3 Ways To Optimize Your Ecommerce Site For Conversions

When it comes to eCommerce, site performance matters. Without a doubt, a beautifully designed website is essential and if you’ve developed one that looks great – good for you.

But, if your eCommerce website is slow loading, difficult to navigate or uninspired your quirky design efforts will be null and void.

Why, you say?

Well, in short, today’s consumer is busier, tech-savvy, demanding and has a small attention span. Consider this: a one second delay in page response drops customer satisfaction by 16%. Not only this, but 64% of shoppers who are unhappy with their site visit will go somewhere else to shop next time.

Overall, site performance can seriously affect conversion rates and aesthetics aside, user experience and loading speed are the two most important elements to eCommerce success.

If your website is a little slow or hard to browse and you’re wondering how to fix it, these four tips on improving your site’s eCommerce speed for conversions is here to help. 

Integrate a CDN to your site

So, we’ll start with speed.

As mentioned, if your eCommerce website takes a long time to load, you are likely to lose custom and seriously reduce your conversion rate.

In addition to removing any redundant code, images and videos from your website (which you should do on a regular basis), a Content delivery network (CDN) will enhance the loading speed of your site drastically. CDN’s are regarded as the backbone of the web when it comes to content delivery. You might not be able to see CDNs, but you almost certainly interact with them every day.

In a nutshell, CDNs are used to prevent site latency, which is an annoying delay that occurs from the point you request to load a web page to the point where the content appears on your screen. Latency, as you might have guessed, slows site loading speed down and has a negative impact on site performance.

There is a host of user-friendly CDNs that are compatible with a range of platforms so do your homework and find the best one for you.

Sharpen up your checkout process

It probably won’t surprise you to know that the checkout functionality on your eCommerce website can make a big difference when it comes to conversions. And cart abandonment is a serious issue.

A recent study suggests that the average cart abandonment rate is rather sizable 67% – and a site’s checkout process has a lot to do with that.

To paint a clearer picture, here are the main reasons that people abandon their cart at checkout…

• Hidden costs
• Website bugs and errors
• Pricing in the wrong currency
• Declined payments
• Poor navigation
• Timeouts

As a whole, these issues stem from a poor user experience (UX) – and in today’s world, UX is everything. So, to ensure people complete their sales journey smiling and you enjoy a steady stream of sales, you need to focus on the design and development of your checkout.

One thing you should do is capture the email addresses of your users so you can reach out to them and recover lost sales. The second, and perhaps most important thing you can do is make the process  simple, swift and smooth as possible.

Top tip: A particularly effective way of increasing conversions via your checkout page is by offering a guest checkout. By giving consumers the option of buying an item without having to input a host of details, you stand to increase your conversion rate and encourage repeat custom.

Use product videos

Visuals are a potent force in today’s digital world, but many businesses overlook the power of the product video.

Regarding revenue, businesses that have used videos have grown 49% faster year-over-year than companies that haven’t. Videos convert far better than images. Consumers want to see the product they’re interested in from every possible angle before committing to it.

A host of high-quality 360-degree product images will help increase engagement and enhance your conversion rate in a big way. Invest ample time and effort into producing your product videos, ensuring there is a distinct brand style to each – and before you publish them on your website, make sure the visual quality is flawless. Do this right, and the sales will come rolling in thick and fast.

We hope these hints have proved helpful and for more eCommerce-based insights, check out Customers’ Complaining? Why It’s A Boon For Your Business.