How to Increase Website Conversion?

[MarkPearson]

Hello All,

I am looking for ideas and suggestions for how I can impove the website conversion ratio for my site www.rosesbydesign.com.

What methods and changes can I do to my site to increase browsers and site visitors into sales.

www.rosesbydesign.com

All feedback welcome

[creospace]

I guess you need to find out why they are not buying, is there anything putting them off. How you get that info I’m not sure :(

Possibly because you are unique that there is a lot of curiosity from visitors. Maybe not all are coming with the intention of buying, but if they are impressed and it is memorable then they can be potential customers of the future.

Competitions, newsletter all get people involved and people like to be involved and like winning things.

Gary

[jmds]

You have a competition at the bottom of your homepage, maybe you could make it more prominant on the page. Add a tick box for people who enter to be added to your mailing list. That way you may be able to email them and do some more market research.

[Tin]

Just took a look at your home page using Firefox and your menu is hidden behind your Flash animation so unavailable to those 11% of visitors who use Firefox. Ok, I accept only 11% but it's growing.
A couple of thoughts...
When you say "improve the website conversion ration" you don't mention what it currently is? On my gifts site I'm happy to aim for a conversion of between 2-5% so 95-98% of visitors (ruling out all bots, etc) view without buying but I think different markets are likely to have different conversion ratio expectations.

Things I'd be looking at in your situation would be

What's the pattern from visitors (are they only viewing your home page and not perusing (nice word) :-) generally over the site?) Which might suggest a few things.
Are you noticing (and discounting) all bot behaviours and any other rubbish so that you are looking at ONLY the actual true visitor instances and then doing your conversion reckoning after that?
You've got a fair few images in general across the site, have you run all of them through a dedicated image optimiser program and not merely what Photoshop etc churn out by default?
Flash file size (could you reduce it?)
Also the images on your home page total well over 100kb (without counting the Flash file) so folk on an analogue modem might not be hanging around.
Have you looked to see if your visitors are in fact downloading ALL the relevant files for your home page as doing so might lead you to conclude that they're leaving before the full page loads.
One other thing, it might be that you're getting loads of passive visitors who are just curious about your product as a result of an energetic push for affiliate and other links.
There's also the fact that you're selling what really is one product and although very original and quite unique in the UK and Europe it still is essentially 'a product with personalisation' which in itself could limit your conversions. It's possibly got as many disadvantages as advantages.
Lastly, do something so that you get as many bites at the search engines as you possibly can and whatever your conversion rate it can only bring more profit as more visitors find the site.

Apologies, only had chance for a quick look and am just throwing oranges in the air for you to think about. Others will add their bit I'm sure.

Ray :)

[Tin]

Oh aye! I forgot to say to add a favicon.ico file in your site root and any other folder you have site files in as it can (but not always) be a healthy indicator of popularity for IE users as they bookmark the site.

Cheers :-)

[WelshPixels]

When your page loads you should be able to see products that you can buy at the top of the page. With your page you have to scroll down to find anything you can click on buy.

The front page should be a mix of your top sellers and some of your lower cost items. Top sellers for obvious reasons lower cost items to indicate your range in prices.

Overall I think the site looks great it looks professional yet lived in (that’s no insult it means it looks the business is well established), but I think as others have said you need to look at logs and find out where and when people are clicking away.

[JustOneUK]

Oh aye! I forgot to say to add a favicon.ico file in your site root and any other folder you have site files in as it can (but not always) be a healthy indicator of popularity for IE users as they bookmark the site.
firefox calls for the favicon by default I believe, making this figure wrong. It will not show bookmarks.

[MarkPearson]

When your page loads you should be able to see products that you can buy at the top of the page. With your page you have to scroll down to find anything you can click on buy.

The front page should be a mix of your top sellers and some of your lower cost items. Top sellers for obvious reasons lower cost items to indicate your range in prices.

Thanks everyone for your comments so far.

Do you think this page would be a better page for the majority on the visitors to land on when they first arrive?

http://www.rosesbydesign.com/products.php?cat=3

Does anyone have any ideas of the best way I can show new customers what we do and our products.

I think the homepage does need working on.

Do you think I should ditch the flash presentation?

[Tin]

Correct, Firefox does call it by default but my point was that IE doesn't which in itself can be used as a guide to indicate user behaviour. Firefox is only likely to be responsible for approx 11% percent of visitors at best but as most users use IE and that IE only calls favicon files when forced then this could be interpreted as an 'active behaviour' and construed positively.

Of course, in singularity the download of favicon files does not give an exact picture as there are other factors to be taken in also but it certainly helps you get a 'good feel' for how your site is interpreted by visitors.

Ray

[Tin]

Hi Mark

I'd say dump the Flash file but that's just me :-)

Ray

[MarkPearson]

If it is dumped, I need a method to get the message across for what our product is about.

Any ideas

[Coding Monkey]

I like the image that appears in the Flash file, but it could certainly be improved on happens thereafter.

[Tin]

Mark, I'd hang around for other opinions before I did anything :-) and think them through fully before deciding on any avenue open.
For me, your home page has too much going on and 'loses focus' on what is really the core push!
I think thou protest too much.

Ideas? I'd go for a few high quality images which say 'exactly' what it is you can offer (cue Eagle) as I think a picture is worth more than words can say and I'd make the text on those images say whatever it needs to so that visitors get the message in the first 20 seconds of the page loading.

Decisions, decisions! You've got a really good product so go with it, just make sure you've got the infrastructure to support it when the going gets tough.

Ray :-)

[Tin]

sorry Tom, you typed your post before I'd done mine so mine sort of sounded like I was telling Mark to ignore yours (if you see what I mean) :-)
which I wasn't.

Ray

[Coding Monkey]

No, no, it's fine. I know my place ;)

I would basically agree with what you said, but I'm far too lazy to type it all. Cut the size of the home page so it achieves something. Your sidear bar has too much information. The first time I go onto your website, I don't want to know if you offer PayPal before I even want to buy anything. Put it on the pages with the items, along with other useful information, such as the delivery price being included. It will reduce the size and make people focus more on what you want them to see.

[mustang]

I like the image that appears in the Flash file, but it could certainly be improved on happens thereafter.

I too think that the flash could be better optimized. Why no try dividing the space into 3 sections that reflect the process:

1. You provide the design
2. We Print (show examples of the different options, photo, words etc)
3. We deliver (show images of the end product)

These sections should be clickable options for the user. You might be able to decrease the page size (less scrolling) by doing this.

The left menu could be a set of Select boxes:

1. Select a rose type
2. Select an Image
3. Select a price range

Your top menu(drop-down) does not display in Firefox. I can only see the first option.

[MarkPearson]

I have since made a few changes, one of the main ones is to really reduce down the product descriptions.

Now I would think a good detailed product description would be better.

I must admit ours were a bit long being 3-4 paragraphs long!

Now they are only a few line and sure enough i have seen a huge jump in our conversion rates today.

Now it is early days but I wonder if this really would make that much of a difference?