Advice needed to convert more sales.

[jellybabys]

never did think much about the compare products bit, it was just sitting there so I left it alone, but your 100% right its more for electrical stores than what we sell.

 

[Steve2507]

Personally I think the key thing for you is to take all the info and advice on board and make a list of it.

Then get your site up and running asap so you can start testing all the advice given on here. I wouldn't make major changes yet as the key thing is to get your site up and running first.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

We did see an increase of about 10-13% in sales once we had the hack safe logo and we also found we had better sales conversions when we had it in the header.

I know you said it makes no difference to you, and nor would it for me if I was buying online, but you would be amazed how many people feel safer when they see that logo.

Having one of these logos on the first fold v not having it on the page normally makes about 8-10% increase in sales.

(it's one of the easiest ways to increase the sales of ecommerce sites)

However, I'm beginning to conclude that less professional looking sites tend to get a slightly bigger bump. So, that might explain why your increase was higher.

Steve

 

[jellybabys]

Thanks SteveGibson,

So I guess that my more "professional looking site" will lose sales, not worth doing it then hey?

 

[directmarketingadvice]

Thanks SteveGibson,

So I guess that my more "professional looking site" will lose sales, not worth doing it then hey?

I don't understand what this means.

Are you asking if making your site look more professional would be expected to increase sales? If so, the answer is yes.

Steve

 

[Steve2507]

So I guess that my more "professional looking sites" will lose sales, not worth doing it then hey?

I have to be honest and say you may have hit the nail on the head.

We have a very good conversion rate for our industry (so I am told) but people say our sits look amateurish. Personally I prefer a well performing amateur site to a porly performing pro site.

We are looking at getting our sites redesigned over the next 12 months, but we are taking it slowly to make sure the pro look doesn't reduce sales.

 

[jellybabys]

No what I mean is you said a poor looking site (like my one) gets a better increase in sales with a hacksafe logo,more so than a pro looking site.

So if I get my site looking pro I will gain sales from it being a better site but lose sales because the hacksafe will not be so important???


Then its a no win situation, or am I getting this wrong ?

 

[cycloneuk]

This site has around a 11% conversion rate cheapsmells.com - looks professional but i have seen some poor looking sites perform well too, mine is around 1.2%. I'm working on improving it.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

No what I mean is you said a poor looking site (like my one) gets a better increase in sales with a hacksafe logo,more so than a pro looking site.

So if I get my site looking pro I will gain sales from it being a better site but lose sales because the hacksafe will not be so important???


Then its a no win situation, or am I getting this wrong ?

No, you can expect to gain sales.

The reason the hackersafe logo increases conversion on sites is that it legitimises them.

(people like to buy from "serious" businesses because "serious" businesses are more accountable - i.e. people think they're not going to disappear overnight or that they've got too much too lose if they steal your money etc.)

The reason that less "professional" looking sites seem to get a slightly bigger bump is that they look less "legitimate" to start with.

Steve

 

[jellybabys]

Thanks Steve, that makes sense, so a pro looking site does not need to work as hard to prove legitimises, by the way steve, im not trolling im just trying to understand why and how it works, I do not have a business mind like yours


Cycloneuk, we was talking about increasing the conversion rate on your sales dues to having the hacksafe logo on your site, so for example if you have a 5% conversion rate and then add a hacksafe logo this should go upto 5.5 give or take.

But as for cheapsmells.com having a 11% overall conversion rate, that sounds very high, even the likes of amazon does not have much more than 8-9 percent and that is because they are so cheap on products and low shipping fees, so a 11% sound fishy but that's not to say its not true.

 

[Steve2507]

This site has around a 11% conversion rate cheapsmells.com -

Now that's impressive (and I'm not being sarcastic).

 

[cycloneuk]

It is, most of my other competitors that i can see stats for are around 2% give or take a little, with the odd one around 5%

When i was in the gambling affiliate market my conversion rate was running at 10%, for every 100 visitors i was sending 10 depositing players. Still not quite sure how i managed that but my design was ok, not great but i had all the information required and it was easy to navigate.

 

[kevin555]

What's the cost of the McAfee Secure? I've been contacted by Hacker Safe regarding this sort of thing and was wondering

a) whether McAfee is more trusted than HackerSafe or vice versa
b) how much can you knock their asking price down to and what's the price difference between the two

 

[cycloneuk]

What's the cost of the McAfee Secure? I've been contacted by Hacker Safe regarding this sort of thing and was wondering

a) whether McAfee is more trusted than HackerSafe or vice versa
b) how much can you knock their asking price down to and what's the price difference between the two

I think i was quoted around £600 to begin with when i started, then it would be around £1500 a year i think, they kept pestering me for a few weeks, not heard from them in awhile.

 

[inin]

you should keep advertising. Maybe pay someone to bring targeted links in to your site and boast your ranking on google is a must even though it may be expensive. Join directories that are targeted that rank good and have daily vistors

 

[jellybabys]

McAfee purchased Hacker Safe at the start of last year, so both are one now.

It is normally about £1200 pa, but if you are doing less than 250 orders per month they will cut this by 50%, I think that's fair.

I would say hack safe is for your middle to high end companies, as £50-£100 each month is a lot to pay if you are just starting up.

If you are getting very little traffic then I would not bother with McAfee and start adding content to the site and exchanging links and other SEO, only when you have enough traffic then I would think about going for McAfee.

I also believe Comodo and other companies offer the same service, but not if they are as good as McAfee, sometimes its all in the name.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

There are other seals that are a lot cheaper than McAfee.

I've not seen any multi-site test results that say which is best. However, I suspect that McAfee isn't the most effective and some of the cheaper ones will give you a slightly higher bump.

(this is all just an educated guess, I've no evidence to back this up - I just think those with padlocks on them might work better)

So, don't let the McAfee price put you off having a security logo.

One of my clients bought a bunch of godaddy seals for his domains last year and they were pretty cheap. (around £20ea)

Steve

 

[kevin555]

Steve

Thanks for the info.

Re: the padlock seals - can you direct me to 1 or 2 examples.

I've even thought about designing my own logo

i.e.
SafeSite
100% secure
(with picture of a padlock and making sure not to infringe trademarks etc)

What do people think of this idea? Stupid / could damage me more than help OR great idea

 

[jellybabys]

Hi Kevin,

Sorry but thats a really stupid idea, the reason people like us use the seal is not for the logo but for the security, McAfee does a full scan of our site daily to make sure we can not be hacked or if we have holes in our site.

If the logo is a fake the you will put customers off using your site plus the hackers will have the time off their life steeling your customers details as they know you dont think much about security.

Dave

 

[quikshop]

Hi Kevin,

Sorry but thats a really stupid idea, the reason people like us use the seal is not for the logo but for the security, McAfee does a full scan of our site daily to make sure we can not be hacked or if we have holes in our site.

If the logo is a fake the you will put customers off using your site plus the hackers will have the time off their life steeling your customers details as they know you dont think much about security.

Dave

But with McAfee that's all you are paying for, their brand name. There are UK Government endorsed schemes which cost around £100 per annum and carry far more weight in the eyes of your customers than a commercially-offered accreditation.

The idea that if you don't use McAfee then you'll loose all your customers data is just silly

 

[cycloneuk]

McAfee will not stop anyone getting hacked, they only search for common holes & exploits - It is more to give customers some peace of mind and increase the conversion rate.

Hackers were actually targetting sites that had the McAfee seals at one point, so ironically it actually increased people's chances of being hacked.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

Steve

Thanks for the info.

Re: the padlock seals - can you direct me to 1 or 2 examples.

Godaddy is one. Thawte also have one that has a padlock.

Steve

 

[barginboyrob]

2500 a day, I would kill for that!

 

[jellybabys]

Hello

Its been a long time since I have been here, we have redesigned our store and would love to know what other webmaster think of it?

We launched the site on the 14th and had a 300% increase in sale that day, but the next morning all of the sales stopped and this lasted for two day, then the sales only increase to 1-2 per day, so we are not sure what is going on.

I have tested the site in IE, Firefox and safari and it loads fast for us and looks fine, we are not behind any corporate firewall so not sure if our ssl page IE: checkout is getting blocked?

So if people could kindly have a look round our site and advice us why our sales have suddenly stopped from 20 sales per day to 1-2.

Thanks

http://www.jellybabys.co.uk

 

[jellybabys]

double posthttp://www.jellybabys.co.uk

 

[cycloneuk]

I can't remember what it looked like before but from having a quick look around the new one i think it looks very good, clean and professional. I think you have huge potential with that design, not quite sure why your sales are so low. Do you have an affiliate program?

 

[jellybabys]

Hi cycloneuk,

We did have one but got no sales from it, at the moment we are only rebuilding the affiliate software to work with our site.

 

[jellybabys]

Sorry this is what it looked like before: http://web.archive.org/web/20080213030757/http://www.jellybabys.co.uk/

 

[cycloneuk]

Sorry this is what it looked like before: http://web.archive.org/web/20080213030757/http://www.jellybabys.co.uk/

Wow, massive improvement. I persume you were using your own software for the affiliate program? which is a big no, no. I think you would do well by launching with an affiliate network like Webgains, they already have a huge database of affiliates ready to promote you.

 

[jellybabys]

Thanks cycloneuk,

I will look into it..

 

In all honesty I'm totally stunned that the site isn't bringing you more business, its by far one of the nicest sites I've used, navigation is clear, product images are lovely, the checkout process is simple and fast there are no barriers to exit or entry its very well designed.

Have you checked analytics and your keyword positions? I'm wondering if the changes haven't simply caused a change that needs to be ironed out over time, such as you're not as keyword dense on something that was previously generating the business? Or has anything been removed in terms of articles, tags or a feature that was previously bringing traffic?

You do have scope to improve your keyword density in your product descriptions as they are quite light, and also link to related products that customers might like, or which make up sets, 'customers also bought' etc.

You're certainly now in my favourites for childrens gifts anyway, I dont have little uns of my own but you have some lovely stuff for my friends kids and my nephew

 

You had a blog showing on the old version, but I cant see it on the new site? It could be if it was an active blog that this was bringing a fair bit of traffic.

Also I'm not sure if you had many links on the old site, but you have none in the sites we like section on the new one - never under estimate the power of links, I get a huge number of shoppers from my links mostly from related sites and forum/directories I'm part of.

 

[quikshop]

I think your category pages are excellent, really well presented with lots of shopping options making navigation and ease of use as good as I have seen. However, there are a couple of areas which fall short of your category pages.

I would change the Continue Shopping link on your Shopping Basket to a button and make it more prominent than it currently is. When I first added an item to the basket I was looking around for a way of going back to the category I had just come from.

The home page is lacking a bit of stickiness. My eye is initially drawn to the featured product image but then wanders down the page and I lose direction or interest. I wonder if you could change the featured products area, get rid of the writing and actually include some featured products in a similar layout to your category product page?

But I feel that the biggest issue with your website is on the actual product page.

I really do think that you need to keep the SHOPPING OPTIONS on the left hand side on the category and product-specific pages - as a shopper I note immediately where the Shopping Options links are on the left hand side when looking at the category pages but when I click on a product they all vanish!

I don't quite understand the thinking behind that?


Overall your shop is very well presented and if you consider addressing the points mentioned above I am sure you will see a better conversion rate of visitors into paying customers.

 

All points well made, I must admit I didn't notice the categories vanish, I took it for granted they were there, having gone back again I can see that in fact whats there is the products I might also like bit - which I also dismissed!! I would put the products you might also like bit directly under the product itself and stick the navigation back in on the left.

I tend to shop using the breadcrumb, which you do have, but thats because I know its an easy way to navigate about, but many shoppers wont and its better not to create too many difference in pages as it will panic shoppers if they can't find their way back quickly and if things change that they are not expecting.

A really good book to read which explains a lot of the issues shopper face with web useability is Steve Krug's 'Dont' Make Me Think'.

As Quikshop says I would make the Continue Shopping link much bigger and I would perhaps stick it on the same side as the proceed to checkout and make the update basket bit part of the actual basket part where the changes can be made, next to the remove.

 

[jellybabys]

Thank you all so much for looking over the site for me and giving me your honest opinions, they have been a great help!!

1, I will change the shopping link to a button and move it over.

2, Adding feature products to the main page will be done.

3, Making the category not disappear after it has been clicked will be a lot harder as this would have to be hard coded as the software is set up to make it disappear at the moment, but im sure a programmer can do it for us.

4, We will make the top nav a drop down so this could make life a bit better for customers to browse round the store.

5, We once did have a blog and a lot off php pages with advice articles on them, but because we moved over to a CMS system we was planning to move them over as CMS is an easy way to edit and update, as I sure you know, but we have about 600 page to do and no way to import them so this will take a bit of time, but we have started with the most popular ones and the rest will follow soon.

Again thank you all so much it has been really helpful.

Dave

 

[LianneF]

Hi
When i had a look on the site a survery / answer a couple of questions thing popped up which would put me off as i would click straight off.

I second that when you click on a category that the detailed category list should stay down the left, the 'what else you might like' could go below the product.

Big improvement on your last site but i think as it's a baby / kids site it could be brighter and bolder so that people remember your name and your site and will add to favourites etc.
Lianne

 

[Nickdavis87]

Your new site is so much better, it sounds to me though that the change has affected your traffic in some way! What are your numbers telling you? Do oyu have all of the old redirects working properly?

 

[stacks]

Nice site! Very clean and simple but professional too. Do you mind me asking what you used and did you do it yourself or were a development company involved?

Hello

Its been a long time since I have been here, we have redesigned our store and would love to know what other webmaster think of it?

We launched the site on the 14th and had a 300% increase in sale that day, but the next morning all of the sales stopped and this lasted for two day, then the sales only increase to 1-2 per day, so we are not sure what is going on.

I have tested the site in IE, Firefox and safari and it loads fast for us and looks fine, we are not behind any corporate firewall so not sure if our ssl page IE: checkout is getting blocked?

So if people could kindly have a look round our site and advice us why our sales have suddenly stopped from 20 sales per day to 1-2.

Thanks

http://www.jellybabys.co.uk

 

[jellybabys]

Thanks stacks, Its a magento ecommerce site, I designed it mostly myself, I had a pro to add a few modules so we could take payments direct.

Our stats did drop once we moved over to the new site, from 2500 per day down to 900 visitors a day, but it looks like the visitors are slowing coming back and the sale are increasing a little.

So it not all bad news, we just need to keep adding back the content we had and find way to improve the site.

Thanks for all the advice

 

[Premier Replacement China]

Hi
I would like advise on my online store for improvement please.
My online store is premiere replacement china and ends in com.
Especially with sorting out the right key phrases.
Thanks
Patricia