member.php?u=7996) you said that my products lisitngs are clinical and lack passion. What are you referring to exactly? Do you mean the images or descriptions or both?

Also, a number of posts talk about allowing customers to purchase without registering. I am definately open to doing this but just wanted to guage how important this really is. I have been dicussing this with my partner. We have both been internet shoppers for years and havent noticed this as an option on many sites. Although I would like to add this feature, how much of a priority do you think it is in relation to other points that have been mentioned?

I feel that the priorities so far would be:
-making the homepage grab attention eg first buy promo, free delivery etc
-improving the speed of the site
-making the product descriptions less clinical
-getting some good tracking setup

[fisicx]

Samz,

The models look bored, they aren't smiling and enjoying the photoshhot: http://www.senchi-apparel.com/womens/hoodies-sweats/apple-bottoms-glam-short-sleeve-lightweight-hoody-top-white/prod_69.html

The description is boring - there's no life in the words. What did it feel like when you wore the garment? Was it comfortable? Was it well made? When you go shopping for clothers what do you look at on the garment? If it's got a feature why isn't there a close up? Why aren't you upselling - the bit where it says top A goes well with skirt B - here's a picture of Betty wearing both.

And get rid of that stupid light box thing, all it does is add another click to the process which is another barrier to conversions.

Change the colours of the buttons and links, the padding, whitespace and font sizes, reconsider your whole navigation system, the borders, backgrounds and positions. All this should have been tested during developemnt but I bet the designer came up with a layout and you agreed without doing a single bit of user testing....

[samz]

This was an error, please ignore