Statistics show that 96 percent of Americans with internet access made at least one online purchase during their lifetime and 80 percent made an online purchase last month, e-commerce companies can take advantage of this trend by optimizing their websites for more sales . So, if you want to sell more online and generate leads for your B2B and B2C website, consider the following 15 tips.
1. Transparent prices
Be honest and open about the product prices on your website. According to a study by the Baymard Institute, the main reason why online shoppers leave their shopping cart is high additional costs. Researchers discovered that 60 percent of respondents had left a cart due to high additional costs.
You do not necessarily have to offer free shipping, but you must clearly display the actual costs of your site's prices and all associated costs.
2. Display trust stamps
Visitors who are visiting for the first time often hesitate to purchase products from a new website for fear that their personal information may be stolen or used for shameful purposes. This should not come as a surprise given that 32 percent more sites were compromised in 2016 compared to 2015.
To convert these B2B visitors into customers, you must show them that your site is reliable. If they trust your site, they will have more confidence in entering their credit card details and purchasing your products. As explained by the CrazyEgg, displaying trust stamps such as Norton, McAfee, TRUSTe, Better Business Bureau and Thrawte on your website will make it more reliable in the eyes of visitors.
3. Allow guest purchases
Don't make the mistake of forcing visitors to create an account when buying your B2B products or submitting a lead on your site. In the same Baymard Institute study quoted earlier, forced account registration was the second most common reason for abandoned shopping carts, with 37 percent of respondents leaving their carts for this reason.
Not every visitor wants to jump through the hoops of creating an account. In fact, many will leave if this is a purchase requirement. To encourage website sales, visitors can purchase the products from your site without registering an account.
4. Target existing customers
Instead of selling your site's products strictly to new customers, consider selling them to existing customers. According to the Harvard Business Review (HBR.), Selling to existing customers is five to 25 times cheaper. Assuming you have email addresses from customers, you can send these promotional messages that promote the products of your site.
5. PPC Marketing
You can direct tons of highly targeted traffic to your site and grow your business by using pay-per-click. PPC platforms such as Google AdWords and Bing ads only charge advertisers when someone clicks on their ad Best of all, you can specify keyword searches to activate your ad impressions to ensure high-quality traffic for your e-commerce site, for example, if your site sells custom iPhone cases, you can focus on keywords such as "custom iphone case "and" buy iphone case. Depending on the search type you choose, your ads will be seen by users searching for these keywords or closing variations thereof.
According to Power Traffick, companies earn around $ 3 for every $ 1.60 spent on AdWords. While there is no guarantee that you will experience the same results, PPC marketing for B2B is undoubtedly one of the best ways to increase sales.
6. Use a personalized call to action
As most experienced webmasters know, a call to action is an element of a website that tells visitors what steps to take. Common examples are: "Click here to get started" or "Contact us today for more information." Although there is nothing wrong with general calls for promotions like this, you can boost sales by personalizing them.
According to a survey conducted by HubSpot, a personalized call to promotions generates 42 percent more conversions than their generic counterparts for B2B websites. So how do you create a personalized call-to-action? In short, it is about using terms that are relevant to the audience that you are targeting. For an email registration form, you can use a call-to-action, such as "Enter your email address below." For a product sale, an effective custom call-to-action may contain 'Click on the shop button to browse'.
7. Make videos about the products of your site
Owners of e-commerce companies should not ignore the growing demand for video content. According to DreamGrow, adding a product video to a landing page can increase the conversion rate by up to 80 percent. Moreover, the video software supplier Animoto says that product videos are viewed four times more often than read in plain text.
8. Retargeting
To encourage the sale of websites, you should consider using retargeting. As the name suggests, retargeting tries to reclaim users who have left your site without making a purchase. Retargeting will only show your ads to users who have visited your site in the past.
A case study quoted by the retargeting service provider AdRoll showed that a cosmetic company generates a return of 850 percent when using this marketing strategy (ROI. In addition to AdRoll, Google AdWords and Facebook Ads also offer retargeting services.
9. Mobile
Of course you must use a web design that is compatible on mobile devices. From 2017, smartphones and tablets will account for more than half of all internet traffic, according to Statista. If your site is not mobile friendly, users on these devices are likely to choose a competitor's site.
10. Loyalty Rewards
You can grow your business by offering a loyalty reward program. According to AccessDevelopment.com, 53 percent of American consumers participate in loyalty programs, confirming popularity.
The general idea is to offer customers an incentive for buying your products. For example, online shoe and clothing company Zappos rewards customers with 10 points for every $ 1 they spend. Once enough points have been collected, customers can exchange them for credit in the store.
11. Accept multiple payment methods
If your site only accepts Visa and MasterCard, you will lose a significant number of sales. As revealed by GetControl.co, 50 percent of online shoppers will cancel their purchase if the site does not offer the preferred payment method. That's why you have to offer a variety of payment options, including credit cards, payment cards, PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Wallet.
12. Set alerts for website downtime
Conventional wisdom should tell you that you will not generate revenue when your website is offline. Instead of seeing your site, visitors will come across an error page. Therefore, you should consider using a free monitoring service such as Uptime Robot to notify you when your site is offline. The faster your website comes back online, the more sales you make.
13. Optimize for search rank arrangements
There are hundreds of ways to direct traffic to an e-commerce site. However, the most cost-effective is demonstrably search engine optimization (SEO). This includes a combination of on-site and off-site processes with the aim of achieving a top ranking for one or more keywords. Although AdWords refers to paid listings, SEO includes organic, non-paid listings. According to Search Engine Journal, 80 percent of users ignore paid listings and click on organic listings instead.
14. Closed the stock photos
Do not make the mistake of using generic stock photos on your e-commerce site. To increase sales, it is recommended to use real, real photos. Of course it is probably easier to buy a $ 1 stock photo, but this will return in the long run. By taking your own photos, your site becomes more reliable and customers are encouraged to take action.
If you really want to go the extra mile and encourage sales, encourage customers to take and post their own product photos. Research by e-commerce provider Bllush showed that user-generated product photos increase conversions by more than 200 percent compared to the use of stock photos. Amazon is an excellent example of how you can use the power of user-made photos. While this is not mandatory, Amazon customers can post photos and leave reviews about products they have purchased.
15. Social
Finally, use social media signals on your site to encourage more sales. Research shows that there are now more than 2.77 billion social media users in the world. Assuming you have a Facebook page, you can view the number of followers of your page on your site. When visitors see that 1500 users have "found" your brand's page, they will have more confidence in buying your products.
By using the 15 strategies mentioned here, you generate more sales and leads while you market your brand.