SEO Perth | White Chalk Road

Is Your Shopping Cart A Conversion Killer?

January 30th, 2012

Few things will annoy users on your website more than a cluttered shopping cart. If your cart or download section requires registration, and information you wouldn’t tell your doctor, then you may be turning away customers; customers you fought long and hard to acquire through SEO and internet marketing.

Registering

If your cart currently requires a registration for customers to buy, then consider ditching it. Few industries will need to retain this information, and customers are often not willing to sign up to yet another site. If your product is not one that is often bought, then passwords will be lost, and you will possibly lose business to a site that doesn’t require registration. If you are using the sign in process to record the sales info for the customer as well as for your marketing data, consider implementing an express or guest checkout for those that want to skip it. Better yet, use Facebook Connect, it gives you more information about the customer than a static form, and the customer won’t have to remember yet another password.

Long Tedious Forms

Your form should ask for the bare minimum. Turning your shopping cart form into a mini (or not so mini) survey or questionnaire will definitely kill the sale; even having to scroll down to read the rest of the form can be irritating. Edit your form with a vengeance, and leave the market research for another time.

Errors and Validation

Many forms and shopping carts have fields which are required to move on to the next step, or to complete the purchase. This is necessary for things like getting the correct billing information and shipping address. One common practice is to put an asterisk next to each field required, but many times, these are tiny and can go unnoticed the first time around. Make the required sections obvious, and also if the customer hasn’t filled out the form correctly, don’t wipe the form clean so that they have to start all over again.

A best practice is to use a validation code so that the form doesn’t get spammed. These can vary from the simple (for example asking a question such as ‘What is 2 + 4?’) to the obscenely difficult to read phrases where the writing is curved or scrambled in a way that even human eyes can’t detect it. Use something simple like reCaptcha.

Upselling

Amazon does this in an almost non intrusive way, by listing “things people also bought when buying this item”. Don’t be tempted to add in pop up suggestions, asking people to pay for memberships or sending them to a page with other items they might like. At the checkout process, your sale is almost won; don’t turn them off by trying to force another item into the trolley, this works with candy at the supermarket, but rarely online.

The moral of this story, is to keep it simple – you’ve lured your customers in with online marketing, excellent content and a product that solves their problem; don’t make the decision hard for them once they are there. A good shopping experience should be an easy one, and a bad shopping cart or form can sour the sale as surely as a surly cashier or sales assistant can.

Posted in Website Marketing |

Does your site look trustworthy?

December 14th, 2011

If your website is no stranger to SEO, you will already know the importance of building your site’s reputation through online marketing. While it’s very true that attracting links and having a high visibility in search engines are a big part of your website’s popularity, some on page factors may send your potential clients elsewhere, even if you do rank number one for your most valued search term.

How do your customers make the decision to buy from your or trust your advice? It would seem straightforward that the best would rank number one or two for the search terms that people enter, but does that logic hold once they visit your site? There are a few on page factors that might be SEO compliant, however may scare off potential customers.

Web design.

If your current design is years old, hastily put together and has an unprofessional logo or font, then compared to a more modern up-to-date site, the customer may decide that the modern looking one is more suitable for their needs. This is a psychographic based decision and may have no bearing on the quality of your goods and services, but is based on opinion and personality.

Don’t rush to change your website without doing a little customer and market research – some customers will be the opposite, instead trusting a site that looks a little more battle scarred. Think about what type of customer you are targeting and then do your research and plans accordingly.

No social sharing.

If you site contains informative content that is changed or added to regularly, then it makes sense to allow others to share it easily. This doesn’t mean you have to look after 10 different social platforms; just by adding a share button from Facebook or Google + to your pages, people are able to share it on their own social network page – thus showing their appreciation for the content. A ticker of how many ‘likes’ and +1’s will show your customers that this info or page was helpful to others, and put your name in front of their friends. If you have a commenting feature that is not utilised, consider disabling it as zero comments will act the same way as an empty restaurant, people will move on without giving it a chance.

Nowadays, word of mouth has spread to the internet, and with a plethora of social networks to use, it’s important not to over do it – stick to social networks that your customers would use.

Bad content.

Make sure that your content is easy to read. This may be a no brainer, but bad grammar and copy will cause some to consider whether your business is qualified to assist them! These days, bad spelling and grammar are everywhere, spell checkers have made people lazy about learning, so make sure you double check and even consult a copywriter for advice.

Having the same content across multiple pages is not only confusing for SEO purposes, but will make your website look hasty and disorganised. Your SEO company should be able to point you in the right direction with your menu system, simplicity is the key to useability. If you aren’t running a blog or any other type of regular content changes, then it can be a good idea to add recent reviews or industry news, so that your customers have an indication that your site is indeed, up to date.

Most modern internet users will search using dozens of keywords before awarding that all special click-through to a site. Once you have earned that position and gained that click, the process of converting a searcher into a customer has only just begun. Make sure your site is ready to receive guests and that the information and products you are offering are easy to search, read and purchase. And importantly, don’t forget to have clear contact details so that they know where to find you.

Posted in Website Marketing |